Final Destination - St Johns (by Suz)

The City of St John’s

Our final (*sob*!) destination in Newfoundland was at the biggest city on the island – St John’s. We arrived in the early afternoon at the home of Tom and Shirley McCaughey who were hosting David. All our hosts were there, and the welcome was warm and friendly. We all hit it off straight away with our hosts and sat in the rare warm sunshine on the back deck eating, drinking and getting to know our new friends.

David with his hosts, Tom & Shirley McCaughey:


Colin with his host, Craig Ennis:


We were ominously and excitedly anticipating our first night in St John’s! Having met the St John’s “party crew” delegates at the District Conference, we knew that a big night had been planned for us out on the town on the famous George Street downtown, which is famous for it’s nightlife.

Before hitting up the party scene, we attended with our Rotarians the “Annual Auction and Lobster Dinner of the Rotary Clubs of Avalon and St John’s East”.

There, it was announced from the podium in front of a large crowd that I was looking for a Newfoundland husband, and that he must be rich and have all his own teeth (how embarrassing!). so throughout the night a string of gentleman aged 60 and above came forth to display their own teeth and tell me about the helicopters they owned etc etc. Immensly humourous – however my new host Dave Fowler was kind enough to screen the eligible bachelors on my behalf, and none of them made the grade! Hahaha!

My host, Dave:


After the auction and dinner, we were ready to tackle George Street head on!

I will not go in to detail here about the night’s activities.

I will post a selection of random photos, and the rest will be saved for another conversation at a later date!






The night ended somewhere after 4am. My host Dave Fowler (bless him, on the eve of his 65th birthday!) and myself caught a cab home for 5am.

The next morning Dave and I made it out of bed in time for lunch, where his wife Anne Marie cooked us bacon and eggs.

Dave & Anne Marie:



They then took me on a driving tour of St John’s. We drove to several high points along the city to see the view of the city and the harbour from different angles, including the top of the historic land mark “Signal Hill”.

Signal Hill:


St John’s is known for it’s colourful houses:



That evening the team went to the Quidi Vidi Brewery for raspberry beer tasting, our formal presentation, and quess what?! Another Screech In!!!

This time, the Cod fish was reeeaaallllyyy nasty!!! Big and slimey! I found it really hard to kiss the fish this time!


The next morning (Monday 7th June) the team were taken to 3 significant locations:

City Hall:


Government House (where we had tea with the Lieutenant Governor and his wife!):


Confederation Building:


After lunch, we each went our separate ways for various vocational visits.
In the evening, David’s hosts Tom & Shirley hosted us for a BBQ at their house.

The next morning (our final day together in Canada!) was spent at vocational visits. I was very pleased to be ble to meet with the Artistic Director for the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra at his home for a lengthy chat about all things musical (can you believe they were auditioning that day for a French horn player?!?! Wish I'd brought my horn!).

Lunch was spent with the Rotary Club of St John's Northwest, where we delivered our final presentations.


Team with incoming president Andrea Stack:



That afternoon was more vocational visits (ask Cate about hers - something about meeting a woman who climbed Mt Everest. Cate has a signed book and an enormous smile. Cate wont let us touch the book - we need to ask permission to rest our gaze upon the book - and whenever we ask her about meeting this person, she jumps up and down and claps. I think it was a good vocational visit!!!!!)


We met together again in the evening for one final night out together as a team.

We crammed into the back of a car (we're good at that now!), and headed down town for dinner.



We had a dinner together that was both happy and a bit forlorn. We de-briefed aboout the entire trip, and played tribute quizzes together such as: "Most memorable experience", and "what was your funniest moment?" and "who was the most inspirational person you met?" etc. It brought back some wonderful memories from our time together, and I both laughed and cried.


I can't believe it's over!!! I dont want to come home!!!

Our flights were early the next morning. Colin was out of the country somewhere around 6am. David came to the airport to see myself, Cate and Shannon off. (Really - he just wanted to ensure we were admitted through customs and were definitely out of the country!


