Thursday – Corner Brook, Newfoundland
I just want to say that Corner Brook Cruise Terminal has the worse wi-fi in the whole history of Cruise terminal wi-fi. The port authority should be thoroughly ashamed of itself, laying on such an inferior, painfully inadequate service such as this, for visiting ships.
The wi-fi was so bad that having no wi-fi at all would be a vast improvement; it would mean you’d waste less of your precious life waiting, and hoping, that the simplest of internet tasks might actually be completed; instead, you’d go off and do something much more interesting and wholesome.
There… rant over… I feel much better for that.
Last night, we put our clocks back by one hour and thirty minutes, so we’re now only three and a half hours behind the UK.
I was originally down for escorting the ‘Panoramic Corner Brook’ tour. Neil Bonner (a fellow lecturer who I often see on the Amazon cruises) and I have this running joke about such tours; they’re usually called ‘Best of”, ‘Highlights of’, ‘A taste of…’, or ‘city tour’, ‘scenic…’ or ‘Classic…’…. essentially, coach trips with photo stops thrown in.
It turned out, at the last minute, that I ended up doing ‘Corner Brook Trails Hike’, although the term ‘Hike’ might be stretching things slightly. I’ve done tours called a ‘stroll’ that were more energetic, and these interpretations are not lost on the passengers who have paid good money for them either. It’s not Shorex’s fault, however; they only have the descriptions provided by the shore-side agents.
Our School bus took us up the hill, out of town, to our first trail; the ‘Corner Brook Stream Trail’. The forty-five minute amble there and back in the stifling heat afforded us two viewpoints from above a deep gorge. With a little imagination, you could almost see a tiny corner of a waterfall below, but nothing more. The gorge was impressive, though.
Back at the bus, we were driven to our second trail of the afternoon; ‘Three Bears Mountain Trail’. Sounds wild and rugged doesn’t it? It wasn’t. This trail was even shorter, stopping off at two viewpoints where we could gaze down upon the town of Corner Brook, dominated by the massive Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Mill belching out clouds of steam and goodness knows what else.
Many members of the group could easily have completed the walk in about ten minutes. A couple of ladies at the back, however, were chuntering about how demanding the walk was, and were clearly struggling. It just goes to show how people interpretation is such a personal thing.
Our final stop was at a Jennifer’s Restaurant in town, where tea and coffee were served, along with pastries containing local fruits… really not my kind of thing at all, I’m afraid. I was happy to sit and drink a cup of tea, but had to avert my eyes from the munching of fruit pastries lest I gag. I have it on good authority that the pastries were delicious, though.
Three and a half hours later, we were back on the quayside.
I headed straight for the free wi-fi, only to discover just how appalling it was, and gave up after an hour of faffing about; an hour of my life that I’ll never get back.
In the evening, after dinner, someone tipped me off about a good wi-fi signal in town, outside the library, by the City Hall. So, I gathered up my pile of technology (laptop, tablet and phone) and took the free shuttle bus into town to avail myself of it. It was wonderful! The library was open until 8pm; until then, I sat inside the library at a table, but when they closed, I sat on the sidewalk outside, like a vagrant, gorging on the good, fast, free wi-fi (fortunately, the library didn’t switch it off at closing time).
I was back on the ship in time for Pauline Daniels Late Night Comedy act (the same Pauline who had entertained us with ‘Shirley Valentine’ a week or so ago). I had an inkling that she would be good, and she was…
