Newfoundland

Except for lack of reasonable wifi, Newfoundland has been a wonderful experience. It started with the ferry, a 7 hour ride from North Sydney, Nova Scotia, to Port au Basques (when pronounced it sounds like port-a-bask). I hadn't made any reservations, and wasn't sure how to go about it, so when I saw the sign for the ferry, I just got in line. Turns out that was the line for the next crossing, which left at 11:45 PM that night (it was now about 5:30 PM). I had figured I'd stay the night in Nova Scotia, then take the morning crossing, but then, when you don't quite know what you are doing, you take your chances and roll with them! So all night on a ferry, and I couldn't stay in my car, with my nice comfortable bed.  I grabbed my extra blanket and a few things I thought I would need (didn't need any of them, except the 2 bottles of water) and headed upstairs. The seats were actually pretty nice; they reclined and there was plenty of foot room. But there was no way to prop up your feet, and I find that in order to sleep decently, my feet have to be up.  Oh well, roll with the punches!

The ferry had a decent cafeteria, so I managed some tea and a muffin in the morning, then off the ferry and into Newfoundland, kind of being shot out of a cannon. I found I wanted to find a place to pull over and catch my breath and look around a bit. Luckily Newfoundanders that thought of that (I think they were mostly thinking of the dog owners whose dogs had been cooped up all night) but I found a large parking lot off the highway and pulled in for a bit. I think I even had a little nap there, with my feet up!

I hadn't really made a plan for when I arrived in the province, so took some time to reread the guide books and decided to head straight for Gros Morne National Park. That is really the main attraction of this west coast of Newfoundland. The first town of any size that I came to was Corner Brook, a decent size town that is big enough to have 2 McDonalds (yay, I got my diet coke!), a Walmart  (not my favorite store) and even a Toyota dealer (luckily I didn’t need anything there!). After lunch in the Mickey D's parking lot, I headed to the visitor information center  because I saw in the guidebook that there was a memorial to Captain James Cook of Hawaii exploration fame.  They showed me how to get there, and it was a lovely park with very nice views of the mountains and bay around which the town is built.

 

Captain Cook statue

But then it was time to find a campground and chill out for a while – I'd been driving for 9 days straight and I just needed to relax for a while. KOA happened to be the first campground I came upon, and while they aren't my favorite campgrounds, this one was pretty nice (at least it would have been if the campers next to me hadn't been playing country music loud from about 5:30 till 10 PM, even though I asked them nicely if they could turn it down a bit – they just got snotty and said I should have gone to a different park). The next night, the folks at the campground moved me to another site.

At each of the campgrounds I've stayed in so far, I've had visitors every night. I think these are snowshoe hares because they are a very nice warm brown color. I thought they might be Arctic Hares, but the guidebook says otherwise.

 

My camp visitor

The next day, I had to figure out what to do, because the following day was going to be the big one, when I went on a boat cruise in the biggest lake in the park. More about that next blog, though.  I remembered back at the visitor center the people in front of me asking about a drive along the south edge of the Bay of Islands. The description was of picturesque villages right along the water with mountains in the background. It sounded like a good choice, besides, it meant that I got to go back to Mickey D's for my daily diet coke! That and a nice sandwich made from stuff in the cooler, and I was good to go. It was a beautiful drive, the day was sunny and not too warm, and the world seemed like a great place!  Lunch was at one of the stops, the only one that was up high off the water, and it had the best views, plus it was in a huge park and only one other car was there with 4 really nice folks from Ontario.

 

Early morning view from Norris Point

Where I had my picnic lunch.

So far, my only complaint about Newfoundland is that there aren't enough pulloffs to be able to really enjoy a view; I think it's kind of rude to pull into someone's driveway to do that!! Oh well, you can't have everything!