From here, we all go separate ways:

Colin - to San Fransisco to visit a friend
David - back through parts of eastern Canada and across to Montreal for the Rotary International Conference.
Shannon, Cate and Suz to New York for a few days. then Cate's going to the Geographical wonderland that is Iceland, Shannon's heading home, and Suz is embarking on a road trip to Las Vegas (look out!), Phoenix, San Diego and Los Angeles.


What a wonderful experience this has been. Personally, I can't even begin to describe what it has done for me, and the things I have gained on a personal and vocational level. I love the team dearly, and have been continually surprised and humbled by the generosity of our hosts and the Rotarians we have met along the way.

I have learned SO much, and I believe that my growth through this experience has only just begun.

I will leave you with one final photo, taken at a random village outside of St Johns. this road sign was so important, that we stopped two car loads of people on the side of the highway to capture it on camera. We discovered this town many months ago back at a team meeting in Parramatta whilst investigating a road map of Newfoundland.

It really sums up a lot about our team:



Thankyou to everyone.

- Suz

Gander and Clarenville (By Suz)

I’ve combined the next two stops, Gander and Clarenville, in to one blog, because although both own were awesome, we had such short stays in each. Just one night in Gander and one night in Clarenville before moving on.

We drove half-way from Grand Falls – Windsor to Gander, and met our new Rotarian guides Paddy & Bob. We knew Paddy from the District Conference in Cape Breton.


We took a long drive and saw some amazing sights (more beautiful scenery, Newfoundland never fails to provide stunning views).



We arrived at 6pm in Gander. Met our hosts for all of 2 seconds and then ran straight to a gathering of the Rotary Club of Gander, where we gave a presentation and had some dinner.

We went home to bed, woke up in the morning and left Gander.
Thanks Gander for a short and sweet visit!



Our next stop was Clarenville, and like Gander, it was a super-short stay.

We were picked up by gander Rotarians in the morning, driven half-way to Clarenville to meet the Clarenville Rotarians, and wer taken out to a VERY nice lunch at a local restaurant where Colin tried Caribou steak for the first time.

We spent the afternoon having some down time with our hosts, and then went to dinner with the Rotary Club of Clarenville where we did our presentation.

Presentation and exchange of banners:


Thanks Clarenville!! Now we move forward to the big smoke, the city of St John’s!

Grand Falls - Windsor (by Shannon)

Grand Falls – Windsor


We arrived at Grand Falls-Windsor around 5pm and were immediately spoilt with a pot luck 'Newfie Night' dinner.

[Suz would like everyone to know that her hosts Mike & Shelia were UNREAL and that she got to ride to the dinner on Mike’s uber-cool bike. (“Dont worry” says Mike, “I’m president of the Motorcycle Safety Association”. “No wukkas” says Suz, “Let ‘em eat our dust!” ...And they did! BROOOOM!!)]


We sampled Moose Stew (oh so yummy), Cod Au Gratin, Toutons, Scallops in white sauce and so many other Newfoundland dishes, both traditional and imported favorites.

And guess what...another “Screech In” ceremony!

This time we were forced to stand in a bucket of ice cold water to take our oath of allegiance, presided over by Suz’s host, Mike. Colin promptly emptied a bag of ice into the bucket just as I (Shannon) stepped in, to make sure it was extra specially cold! Lucky the shot of rum warmed our cold toes. This time there was no biting heads off fish, but we did have to kiss one.

Oath of Allegiance:
Mike: “Is you a Newfoundlander?”
Inductee: “Indeed I is me ole cock, and long may your big jib draw!”
(Aforementioned Newfoundland dictionary required!)



On Wednesday we all went off to vocational days.

I was at the Advertiser, a community newspaper in Grand Falls-Windsor. The editor and I had a great chat about newspapers in general (he gushed over the colour in our papers- they have very few colour pages in newspapers in Atlantic Canada) and in general was impressed with the quality of our product.

I then went out most of the day to a fire department training event, where I hung out with Vince the fire chief and the reporter Krysta, taking photos and generally causing mischief where it was deserved.

The firefighters (volunteer, like our RFS) were very pleased to have attracted an Australian journalist for the day, but managed to remain concentrating on their work, despite my 'distinct' accent interrupting their conversations half the time.

