On our way to Bonavista, I read about historic Trinity Village which sounds super charming. Admittedly, I might have paid more attention to the veracity of my source material, but after my connection to the world, aka my smartphone, DIED in St. John’s I had been sourcing tourist info where I could. In this case, it was a free tourist magazine from the “Quality Hotel” in Gander.  Its tiny, out-of-scale ten-centimetre map indicated that Trinity was on the way to Bonavista and I suggested we visit it and stop for lunch in Port Rexton afterwards, also en route. I conjured visions of a craft brewery with an adjacent food truck….which the little free magazine promised.

“Great idea!” says my husband, grabbing his Garmin GPS and looking up Trinity. He finds Trinity- Bonavista Bay and hit the “go” button.  Since the GPS said our destination was only a one-hour’s drive, we linger in Gander, allowing our son some time in the hotel swimming pool.

As we drive through Trinity Bonavista Bay, our disappointment mounts as we gaze upon a dismal-ish stretch of highway that also passes the village’s waste treatment site.  Undeterred, since the map clearly shows that Trinity is on the way to Bonavista we continue blithely on down the road another half hour.  At this point my husband notices a lack of Bonavista signage and decides to pull over and take a look at the map I’d been using. He realizes it doesn’t fit with where we are, and decides to start looking for someone to ask.  This takes awhile because we’re in the middle of nowhere and it’s Sunday which in Newfoundland, means most businesses are closed.

We finally find “Aunt Hannah’s Café” where the nice lady behind the counter tells us “oh, no, this is Bonavista Bay. It is quite confusing, but you’ll have to go all the way back to the TCH and head east for another three hours.”

On a side note, Aunt Hannah’s café looks quite cute and that it would have good food, but I’m feeling so bad about our detour to nowhere, I decide we must get back on the highway and, tummies growling, husband and son eat leftover cold pizza as we zoom down the TCH. Not a fan of cold pizza, I dine on a few red twizzlers.

Around 3 we arrive at our fabulous salt box house Airbnb at the edge of the Bonavista seashore and spend a lovely evening enjoying the comfort of the house and surroundings.

The next day, we spend time exploring the delights of Bonavista and then decide to get back on the Trinity horse. Knowing that we are now close to the correct Trinity, my husband consults his trusty GPS and under the “cities” tab up pops “Trinity Bay North”. He punches the “go” button once again. Off we go down the road and turn off onto a pot hole filled “highway”, continue quite a ways… and there is absolutely nothing to see. 

Once more questioning what is going on, we pull over.  Husband consults the Garmin and discovers there’s a “Trinity” further on, past “Trinity Bay North”. Once more, we push the “go” button while I mutter “it seems like the universe doesn’t want us to visit Trinity”, but this time we also resolve to pay attention to the road signs as well as the Garmin.  And this time we are not fooled by the sign to “Trinity Bay East”.  No, we pass on by to the proper and true turn off to Trinity which is very well signed and you’d have to be an idiot to miss.  Finally we do arrive at the super charming and historic town of Trinity just in time for the Trinity Festival Days where the big event is a local woman who is about to “walk the plank”.  We don’t know why this particular woman or what she represents, but the prospect of plank-walking has drawn a crowd.

p.s. You might wonder why we had cold pizza in the car.  The night before, in Gander, we decided to try “Peter’s Pizza” which has been a going concern everywhere. It’s late, we’re hungry but as we walk in, we’re informed it will be at least a 20-minute wait for our all-dressed pizza.  Deciding there weren’t a lot of other options and our son was attached to the pizza idea, we sit down on the plastic chairs at the Formica tables and 2/3 of us spend time amusing themselves on their phones playing games.  One third of us, you recall, has no working phone and is quite bored. Combined with hunger and an aversion to the restaurant’s décor, this third of the trio is not happy company. An hour later, getting close to this person’s bedtime, the owner approaches and apologizes, telling us the pizza crust just didn’t rise, so they put in another one and it will be ready in a minute. We are welcome to have the one that didn’t rise as well. My husband decides to eat the toppings off that one, which left the equivalent of a small pizza leftover which he decides to keep cool in the hotel refrigerator.  It was conveniently nestled amongst the luggage in the trunk and available as car lunch food.  We can report Peter’s Pizza is pretty good if you’re not in a hurry.