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A loop from Bay Bulls

The Irish Loop

Getting to the start from every airport and ferry ↓

Distance
266.3 km
Drive time
In your maps app ↗
Roads
1090113
Open the loop in Google Maps →

Google Maps is the one app that takes a loop's stops in order from a link. In another app, drive it stop by stop from the list below.

Stops and map ↓

Gull Island in the Witless Bay seabird reserve, sunny blue sea.
Gull Island in the Witless Bay seabird reserve, sunny blue sea.Photo: D. Gordon E. Robertson · source · CC BY-SA 3.0

Filmed here: Below. The Below drive · every spot from every airport

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A loop from Bay Bulls and back: 266.3 km by road, via Routes 10 · 90 · 1 · 13.Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Tiles by OpenFreeMap. Route line computed with OSRM.

  1. Stop 1: La Manche Provincial Park

    The headquarters of La Manche Provincial Park, beside Route 10. The province's tourism site points here for the East Coast Trail and its suspension bridge at La Manche. ParksNL publishes the park's season.

    Directions →
    Other map appsApple · Google · Organic Maps · OsmAnd (both work offline, no tracking) · Waze
    Show on map: La Manche Provincial Park ↑

  2. Stop 2: Colony of Avalon, Ferryland

    Ferryland's 17th-century colony, founded in the 1620s by Lord Baltimore, whose family later founded Maryland, as the province's tourism site tells it. Archaeologists still work the site, uncovering house foundations and a cobblestone street.

    Stopping here adds 1.9 km to the drive.

    Directions →
    Other map appsApple · Google · Organic Maps · OsmAnd (both work offline, no tracking) · Waze
    Show on map: Colony of Avalon, Ferryland ↑

  3. Stop 3: Cape Race LighthouseDetour

    A lighthouse built in 1856 on one of the first points of land westbound sailors sighted, and a coast that wrecked hundreds of ships, per the province's tourism site. The way in is Cape Race Road, which OpenStreetMap records as unpaved for all 20.6 km it maps.

    Stopping here adds 43.8 km to the drive.

    Directions →
    Other map appsApple · Google · Organic Maps · OsmAnd (both work offline, no tracking) · Waze
    Show on map: Cape Race Lighthouse ↑

  4. Stop 4: Mistaken Point Interpretation Centre, Portugal Cove South

    The visitor centre for the Mistaken Point UNESCO World Heritage Site, whose 575-million-year-old fossils are the oldest known of complex multicellular life. The province's tourism site says guided hikes to the fossils go from here if you book ahead.

    Directions →
    Other map appsApple · Google · Organic Maps · OsmAnd (both work offline, no tracking) · Waze
    Show on map: Mistaken Point Interpretation Centre, Portugal Cove South ↑

  5. Stop 5: St. Vincent's

    Route 10 runs beside the beach here, where the province's tourism site says whales come close enough to shore that you can smell their breath.

    Directions →
    Other map appsApple · Google · Organic Maps · OsmAnd (both work offline, no tracking) · Waze
    Show on map: St. Vincent's ↑

  6. Stop 6: Father Duffy's Well Provincial Park

    A roadside spring directly on the line the drive follows, named for Father James Duffy, the Irish priest appointed first parish priest of St. Mary's in 1834. The Knights of Columbus turned the site into a roadside grotto in the 1930s. ParksNL classes it as day use: a stop of minutes, not hours.

    Directions →
    Other map appsApple · Google · Organic Maps · OsmAnd (both work offline, no tracking) · Waze
    Show on map: Father Duffy's Well Provincial Park ↑

  7. Stop 7: Salmonier Nature Park

    Run by the province's wildlife division on the Salmonier Line, open since 1978, first as an environmental education centre. The animals live in large natural enclosures along a boardwalk trail, and most of them arrived injured and unreleasable.

