4 July

I wake beneath a panoramic blue sky … which after the last week of incessant murk and gloom, drizzle and rain, is a sight for sore eyes.

After my mandatory maple syrup porridge breakfast and collapsible cup of hot tea, I rush out of my chalet apartment bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

The coastal trail running up from Neil’s Harbour is the one for me … only to find that path is fully closed off.

Not being known as someone to knock down barriers, I merely shuffle my way around them instead. I can be a pioneer!

Five minutes later, covered in mud, the trail goes cold … disappeared into thin air; or more likely – washed away, sunk without trace under a swampy blanket.

I could climb around trees to push my way through, but I’m not reckless and bold enough. The birds overhead might give my game away!

For my misdemeanours, I may well get washed away into the bay. And then who would return my rental car?

Unsurprisingly, shortly afterwards I find myself back on the right track, jumping around the rocks at the harbour proper … keeping an eye on the fishing boats which are literally going around in circles as if the handbrake is jammed on. And all the while they’re being harrassed by persistent seagulls.

Up beyond the lighthouse, a pristine ’87 Cadillac is lurking outside the Chowder House, waiting for it to open … it’s not the only one.

Plenty of spandex-clad long-distance cyclists, too.

I don’t fit in … don’t need no skintights in my wardrobe today. It’s way too hot, for one.

Yet I end up queuing with these people for 45 minutes, as if this is an important thing to do.

Inside, folk are face down in chowder, searching for clues.

Tell me something I don’t know – like, chow chow is a thing. A pickled accompaniment, perchance.

Well yeah I guess I never knew that, but it goes damn well with fresh fish hauled in off a trawler this morning.

We all crawl out of here having lost good money, and a generous hour.

I find myself going over hallowed ground to reach White Point, and I don’t even know what this is or where I am.

My life is not signposted, more’s the pity.

Intermittently, there are unparalleled across-the-bay views, with across-the-bay hues of blues mixing it up between sea, sky and mountain. With extra sparkle and disco on the water today.

Yet us sightseers all we’re seeing is each other; not whales, not dolphins, not moose, not bears, not coyotes – not anything you would run away from on an afternoon, half-screaming. Which is maybe just as well.

We arrive at White Point like we own the joint, parking up any which way, by the cute harbour which smiles casually at all of these uncouth goings-on. The warning shed.

Go up the hill like a pilgrim if you must, but you’ll be attempting three-point turns in the solidified mud of the day.

Me and some other daytrippers watch this event unfold with smirks on our faces, as that driver goes one step too far and is forced to backtrack, in front of a tourist audience. Low scores all round.

Up the open trail (I’m not walking through trees!), the grave of the unknown soldier, by the ceramic pot plant angel – white, wings aloft, about to take off.

The rock formations I’ve not seen before in real life – only in a fall from a dream.

And as always, there are no signs to guide me … there never are.

How to get off these cliffs is a study in conformity, and perseverance.

If you’re losing it, follow the sounds of barking dogs, is my reasoning.

Descending to the picture-postcard harbour, the yellow boat, the red boat, the blue boat: all facing each other, colluding, directly in front of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, which bizarrely is hidden in a dark shed with some lobster traps and a high-as-a-kite fisherman.

Not so much gone fishing, as gone toking. Catch of the day – smoked.

The highway south is a lesson in how we live now – moving through striking scenery behind smartphone eyes, in a kind of virtual tourism.

We’re half there, half not there.

Bunny hopping through roadworks to get to the lodge, yet it’s only 4pm, it’s too early so I continue on.

To Middle Point which is a middle finger to all of the day trip visitors padding the bovine route.

It’s a busy trail this, with dramatic sea views occasionally presenting themselves.

My fellow walkers chat with me about the usual subjects – where we’ve been, where we’re going, where we’re staying (erm, on the beach … under the stars).

This lodge here is not for my type – it’s for people who wear pullovers and chinos and tassled shoes and, when feeling a little outré, a Panama hat.

The lodge here is for people with money, golf clubs, and a story to sell.

It’s a lodge bequeathed to the Province, and repaying it handsomely – via the, er, launderette … allegedly, cough cough.

Driving all over the golf course … families, couples, dog-walkers, pooper-scoopers. All from bloody Ontario!

Is anyone actually living there right now? Must be a ghost province, is my thought.

I wander back to the gaff, to tidy myself up for a trip to the pub.

I come around there at a hardwood table in the middle of a large room, with – bizarrely – the Big Lebowski and a Big Spruce House Party.

And I want to say, Hey! Where’s the lanes, man? Where’s my White Russian?

Instead, a pasty-faced man in an emerald-green shirt sings songs on an acoustic guitar about Ireland.

I drink along willingly to that, and then zig-zag home through the traffic cones … re-imagining them as ten-pin bowls.