Hiking Newfoundland’s Coastal Trail at Chance Cove
Saturday, June 27th, Day 30 of our trip and the 23rd day in Newfoundland, was an easy day, with a family visit and a fairly short, extremely scenic hike where we could park for the night at the trailhead.
We seldom get started early, and it was noon by the time we reached Sunnyside, where my son’s partner, Kelly, and her daughters, were visiting her dad, Hary Hiscock, to celebrate his 80th birthday. He stopped first at an information deck at the entrance to the community to get some background.
Looking down at the beach. Another lovely little community scattered along the shores of a protected cove.
After chatting for a while, Kelly took us for a tour of the town, which is widely scattered along a single road that dead-ends at Centre Cove after about 8 km. The monuments honouring the many locals who have served in Canada’s military is very impressive for a town of just over 400 people. I don’t recall seeing one before that honours everyone who served, not just those who died.
For a little over $200,000, you can experience the beauty of coastal living on stunning ocean-view property, says one ad. And if you miss the city, St. John’s is less than 2 hours away.
Kelly had mentioned a trail that sounded perfect for both Cathy and I to hike, just a half-hour drive away at Chance Cove. Parking was easy (and level), and overnight parking is allowed.
The map for the Coastal Trail shows it as a figure-8. The climb to the right is too steep for Cathy so I asked her to start on the level path – an ATV road – straight ahead.
That didn’t go very far before startting to climb again, so we returned to the climb, which seemed to be the “proper” direction to start. Cathy would wait in the RV.
I soon got introduced to the trail fairies: “Welcome to the Chance Cove Coastal Hiking Trail. We are the 3 trail fairies and we will bring you through the trail’s history. Showing you how we have seen the trail change over the years.” Cute 🙂
The fairies caused me to look up the reason for some of their comments about people being afraid of them. That led me to this story: “Chance Cove Provincial Park was once the site of a small settlement of 50 people in the mid-19th century, an area full of legend and folklore. It was most probably named for mischance, referencing the many shipwrecks in the area. The most famous of which was the wreck of the S.S. Florizel that ran aground on the Horn Head Rocks just north of the park in 1913. Reports of wrecks run further back than that, however, with the S.S. Anglo-Saxon having run ashore just south of the park on April 27, 1863. Over 230 lives were claimed in the wreck, most of which were buried on a bluff overlooking the ocean in nearby Clam Cove. It’s said that the lives lost in these waters have led to the haunting of this area, with local legend insisting that it was these supernatural presences that led to the community being abandoned sometime prior to the turn of the century. “
The first loop of the figure-8 is a pleasant walk through the forest, climbing and then dropping back down right to where Cathy and I had been a short while earlier.
The trail runs close to the cliffs at many points, and there are a lot of warning signs. “Hilltop Lookout” is the first really clear view up the coast.
There are spectacular views at many points.
There are a few sections of trail like this.
A grassy point at the northwest corner of the peninsula offers a wonderful place to spend time.
As at many other areas we’ve seen in Newfoundland, wind has done a lot of damage to trees in recent years.
Nearing Chance Cove Island. We had heard about “the capelin rolling” – small smelt coming ashore and being stranded by the millions – and thought that would be so amazing to see. Looking down to the beach as I got closer to the island, there were thousands of capelin on the beach!!
It looked unlikely that getting to that beach would be possible, but all of a sudden a set of stairs appeared, as if fairies had granted my wish 🙂
It would be even cooler to see this actually happening, but this was still great. What a strange thing to do, though. Well it turns out that although they appear to be alive when they roll ashore, they’re actually dead, having just spawned.
A higher tide had brought the first ones.
Here’s what they look like up close. Although a different species, they’re very similar to the eulachon back home.
There used to be a rope-assisted drop to a beach, but that was “Closed For Maintenance.” Possibly the ropes are being replaced, but I think it’s more likely that the stairs were built to provide a much less precarious beach access.
This cove with its sea caves was the visual highlight of the hike, and it would be great to be able to get down to that beach.
While at that spot I heard an odd noise that took me a bit to figure out. The tide was at just the right height to make waves going into the sea cave in the next photo create a “burp.” I shot a video in the hope that that sound could be heard, but the wind and surf drowned it out. The burb can be seen as well as heard, with a spurt of water coming back out of the cave.
There are a few welcoming benches along the trail.
Nearing tne end of the trail, the fairies said good-bye: “We have reached the end of our journey through history, going through many years of people and animals on the trail. We started off seeing people come here to walk their pets and pick berries, being very scared of us. We now get to follow people like you as they go on a hike through our trail who don’t turn their pockets inside out to protect themselves against us! We hope to se eyou soon for another hike on the Chance Cove Hiking Trail.”
The trail ends back on the beach, looking across at the main part of the community of Chance Cove.
My hike with some backtracking and some exploring totalled 3.91 km and I was out for an hour and a half. See my Strava page for a map and details.
The next day would take us to St. John’s, a city with a whole lot to see and do.
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