    Directions →
    Other map appsApple · Google · Organic Maps · OsmAnd (both work offline, no tracking) · Waze
    Show on map: Salmonier Nature Park ↑
⛽ Fuel and gravel, road by road ▾
  • Route 10 →Whole road: 7 fuel stations mapped, longest gap 91 km. Unpaved mapped: none; 77% has no surface tag, so unknown.
  • Route 90 →Whole road: 4 fuel stations mapped, longest gap 34 km. Unpaved mapped: none; 55% has no surface tag, so unknown.
  • Route 1 →Whole road: 54 fuel stations mapped, longest gap 119 km. Unpaved mapped: none; 68% has no surface tag, so unknown.
  • Route 13 →Whole road: 1 fuel stations mapped, longest gap 20 km. Unpaved mapped: none; 100% has no surface tag, so unknown.
Campground 24 km from the end →Electric: plan 188 km on a charge ↓

Drive measured Sep 8, 2026, Bay Bulls round by Ferryland, Trepassey, St Vincent's and Salmonier and back. Your maps app gives the time on the day. How we measure

Staying here? Days out ↓Download GPX (offline, Garmin)

266.3 km. The province’s named Irish Loop, measured as a circuit: Route 10 south from Bay Bulls along the shore to Trepassey, west and north through the barrens, Route 90 up the Salmonier Line, then the Trans-Canada and Route 13 to close it.

That is just the driving. The stops take longer than the driving between them.

When you get to Bay Bulls

Sunrise and sunset at Bay Bulls, by month
Month (the 15th)SunriseSunset
January7:43 am4:36 pm
February7:07 am5:23 pm
March7:15 am7:05 pm
April6:13 am7:49 pm
May5:25 am8:29 pm
June5:03 am8:58 pm
July5:19 am8:54 pm
August5:57 am8:14 pm
September6:37 am7:15 pm
October7:18 am6:14 pm
November7:05 am4:27 pm
December7:41 am4:11 pm

Worked out for the 15th of each month at this spot, in local time. The weather line at the top has today's.

Places to eat on the way

1 near Bay Bulls: where to eat near Bay Bulls →

9 places to eat within 2 km of this drive, in the order you pass them.

The longest stretch with nothing mapped on it is 91.7 km — after Celtic Knot Pub and Restaurant, until Tim Hortons.

Every one of them, in the order you pass them
  • The Captain's Tablerestaurantkm 6.6
  • Riverside Restaurant and Loungerestaurantkm 34.2
  • Bernard Kavanagh's Restaurantrestaurantkm 44
  • Lighthouse Picnicsrestaurantkm 45.6
  • In Da Loop Restaurant & Pubpubkm 58.8
  • Brophy's Convenience Plus (Jerome's)restaurantkm 59.4
  • Trepassey Motel & Restaurantrestaurantkm 116.1
  • Earhart Pubpubkm 116.1
  • Celtic Knot Pub and Restaurantrestaurantkm 171.1

Not ranked or complete, and nobody pays to be here. No opening hours: phone ahead. Open map data, swept 2026-09-12. How we measure · Add a missing place

What has been recorded near here

Wildlife people have reported within 10 km of Bay Bulls, and the months they saw it. Tap a name for everywhere else on our drives it turns up.

  • Humpback whalewhaleMegaptera novaeangliaeReports cluster in July, August, June2,500 reports on record
  • Atlantic puffinseabirdFratercula arcticaReports cluster in July, August, June1,984 reports on record
  • Northern gannetseabirdMorus bassanusReports cluster in July, June, August1,010 reports on record

Reports, not counts: busy harbours report more. No sighting is promised, and the list covers only the species we look up. Source: GBIF, the international record of wildlife sightings, checked 2026-10-07.

Short drives from Bay Bulls

An easy day out from Bay BullsWitless Bay 5.9 km awayIts own page measures from the St. John's airport; from Bay Bulls it is 5.9 km.Directions from where your phone is now:
Directions →
Other map appsApple · Google · Organic Maps · OsmAnd (both work offline, no tracking) · Waze

Or any of these: nearest first, measured by road from Bay Bulls.

