Trinity

After four nights of committed kitchen partying in St John's (including a 'screech-in' at a local bar where one tries the local rum and kisses a very large frozen cod), I was somewhat relieved to be making my way out of 'town', to the village of Trinity three hours away. Rumour has it Trinity was named by Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real, who arrived here on Trinity Sunday in 1501. I was lucky to be able to nab a lift with afore-mentioned hostel buddy Mark, who was driving up towards Bonavista and able to drop me off on the way. We caught our breath at the first glimpse of Trinity; a charming collection of heritage buildings perched on the very edge of a low-lying penninsula, with houses, sea and land all saturated in the late afternoon sun.

Home in Trinity was a little cabin about 15 minutes from town. The cabin's interior was pure retro, with 70's table and chairs, faded floral curtains, lino floor and faltering black and white TV (which revealed trembling volleyballers and shaking sprinters in Beijing). Over the road was a bay filled with blue and white mussel traps. (Did you know that mussels are only harvested in months containing the letter 'r' and by the full moon? I read this in an old almanac in the Trinity musuem).

As is the generally the case in NFLD, the weather was temperamental, and I spent some time tucked up in bed reading, with wind and rain spattering outside. I even cranked a bit of heating (despite brushing off owner Corinne's heating instructions with a hasty 'oh, I'll be fine!'). I had some sparkling days too though, and decided to hike the nearby Skerwink Trail. Corinne picked me up for the hike in a fierce brute of a machine, emitting growls out of two oversized mufflers. I couldn't help but grin at her wrestling with the monster, and she told me it had belonged to her eighteen-year-old son, Geoffrey, who had died in March on an oil rig up in Alberta. He had been the first death on the rig, she said, a freak accident due to a part malfunction that had been immediately remedied 'but why couldn't they have thought of that in the first place?' Her voice was steady but undercut with pain, and I cried a little after she let me off, for her family and the beautiful laughing boy in the photo on the dashboard.

The Skerwink trail was all cliff and forest and sea. There were no railings, so sometimes I'd get a bit too close to the edge and feel a bit dizzy. Towards the end, I emerged from the wind-battered forest of pine and fir near a small pebbly beach. I had intended to swim on this trip, but the few beaches I got near were very rocky, and the weather not so calm. In fact, on the Irish Loop, I saw one of the wildest seafronts I've seen for a while. Here, the pebbles had been ground down so finely the shore appeared to be made of black sand, the water was rough and ugly and the horizontal spray whipped about madly.

On my last night in Trinity I went to see a theatre production by the Rising Tide Theatre. The play, named 'Saltwater Moon', was staged behind the old Museum just before sunset. Set in Newfoundland in the 1920's, it was really delightful as well as a great insight into life in the province at that time.