Day 52– Rose Blanche, Newfoundland

This was our final day trip on the island of Newfoundland. I had wanted to do this trip at the beginning of our travels here but we just did not get to doing it so we made sure we left enough time at the end of our trip here.
This was another very scenic route with the kind of landscape I have come to really like here in Newfoundland – ‘the rock gardens’. We visited several small villages along the way to Rose Blanche, our destination point and the end point of the southern highway leading east from Port Aux Basques. There are other communities along the south coast which one can visit by ferry which stops at several on its way east. But that trip will have to wait until we return to Newfoundland.
At Rose Blanche we visited a beautifully restored stone lighthouse, which is now the only remaining stone lighthouse in Atlantic Canada. The original lighthouse was made of rock cut from the shore stone around it. It functioned as a lighthouse from 1873 up to 1946 when the government installed an automated electric light and ceased to use this lighthouse. It deteriorated in the succeeding years as the surf spray from storms soaked the mortar with salt water, and the attached residential building largely crumbled to ruins leaving only the lighthouse tower standing. Then the local people in 1988 decided to push for its restoration to its original state. They completed the restoration in 1999. It now is a very important tourist attraction for the area. They also added various walking trails with interpretative signs along the way. It was all very nicely done and was a pleasant finish to the end of wonderful vacation on the island of Newfoundland.Pictures from today’s trip can be found here.