Newfoundland & Labrador - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island - page 401

Central South Coast
Rte 360 runs 130km through the center of the province to the south coast. It's a long way
down to the first settlements at the end of Bay d'Espoir , a gentle fjord. Note there is no
gas station on the route, so fill up on Hwy 1. St Alban's is set on the west side of the
fjord. You'll find a few motels with dining rooms and lounges around the end of the bay.
Further south is a concentration of small fishing villages. The scenery along Rte 364 to
Hermitage is particularly impressive, as is the scenery around Harbour Breton . It's the
largest town (population 1700) in the region and huddles around the ridge of a gentle in-
land bay.
Southern Port Hotel ( 709-885-2283; www.southernporthotel.ca ; Rte 360, Harbour Breton;
r $93-97; ) provides spacious, standard-furnished rooms; even-numbered ones have
harbor views. Two doors down is Scott's Snackbar ( 709-885-2406; mains $7-15;
10:30am-11pm Sun-Thu, to 1am Fri & Sat) , serving burgers and home-cooked dishes; it's li-
censed.
Thornhill Taxi Service ( 866-538-3429, 709-885-2144) connects Harbour Breton with
Grand Falls ($40, 2½ hours), leaving at 7:15am. Government passenger ferries serve
Hermitage, making the western south-coast outports accessible from here.
NORTHERN PENINSULA
The Northern Peninsula points upward from the body of Newfoundland like an extended
index finger, and you almost get the feeling it's wagging at you saying, 'Don't you dare
leave this province without coming up here.'
Heed the advice. This area could well be crowned Newfoundland's star attraction. Two
of the province's World Heritage-listed sites are here: Gros Morne National Park, with
its fjordlike lakes and geological oddities, rests at the peninsula's base, while the sub-
lime, 1000-year-old Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows stares out from the penin-
sula's tip. Connecting these two famous sites is the Viking Trail ( www.vikingtrail.org ) , aka
Rte 430, an attraction in its own right that holds close to the sea as it heads resolutely
north past the ancient burial grounds of Port au Choix and the ferry jump-off point to big,
brooding Labrador.
The region continues to gain in tourism, yet the crowds are nowhere near what you'd
get at Yellowstone or Banff, for example. Still, it's wise to book ahead in July and
August.