An Icy Welcome to Newfoundland

After months of planning and looking forward to it, our Newfoundland adventure finally began.

We flew into St. John's on an early morning flight, picked up our rental car, and headed to our Airbnb in Bay Bulls, which was about thirty minutes south of the city. We were tired but excited to finally be there.

Bay Bulls is a small fishing community on Newfoundland's northeast coast, about thirty minutes south of St. John's. Settled in the early 1600s, it has a long history tied to the sea. Fishing has been the lifeblood of the community for centuries, and although the industry has changed over the years, the harbour is still an active working one.

Today, Bay Bulls is best known as the gateway to the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, home to North America's largest Atlantic puffin colony. It's also one of the best places in Newfoundland to take a boat tour in search of puffins, whales, and sea caves.

For us, it turned out to be the perfect place to stay. It was close enough to St. John's and the Avalon Peninsula to make exploring easy, but far enough away to enjoy the slower pace of a small coastal community. Seeing the rugged coastline as we made our way around the bay made us feel like we had truly arrived in Newfoundland.

As the car made it’s way around the bend and up over a hill, we finally caught a glimpse of it and all yelled at the same time “Iceberg!”

There it was, a huge iceberg sitting in the bay in clear view of our Airbnb.

I knew Newfoundland was known for icebergs, I’ve been here before.  It is the reason we came at this time of the year. I just didn't expect it to be waiting for us on day one.

Needless to say, we were pretty excited.

Before we even unpacked the car, we were taking photos and admiring the view. The iceberg seemed almost unreal, floating quietly in the bay as if it knew we were coming. I found myself looking out the window every few minutes just to make sure it was still there.

The evening was spent settling in, catching up, and talking about all the things we hoped to see and do over the next two weeks. Every now and then, though, one of us would wander over to the window for another look at the iceberg.

Day one couldn't have gone much better. Good company, a beautiful place to stay, and an iceberg right outside our door. Unfortunately, by the time the sun set, the iceberg had moved out of sight, but not before we took a lot of photos.

Our Newfoundland vacation was off to a great start.