lighthouse from below
pretty coastline
Yummy picnic ..
eating the picnic and the pretty lighthouse
more coastline in the sunshine!
sad because we have been left by the side of the road...
sad because we have been left by the side of the road...So Sunday was a nice day and we headed off in our rental car with Vroni, Tina and Max to do the Irish Loop (around the Avalon Peninsula from St John's down to Cape Race and back around). It all started off so lovely, we briefly saw a whale off Cape Spear - the most easterly point in the whole of North America, really beautiful place with rugged coastline and a lighthouse only 25km from St John's.
We continued our tour with a stop at a cafe with a view over more rugged coastline and the ocean, spotted what we thought were whale ... turned out to be some nice rocks. Next stop was ferryland, a fantastic lighthouse out on a tiny peninsula of land, some more rugged coastline and even a seal. We had afternoon tea here, in proper wicker baskets and with fresh homemade lemonade on a picnic rug provided by the lighthouse ppl! Absolutely gorgeous.
Then our journey got more interesting as the car started to judder ... we continued for a bit but it got more difficult to control so we pulled over and discovered that the engine had decided to dump all of its oil on the bottom of the car and the road. Unfortunately none of our mobiles work outside of St John's, so we flagged the next car down to ring Budget. Before we knew it another car had stopped, the bonnet was up and the locals were deciding what our problem was. The woman on the rental desk told us that a tow truck would be coming from trepassy in about 20 minutes and to hang on... So we did .... for an hour and 45 mins.... we then flagged another car, budget office now on answerphone .... waited til over 2 hours ... flagged another car, left rude message on answerphone .... by this time seeing we were in distress, another 3 cars had pulled over to offer assistance. Luckily, two of them had spare oil canisters, so we managed to fill it a tiny bit, before it started leaking out again... drip drip drip! The emergency assistance number didnt work, the office answerphone was still on and we were getting a bit fed up now.
So we drove on five minutes to a convenience store to get some more oil with a plan to drive ourselves back to st john's filling up with oil every so often. One of the blokes drove behind us to make sure we were ok and got there with all the oil leaking out (how lovely of him!). Once we got to the convenience store, I rang the budget woman again - still on answerphone - left an irate message. We then rang the avis desk as we knew they were nearby in the airport so could go get the woman, however we were informed that budget woman had gone to rescue a couple out in portugal cove who had had a crash ... so she had forgotten about us, left us in the middle of nowhere on the side of the highway with NO working cell phone ....
The lovely people at the convenience store offered us food and even beds for the night if needed, they got drinks and then looked at the engine for us! Managed to fix the leak and just as it was fixed (filter lid thing was not on tightly)... guess who turned up ... mrs budget woman!! She rudely gives us the keys for a new replacement car and left in a hurry. So after waiting for over 3 hours ... we are finally rescued. By this time it was already 6pm and we had to drive back to st john's, so our day was ruined, we never completed the irish loop.
The saga doesn't even end there ... once we got back to st john's, we were met with mrs budget woman, who was angry. She rudely informed us that we would have to pay for the gas that she used coming to replace the car ... AS WELL AS the gas in the original rental car that broke ... at 2.5 dollars a litre (twice gas station price). I pointly refused, at which point she told us that if she had not driven out to find us, noone would have done and we would have been left there all night ... and she told us it was our fault it took 3 hours because we moved the car all of 5 minutes down the road.
We were all a little irate by this point, so I asked to phone the manager and speak to him. After a vivid account of our adventure and the rudeness of his staff, lots of "its completely unacceptable" ... we eventually ended up with a full refund!! WOOHOO go me and my arguing skills!
Anyway, its all good fun and was quite a fun adventure despite sitting by the road for over 3 hours! Plus, its showed the amazing friendliness of the newfoundlander's and how they just go out of the way to help people without being asked ... just brilliant!
Will try and upload some photos of ferryland, cape spear and our rescuers soon,
xxx
We continued our tour with a stop at a cafe with a view over more rugged coastline and the ocean, spotted what we thought were whale ... turned out to be some nice rocks. Next stop was ferryland, a fantastic lighthouse out on a tiny peninsula of land, some more rugged coastline and even a seal. We had afternoon tea here, in proper wicker baskets and with fresh homemade lemonade on a picnic rug provided by the lighthouse ppl! Absolutely gorgeous.
Then our journey got more interesting as the car started to judder ... we continued for a bit but it got more difficult to control so we pulled over and discovered that the engine had decided to dump all of its oil on the bottom of the car and the road. Unfortunately none of our mobiles work outside of St John's, so we flagged the next car down to ring Budget. Before we knew it another car had stopped, the bonnet was up and the locals were deciding what our problem was. The woman on the rental desk told us that a tow truck would be coming from trepassy in about 20 minutes and to hang on... So we did .... for an hour and 45 mins.... we then flagged another car, budget office now on answerphone .... waited til over 2 hours ... flagged another car, left rude message on answerphone .... by this time seeing we were in distress, another 3 cars had pulled over to offer assistance. Luckily, two of them had spare oil canisters, so we managed to fill it a tiny bit, before it started leaking out again... drip drip drip! The emergency assistance number didnt work, the office answerphone was still on and we were getting a bit fed up now.
So we drove on five minutes to a convenience store to get some more oil with a plan to drive ourselves back to st john's filling up with oil every so often. One of the blokes drove behind us to make sure we were ok and got there with all the oil leaking out (how lovely of him!). Once we got to the convenience store, I rang the budget woman again - still on answerphone - left an irate message. We then rang the avis desk as we knew they were nearby in the airport so could go get the woman, however we were informed that budget woman had gone to rescue a couple out in portugal cove who had had a crash ... so she had forgotten about us, left us in the middle of nowhere on the side of the highway with NO working cell phone ....
The lovely people at the convenience store offered us food and even beds for the night if needed, they got drinks and then looked at the engine for us! Managed to fix the leak and just as it was fixed (filter lid thing was not on tightly)... guess who turned up ... mrs budget woman!! She rudely gives us the keys for a new replacement car and left in a hurry. So after waiting for over 3 hours ... we are finally rescued. By this time it was already 6pm and we had to drive back to st john's, so our day was ruined, we never completed the irish loop.
The saga doesn't even end there ... once we got back to st john's, we were met with mrs budget woman, who was angry. She rudely informed us that we would have to pay for the gas that she used coming to replace the car ... AS WELL AS the gas in the original rental car that broke ... at 2.5 dollars a litre (twice gas station price). I pointly refused, at which point she told us that if she had not driven out to find us, noone would have done and we would have been left there all night ... and she told us it was our fault it took 3 hours because we moved the car all of 5 minutes down the road.
We were all a little irate by this point, so I asked to phone the manager and speak to him. After a vivid account of our adventure and the rudeness of his staff, lots of "its completely unacceptable" ... we eventually ended up with a full refund!! WOOHOO go me and my arguing skills!
Anyway, its all good fun and was quite a fun adventure despite sitting by the road for over 3 hours! Plus, its showed the amazing friendliness of the newfoundlander's and how they just go out of the way to help people without being asked ... just brilliant!
Will try and upload some photos of ferryland, cape spear and our rescuers soon,
xxx
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