St. John's Newfoundland/Gros Morne suggestions

[Khurram]

I need to go to St. John's Newfoundland for work and will have about 1 1/2 days extra. Is that enough time to drive from St. John's Newfoundandland to Gros Morne National Park???

Any other suggestions for landscapes to shoot around St. John's???  

I'd appreciate some advice for good sunrise/sunset locations in St. John's.

[wolfnowl]

Well, St. John's is on the SE coast of Nfld and Gros Morne is on the NW side.  Gros Morne is a huge park (1800 sq km), but you're looking at about 700 km from St. John's and none of it is super highway.  Probably a long day's drive in good weather, each way, and that's just to get there.  Keep an eye out for moose, especially at night!  St. Jonh's has some great colour to the buildings, which are certainly photographable.  The coastline, smaller villages nearby, icebergs, whales, shorebirds and other wildlife, lots to shoot.

You might want to look here:  Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism

Mike.

P.S.  You might be interested in the Iceberg Vodka plant in St. John's.  They use water from, well, icebergs.

[Christopher Sanderson]

If you are making the drive from St. John's to Gros Morne, my strong suggestion is to leave a couple of extra days to get off the Trans-Canada Highway to visit some of the bays & coves and their villages. You will not see much of interest on the main highway, you need to get off it! The most popular and arguably among the most scenic is Trinity Bay - actually quite close to St. John's.

[Robert Roaldi]

The straight-through drive from St. John's to Deer Lake (just east of Gros Morne) is about 12 hours nonstop. We spent a week in just Gros Morne once, so your 1 1/2 days is not enough. Newfoundland is big.

You could fly from St. John's to Deer Lake, about 1.5 hour flight.

If you can't stay longer than a day or so, you can drive to Cape St. Mary's bird sanctuary, about 2.5 hours each way. The peninsula just north of St. John's up to Flat Rock makes for a nice hour or two's drive, and the same is true for the ride south of St. John's. At this time of year, you might be lucky with icebergs in the St. John's area.

Or, driving a little farther, you can go over to the Bonavista Peninsula, lots of historic interest, beautiful land and sea scapes, and better chance of icebergs up on the northern tip. The Bonavista trip will take an entire day, minimum.

Also, if you've never been to St. John's, you could spend the entire time there, no problem, a very interesting walking city, photographically and otherwise.

We've been to Newfoundland twice now, 2 weeks the first time, about 10 days the second time. Didn't even scratch the surface.

[Khurram]

I appreciate the suggestions.  I really wish I had more time, would have been nice to goto Gros Morne.  Now that my schedule has been firmed up, looks like I'll have a sunday at the start of my trip and half a day at the end of my trip.  So I guess I'll have to within a couple of hours of St. John's.

Any suggestions on best bets for sunset/sunrise around town??  Any good sunrise/sunset locations close to Signal Hill - it's where I'll be staying.

[Robert Roaldi]

You'll be about 20 minutes away from Cape Spear historic site. If you catch the sunrise there, you'll be among the first north americans to do so as it's the easternmost point of land on the continent. Nice place to visit besides, although the museum will probably be closed at that time of day. Signal Hill is interesting itself, as is the Battery (neighbourhood on the rocky shores of St. John's Harbour to which you can hike from Signal Hill), and Quidi vidi is within walking distance.