St John's, my first 3 days.Aug 3, 2011
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Jake Doyal (Allan Hawco) Republic of Doyal
Close up car
Crash van
| Sunday The house where I'm staying is older but newly renovated, its nice, it's also close to downtown and just down the street from the Rooms. (archives) The George Street festival is on this week, it is free until 4:00 then you have to pay the $30 cover charge to access all the bars and feature band. There was a free concert during the day so I checked that out, it was rather loud but pretty good. I left George Street and headed down towards the harbour front and noticed the police were blocking access down to the harbour. While waiting at the lights I over heard someone say they were shooting Republic of Doyal and that's why the streets were blocked off. Needless to say, being a fan of the show I went and checked it out with all the other rubberneckers. They kept us a good distance away and out of any camera shot as apparently they have to pay you if your in the shot. They were setting up for a car chase scene where they flip a van. It took about an hour but they finally shot the scene and I recorded it on the camera. They decided to re-shoot the scene because the first van flipped over and up-righted so they shot it again as this time it stayed upside down. I moved over to another spot where you could see more of the site where they had more of their stuff set up. A couple families were there and they pointed out that we could see "Jake" (Allan Hawco) and Allan Doyal from Great Big Sea. The redheaded guy from ER was also there with his family. Russell Crowe apparently was around St. John's also but I don't think I saw him, not that I was looking. Anyway, the assistant director was keeping an eye on us as we weren't to be in any shots and we weren't to be taking any pictures. we all snuck a few and he wasn't crabby about it. He told us a lot of information about the show and the actors, he was one of them at times and kept bugging Allan to put him in more scenes. At one point we could see Allan (Jake) get on a electric scooter and was buzzing around the parking lot. He came over to where we were and the assistant director asked him if we could take pictures of him, Allan said yes so he couldn't get in trouble and we got a few pictures and a chat. He seemed like a nice guy. After he left so did I as I was getting cool with the weather change and lack of movement. Monday I headed down to the harbour front hoping to get on the tour boat at 10 am, I just made it but they were considering not going out as they didn't have enough paying customers to go until I showed up. So they called the captain and we headed out at 10:30 for a 2.5 hour tour. We headed out of the harbour and I noticed at one of the houses there seemed to be a lot of people out on the balcony, something was going on. I used the zoom on my camera and it was Scott and Sheldon from the Canadian Pickers show. I yelled hi to Sheldon (I forgot Scott's name at the time) and he looked up. Probably couldn't figure out who would him out there from such a distance. We went along the shoreline and into an inlet where Quidi Vidi village is and only accessible during high tide. We then headed down towards Cape Spear which is the most easterly point in Canada and is an equal distance to Ireland as it is to Kenora from that point. Who knew they would know that!? There were lots of Puffins and other birds feeding on caplin, some of which were to full to fly. We saw several Fin Whales and finally some Humpbacks which we could see breaching in the distance. When we got closer they would roll and swim under the boat, it was really neat! Got some pretty good pictures. Went to the Rooms to do some research after lunch, found a few tidbits but not to much. At 9:30 pm I went on the Haunted Hike, Mum & I had gone on it a couple years ago but we really liked it so I went again as some of the stories were different. There was easily 100 people there to go on the hike around St. John's but there were two guys so they split us up into more manageable groups. I was still amazed that there was over 5500 bodies buried on the church grounds, buried on top of each other up until about 1836. Tuesday Dave called about 9:30 am the line wasn't clear but he was still on the ferry and out in the fog somewhere. He would call when he got near on on shore in Argentia. Went on a tour of the Anglican Church where the 5500 bodies are buried. It was interesting, a lot of the stone arches and pillars where made from the European boats ballast as when they returned to England etc., they used the fish as ballast. Went to the NFLD Family History Society and did a little more research. Dave called while I was there, they had been sitting in their vehicles for over an hour waiting to leave. Apparently a couple guys got into a fight and were taken away. Within the hour Dave had called again and was finally on route. (3:00 pm) I finally left and headed back to the house around 3:30, since I had a long walk back I told Dave what street I was on so he could pick me up. He picked me up and we went back to the house for my stuff. Popped over to the grocery store for a few things and then headed up the highway about 5:00. We finally arrived in Lumsden around 9:30pm. |
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