Rockcut Trail: French Beach

April 18, 2026March 19, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

I’ve slowly been working my way through all the sections of the Rockcut Trail in Twillingate. My Nan lives in Bayview, so it’s been a fun project to work on from summer to summer when I visit her. Summer of 2025 was particularly special because we had a family reunion over a weekend in July and many of my family members from all over the country came home to visit.

Our time was mostly spent celebrating my Nan’s 90th birthday, but I also wanted to find time to go for a hike while I was there. Some other family members got wind of my plan and before I knew it, a group of 10 of us had wound up at the trailhead to French Head. This wasn’t my first time hiking French Head, I had done the trail with Seth and my parents way back in 2015, but I couldn’t remember it well enough to blog about it, so I was happy to revisit.

The trail starts at the end of Main Street, where there’s a small parking lot for French Beach. You can hike into the beach along the trail or via a short road – both end up at the same place. 10 people is definitely too many for a group hike, so we quickly split into a couple of groups. We had some pace setters up at the front, the nature gawkers at the back, and a middle bridge group, which is where I mostly hung out trying to keep the everyone together (an impossible feat).

French Beach is only a few minutes from the trailhead and is a gorgeous beach looking out on the harbour. From there, you hike up and around French Head. It’s an incredibly scenic trail and most of it is exposed, so you get views the whole way. I think this is one of the more popular sections of the Rockcut Trail (aside perhaps from the Top of Twillingate section), and it was surprisingly busy. From French Head, the trail continues up towards Spiller’s Point, which is a special place for us because it’s my Uncle Trevor’s favourite fishing ground, so we’ve spent a lot of time there in boat through the years.

Once you hike around the point, the trail continues south towards Spiller’s Cove. At this point, our group really got separated. The slow paced nature group was really lagging and my GPS showed a shortcut through the bog, so that part of the group opted to take that exit and slowly make their way back towards the car. The shortcut is not marked and it is a muddy, wet section of trail with lots of brush scraping your ankles, so maybe not recommended if you’re visiting. Emily and Seth didn’t care about taking this route, but my mom was pretty cranky about getting wet feet.

I didn’t take this route. Me and my cousin, Matt, opted to fastpack along the rest of the trail to try and catch the front group. The trail continues to be very scenic and we could just see the rest of our group hiking along the rock in the distance, but we had no hope of catching up with them. Eventually we made it down towards the end of the trail before it cuts out to go to Slade Lane, but it’s a little bit confusing in this section, with multiple trails branching off from one another. We thought we were following the rest of the group, but we ended up on an unmarked trail. The trail clearly existed, it was very developed, but it wasn’t marked on my GPS.

We determined we had not taken the same trail as the rest of the family, but we thought we could find a shortcut back to the road. We ended up doing a bit of light bushwacking and ended up exiting the trail through a family’s backyard (whoops!), but we did end up back on the road just as the fast group was on their way back to the car. At the same moment, the slow group arrived on the road in the car and we had a good laugh about how we took 3 separate routes and managed to all end the trail at the same time!

I wouldn’t recommend our strategy though. If you’re visiting, I recommend just planning to do the full 6km route marked on the Rockcut Trail website. This route follows the trail of our fastpacking group and ends at Slade Lane, where you can follow the road back to your car. Alternatively, you can park a second car on Dump Road where there is a second parking lot. Either way, enjoy this beautiful trail, definitely one of my favourites on the island!

ECT Series: White Horse Path

April 11, 2026March 13, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

White Horse Path is one of the newer sections of trail on the East Coast Trail, and locally it has developed a bit of a reputation. The trail is located on the northwest section of the ECT, running from Bauline up to Cape St. Francis. It’s 16km long and is listed as “strenuous” due to the repeated hills running across the length of the trail. The net elevation is 0m, of course, but I tracked almost 700m of up and down on my GPS.