That night we went to the home of Paul and Vanessa Howard (who were hosting Colin and David) for a BBQ. A very fun-filled night was had, and although I’m not telling tales, one of our team managed to find a bottle or two of wine that he liked quite a lot!

David with Paul (host) and Lisa (President):


Team with club president, Lisa Orlando-Frisby:


All the team have voted the Grand Falls – Windsor experience to be entirely memorable and a great deal of fun! We made some great and lasting friends in that town.

Unfortunately, we had to move on from GF – W, but were excited to head to our next stop.... Gander.

Corner Brook (by Suz)

Corner Brook!

Sunday 30th May in Corner Brook, we met Canadian GSE inbound team member Adam Anderson and his partner Natalie and Uncle Verbon for a mini road-trip to the “Blow Me Down National Park” (locally abbreviated to “Blomidon” in Newfoundish). There, we hiked up an ever-inclining staircase to the top of a mountain where there were spectacular 360 degree views.

There were just SO many spectacular photos (and silly photos!) taken that day, that I’m going to bore you with a whole bunch right now:






Blomidon Park had a rugged rocky beach where we stopped and sat, and enjoyed staring out to the Atlantic Ocean. For some of us, that was enjoyable enough, for others (Cate and Colin!!) a little dip in the freezing Arctic temperatures seemed necessary.

I apologise for sharing the below pictures of Colin with you, but we had to suffer it, so you should have to also!





We drove for most of the day, and on the way home we finally... SAW A MOOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!

We’ve been keeping our eyes peeled the entire time, as all the locals assured us that Moose were a daily occurrence along the highways (660 car vs moose collisions last year!), but we were starting to become sceptical. When we finally spotted one (a lonely fellow standing by the side of the road minding his own business), we nearly caused a freeway pile-up by doing a screaming U-turn across 4 lanes of traffic and hollering “MOOSE!! MOOSE!!” while hanging out of the windows with cameras!

Picture (as evidence!)

Dinner than night was at Rotarian Ron Dolomount’s cabin in the woods. We’d met Ron at the District Conference, and his Rotary club sportingly hosted us that night for a hot lobster supper!! (Mmmmmm so good!!!)


That night goes down historically as the night we became “Honorary Newfoundlanders”!
Newfoundland has a tradition for newcomers to the province, an initiation ceremony if you will, called a “Screech In” – named after their local rum – ‘Screech’ rum.
Our Screech In was presided over by Sean, the club president. It involves a 4-step process:

1. Eat a piece of boloney
2. Bite the head off a Capelin fish (and chew and swallow! Aaaaaargh!)
3. Drink a shot of super-strength Screech rum
4. Recite a traditional Newfoundland saying (bearing in mind Newfoundland is the only province which has a full sized dictionary, just to be able to understand it’s particular brand of English!” – “How’s she-goin me ole cock?”)

Then Sean knighted us with a fisherman’s oar and proclaimed us: “NEWFOUNDLANDERS”!!!!




We have photos and a certificate to prove it!


The night progressed with lots of fun! Adam Anderson played some traditional Atlantic music on his guitar and sang for us, we danced, Colin and I fought each other with a spray-can of whipped cream (that wasn’t part of the traditional night, and had nothing to do with being Newfoundlanders!). Colin decided to take another dip in the freezing ocean, much to the local’s horror and concern!

The next morning (Monday May 31st) was a vocational day.

I spent the day with Major Larry Goudie from the Salvaion Army, touring various Salvo facilities in the area of Corner Brook and Pasadena.

At lunch, Major Larry took me to a meeting of the “Social Services Community Council” where I was surprised to learn I was the key note speaker! Haha ... whoops! Lucky I am able to talk randomly on any topic, and occupied a 30 minute time-slot, even facilitating a question & answer session at the end! (Lucky I passed the impromptu speech part of the GSE selection process, eh? It turned out to be a required skill!).

Dinner that night was a combined meeting for the Rotary Club of Humber and the Rotary Club of Corner Brook. Once again, I was kindly supplied with a French Horn, where I was invited to lead the meeting in a rendition of “Oh Canada”!

And that, my friends, was our final night in Corner Brook.

Sensible team photo:


- Suz