More, up to 35 km (10)

Distances by road, measured on OpenStreetMap October 16, 2026, from where this route ends. Your maps app gives the time on the day. How we measure

Doing it electric

Fast chargers on this drive
Fermeuse km 59, Trepassey km 117, St. Mary’s km 172
Longest stretch without one
94 km
St. Mary’s → Bay Bulls, of 266 km driven
Nearest fast charger to Bay Bulls
25.8 km
by road, at St. John’s

No fast charger at Bay Bulls. From St. Mary’s it is 94 km there and the same back: plan on about 188 km on one charge, more in cold weather or with the heat on. Or charge at St. John’s, 25.8 km from Bay Bulls by road, off this drive's own road.

NL Hydro fast chargers within 3 km of the drive. Check the app for one that's working. Exported 2026-10-22. How we measure

Every route compared →NL Hydro: plan your road trip →

Paved or not, per the map

Mapped as unpaved
0.4 km
a residential road (0.06 km, 33 km from Bay Bulls); a residential road (0.33 km, 33.1 km from Bay Bulls)
Mapped as paved
24%
59.2 km of 266.3 km driven
No surface tag on the map
76%
187 km: surface not recorded

In a rental car: Hertz Canada’s terms say “use off paved roads or on roads which are not regularly maintained” voids the damage waiver. Check your own agreement. Hertz’s terms ↗. Source for these figures: OSRM driving profile, stored route query, with node annotations; OpenStreetMap surface tags via Overpass, checked 2026-09-08. Today's road conditions: 511.

Before you go

These change, so we link to the people who keep them up to date.

  • Witless Bay Ecological ReserveBoat tours run in the warmer months; operators publish their own dates

    The reserve's seabird colonies, and the whales that follow the capelin inshore, bring much of Route 10's traffic. The reserve is provincial; the boats are private operators who set their own seasons and weather calls.

    gov.nl.ca →

  • MooseYear round, worst between dusk and dawn

    The province states the likelihood of injury in a moose collision is twice as high between dusk and dawn as in daytime. This is a 266 km circuit before any stops, on unlit two-lane road across the southern Avalon. Start late and you finish in the dark.

    gov.nl.ca →

  • Road conditionsYear round, matters most November–April

    Fog comes to the Avalon in any season. Route 10 down the coast and Route 90 back through the barrens are single carriageway the whole way, with no parallel road.

    511nl.ca →

The trails

Questions

How far is the Irish Loop?＋

Measured here as a circuit from Bay Bulls through Ferryland, Trepassey, St Vincent's and Salmonier and back: 266.3 km of driving on the OSRM driving profile, before any stops. Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism, which names the drive, gives about 312 km for a different circuit that starts at the Salmonier Line or Bay Bulls and takes in more of Route 90. Cape Race is a side trip off the circuit; its extra driving is measured with its stop.

Which way round should I drive it?＋

This page measures it anticlockwise: south from Bay Bulls down Route 10, west along the shore, then north up Route 90 and back. The distance is the same either way. Anticlockwise puts the coast first, while you are fresh.

Can it be done in a day?＋

The driving can: 266 km leaves room for stops. But the boat tours at Witless Bay, the archaeology at Ferryland and the guided hike at Mistaken Point each take half a day, and the loop passes all three.

Do I need to start at Bay Bulls?＋

No. Bay Bulls is where this measurement starts and ends, because the province names it as one of the two ways in. Start anywhere on the circuit; the distance is the same.

No recorded track yet.Drove it? Send yours →

Put this map on your site

Run a place to stay, a tour or a town page on this drive? Add this map to your site. It shows your guests the drive and its distance. It is free, needs no account, and we keep the figures current.

<iframe src="https://fromtheairport.xyz/embed/irish-loop"
  width="100%" height="420" style="border:0" loading="lazy"
  title="Driving route: Irish Loop, a loop from Bay Bulls"></iframe>
Add ?lat=&lon=&label= to the URL to pin your own property on the map.

Every distance and coordinate on this page was checked against its source on September 8, 2026. Origin: OpenStreetMap node/1389879936. Destination: OpenStreetMap node/1389879936.

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