Avalon Peninsula

The Avalon carries the island’s biggest city and some of its emptiest headlands within the same afternoon. You can eat a proper dinner on Water Street, then stand at Cape Spear an hour later with nothing between you and Ireland.

St. John’s is a working port city with a contemporary arts scene, a serious restaurant culture, and rows of painted wooden houses climbing away from the harbour. Signal Hill anchors the skyline, and the walk down the North Head Trail toward the Battery gives the clearest sense of how the city sits inside its rock.

South of the city, the Irish Loop threads through Witless Bay, Ferryland, and the barrens of the southern shore. Boat tours from Bay Bulls run out toward the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, home to one of the largest Atlantic puffin colonies in North America. Operators work under provincial guidelines that keep vessels at a respectful distance.

The Baccalieu Trail and Cape Shore hold quieter ground. Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve puts a northern gannet colony within about fifteen metres of a clifftop viewing area, and the sound of it reaches you before the birds come into view.