Yet another hotel debacle last night. This time it was a toilet issue that couldn't be resolved. I guess that this would have been about our tenth different hotel since we left Toronto, so the law of averages has to come into play. We've tried to book a lot of our hotels on line, so in this instance it seemed that I booked a "smoking room". When we tried to change it to a "non-smoking" room we were told that there was a $15.00 premium. You'd think in this world of service that it would be the reverse, particularly with the stench in these rooms - one non-smoking room displayed the penalty of $250.00 for smoking in a non-smoking room.

Anyway after we repacked our bags and "reminded" the front desk clerk that we were waiting for the new room assignment, she greatfully waived the $30.00 surcharge as a repayment for the trouble.

It really wasn't too far from the hotel to the Ferry Terminal in New Sydney, but we we're supposed to be in line at least two hours prior to boarding so we took a little pre-trip up the Cabot Trail. It's as beautiful as they said and we only got a portion of it before we had to turn around. We'll be doing the full route when we come back off the island in a week or so.

Even though this was the LAST sailing for the year between Argentia and North Sydney there were about 265 people on this crossing. We had booked a stateroom because of the 16 hour evening crossing and it was pretty funny with bunk beds and bearly enough room to breath - but it did the trick for three of us - Ian decided to forgoe the room and get some shuteye in the theatre. We enjoyed the buffet dinner on board, the food quality was surprisingly good and we even snuck a bottle of wine into the restaurant to enjoy with our dinner - Thanks Ian.

We've checked into the Crossroads Inn & Suites in Paradise, Newfoundland. The rooms not bad - it's a pretty much new hotel so things are clean and good and it's about 15 mintues away from downtown St. Johns.

Most of know that Newfoundland has some pretty strange names for towns and villages here on the island. With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I'd list some of Newfoundland's scaries towns & villages.

• Bloody Point (Newly named as New Perlican)
• Gibbet Hill (Near Signal Hill where bodies were publicly displayed)
• Goblin (Taken from a rock formation resembling a face)
• Deadman's Cove
• The Dungeon (Provincial Park)
• Gallows Cove (A place where pirates were hung)
• Hatchet Cove (The lapping waves make a chopping sound)
• Isle aux Morts (A place of deadly shipwrecks)
• Port de Grave (Greve - A french word meaning beach)
• Coffin Cove
• Murdering Gulch
• Deadman's Bay
• Dragon Bay
• Freak Island
• Gunners Cove
• Skeleton Cove

We all know some of the more colorful places here on the Rock, but it's just a little weird that they actually document some of these places. Dinner in downtown St. John's tonight was a bit of a failure - food quantity was SMALL, the price was HIGH and it was just a little too hip for us older folks. So unlikely that we'll head back there tomorrow - we'll try and find something a little more suitable. Tomorrow we're set to explore, but the temperature's dropping and the clouds are rolling in, but up till now we've been pretty lucky.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's update. Thanks again.

Bob