I’ve been wanting to hike White Horse Path for a long time, but I’ve always been a little bit intimidated by it. The East Coast Trail seems like it would be easy compared to some of the mountain hikes I’ve done in BC, but I’ve been humbled on the ECT more than once. The Spout was by far the hardest section of the trail I’ve done. I hiked it with Emily and we both hobbled out at the end of the trail. The repeated up and down of coastline trails is really hard on your knees.

So I was a little anxious about hiking White Horse Path, but I was determined to finally do it on my most recent trip home in 2025. We had really nice weather, so me and Emily decided to tackle the trail the day after we hiked Bear Cove Point. This was a good strategy in that we were training for a bigger hike later in the summer and it was good practice to hike two days in a row. But also a bad strategy because we started a bit late and it was really hot.

Like I said, White Horse Path has a lot of big climbs and descents along the trail and runs through pretty remote terrain. We didn’t want to end with a big descent, so we decided to start in Bauline and hike to Cape St. Francis. We dropped Emily’s car at the lighthouse and our Dad dropped us off at the trailhead in Bauline. The trail is really beautiful and it starts with a big climb out of Bauline. Emily was definitely struggling right off the bat with the incline, but I’d been having a pretty good hiking season and was feeling strong.

This really is a stunning section of trail and I think it’s mostly the length that contributes to its difficulty. There’s a mix of forest sections and exposed coastal bluffs along the trail, but I would say it’s one of the more scenic parts of the East Coast Trail, with lots of views along the way. The morning was challenging for us because it was so hot and there was a lot of climbing. Normally I like being in the trees for shade when hiking on a hot day, but it was nicer being on the bluffs on this trail because of the breeze.

There is a trail connection to Marine Drive Park around 3km into the trail where we saw a family out for the day, but other than that, we didn’t see anyone until the end of the trail. We stopped for lunch around 6km, which left a lot of trail for the afternoon. There’s not a lot of options for water along the trail and the streams were running pretty low, so I’d advise packing all the water you need for the day.

We hit the campsite at the 9km mark. There’s two brand new tent pads and a bit of flat space for camping, but not a lot of room. There is a small stream that is flowing, but you definitely want a filter. At this point in the trip, Emily was feeling tired, but still powering through. I really enjoyed everything that came after the campsite and I think this is the more scenic half of the hike. There’s a small uphill section after that campground, and after that you hike across exposed flat rock for a while. It was really nice and breezy, so we decided to take our last snack break to enjoy the view.

The last part of the trail was worrying to Emily because there’s a lot of downhill and she finds that hard on the knees. After leaving the bluff, we had the biggest downhill section of the trail as we climbed down towards Cripple Cove. I don’t think the trail follows the most economic route to Cape St. Francis. It follows the coastline rather than the most direct route, which makes sense, but is a little frustrating when you’re tired. Once you get down towards Cripple Cove, you can continue to a viewpoint up on the rock, which looked pretty cool, but we skipped it. It’s not that far a hike from Cape St. Francis, so I might come back one day to check it out.

Instead, we started our last climb back up towards the Cape. All day, it felt like we were moving pretty slowly. We didn’t start the trail until almost 11, which was really too late for a trail like this. So I constantly felt like we were behind the pace we should be at, but we ended up finishing the trail in just over 8 hours, which was our goal, so we were moving at a pretty reasonable pace all day. We did slow down over the last couple of kilometres though. There’s one more downhill as you wind your way back to the Cape and this was the section of trail that really did Emily in. She’d been wearing one knee brace most of the day, but her second knee started tweaking, so she borrowed my knee brace as well, which I wasn’t using. She really struggled for the last kilometre and similar to the Spout, she had to hobble her way out the last section of trail.

The trail is not easy on you at the end. We could see the lighthouse as we winded down through the last section and it felt like we were pretty much done, but you have to climb around Back Cove at the end and this part of the trail was surprisingly technical. You scramble across some narrow rock and then there is one section of trail with chains to hold onto, followed by a lot of stairs. I’m glad we were hiking north because that meant we did the chain section uphill – it looked like it would be a lot scarier going down.

Technically, the trail winds back to the lighthouse after Back Cove, but we’d been to the lighthouse before and we were able to find a shortcut through the brush back to the car. We came out of the woods on the road and even though we were only 50m from the car, Emily made me go get it and come back to pick her up! When I got back, she was sat down on the grass nursing her knees and the last of her snacks! So I guess the trail association is right to call this hike ‘strenuous’.

It’s not all pain though. Personally, I had a great time on the trail. I did think it was a challenging trail, particularly because of the heat. I was surprised we were able to finish in 8 hours at our pace, but I think I definitely would have done this trail at least an hour faster on my own. It’s nice to take your time and enjoy the views. I think me and Emily both had different perspectives on the trail. My friend asked me how it was afterwards and I told him I had a great time (which I did) and that the trail wasn’t too hard. But then Emily told him not to believe a word I said!

So if you’re a frequent hiker, I don’t think this trail is as intimidating as it’s made out to be, but it’s definitely not to be underestimated. Emily is thrilled to have checked it off her bucket list, but has vowed she’ll never do it again. Personally, I would return for round 2. I think it could be fun to camp on the trail, but I’m not keen on doing it again with a full backpack, so maybe it’s better as a day hike. Either way, I’m glad that I can finally check this section off my list. Only one section left for me to complete and I’m be damned if I don’t get to it next summer!!

ECT Series: Bear Cove Point Path

April 4, 2026March 13, 2026 / Maria / Leave a comment

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’re probably aware that I’ve slowly been working towards section hiking the entirety of the 300km long East Coast Trail. In summer of 2025, I knocked out two new sections of trail that I’ve been wanting to do for a while, one of which was Bear Cove Point Path.

Bear Cove Point Path is one of the last sections on the southern end of the trail. It runs from the town of Fermeuse to the town of Renews, although we did it in the opposite direction, starting from Renews. The trail is approximately 12km long and has a nice mix of forest walking and coastline. Despite it looking like a relatively flat trail, there is 250m of elevation gain across the length of the trail.

If you begin in Renews, the start of the trail is very scenic. The entire first section is along exposed coastal meadows. You can take in a bit of history looking at the old cannons scattered along the coast as you hike the trail out of Renews, with beautiful views looking towards Cappahayden. We made a short stop along Northern Head to have a snack and enjoy the views, before continuing on along the trail.

The trail is pretty evenly split in two by the Bear Cove Point lighthouse. I thought the southern half of the trail was more scenic, and there are several viewpoints along the way to the lighthouse. We opted to take our lunch break at South Point rather than Bear Cove Point, but I think this was a good choice as there wasn’t really anywhere to sit and enjoy the view at the lighthouse. The lighthouse is really more of a tower with a light than a lighthouse, but it wouldn’t be a bad place to camp if you were doing a thru hike. Just watch out, there was lots of thistle around (which growing up I always called it “stinger-needle”).

The second half of the hike went by a little bit quicker, mostly because it was in the forest. Once you start hiking in towards Fermeuse, large sections of the trail head inland. I didn’t note a lot along the second half of the trail and it ends when you hike into Kingman’s Cove. We parked 1km further along the road at the viewpoint on Kingman’s Cove Road, which is where the ECT instructions say to park, but I don’t think this trail gets a lot of visitors (we went on a Saturday and didn’t see a single person on the hike), so you could definitely get away with parking on the road near the trailhead. It was particularly annoying having to hike uphill on the last kilometre on what was a pretty hot day.

Overall, I really enjoyed this trail. I did it with my sister, Emily, and my friends, Karen and Grant. So we had two cars, which made it a lot easier because we could park a car on either end. I’ve struggled to do the last few trails on the ECT because they’re such a long drive from St. John’s and it’s hard to get two vehicles to do it. I did a lot of the shorter hikes as there and back hikes to avoid the second car. You could do Bear Cove Point with one car, as there is an inland shortcut trail that crosses the headland, but I’m glad we didn’t have to! As of right now, I only have the final path to Cappahayden left to do, so I hope to return against next year to finish it!