Newfoundland 2017

July 21, 2017  Friday Had a cool night last night.  Took our time getting ready this morning.  Finally headed out on our car tour.  Drove up the 406 to the Cape Anguille lighthouse.  Gorgeous coastline.  Lots of wild flowers and rocks.  We met a couple…never got their names…who just arrived yesterday off the ferry from Nova Scotia.  They are just beginning their Newfoundland trip.  They did recommend a place to eat in PEI.  Michael Smith, famous Canadian chef, has a restaurant named “Fireworks” in Bay of Fortune.  He prepares a feast on the large property.  It is expensive but those people said it’s worth it.  We’ll check that out. We left the lighthouse and stopped at the Anglican Church and cemetary.  It sits right on the coast.  We walked around and looked at the tombstones.  Looks like some sad stories from times long ago. On our way back to the campground we decided to stop at the Grand Cod...

July 20, 2017  Thursday Raining pretty good this morning.  We planned to head on to Doyles, NL today.  It is only 1-1/2 hours drive down TCH 1.  Since we had some time we took a trip into Stephenville and did some shopping at the Walmart and the Dominion, the grocery store. As we drove back into the campground we passed a motorhome checking in.  We unloaded our packages and started putting things away when we noticed the motorhome had stopped in front of our campsite.  They just sat there.  Jim went out and, sure enough, they had been assigned our site!  Jim told him we were just getting ready to pull out so they parked out of the way and waited for us to leave.  Never had that happen before. We were fortunate that the rain stopped before we had to go.  It is no fun hooking up the car in the rain.  The trip to Doyles was beautiful and scenic.  We are camping in Grand Codroy RV Park.  The original owner was nam...

July 19, 2017   Wednesday Got an early start and headed for Kippens, NL.  We have reservations at Zenzville RV Campground just outside Stephenville.  Took 460 off of TCH 1 and wish we hadn’t…it was a very narrow local road with enough bumps to loosen teeth!  We made it to the campground just fine and camped in site 6.  Very cloudy day but we set out on an excursion after setting up the rig. We continued on the 406 to make the loop around the small round peninsula which sticks out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  The trip was scenic and up and down and all around.  Unfortunately there was never a public area to pull over and take photos of the cliffs and the beautiful coastline we saw.  Once we drove down a steep hill and at the bottom we saw a HUGE rock and gravel quarry.  It was perched up on a cliff and was amazing to see.  We drove right through the area and was amazed by the size of the place.  Huge trucks were unlo...

July 18, 2017  Tuesday Another sunny and warmer morning.  We had an easy and beautiful trip to Deer Lake.  We are camping the night at Gateway to the North RV Park in Deer Lake.  Tomorrow we will head further south and make a stop in Stephenville.  We have finally met summer…it is 87 degrees here in Deer Lake today.

July 17, 2017  Monday We drove back into town and to Tim Horton’s for a cup of coffee and the internet.  It was a great place to check email and make phone calls with wifi calling.  After that we headed back to the lighthouse to check out the waters…we expect to see some more whales and icebergs.  We were not disappointed.  Today is actually warmer and very sunny.  While up there we had lunch at The Lightkeeper’s.  Jim had a BLT and I had fish tacos!  We walked around some more, took some photos and checked out the gift shop which also had a small interpretive center about whales. We have one more thing we’ve not done in St. Anthony so today is the day for that.  We drove back into town and to the Grenfell Historic Properties.  We’ve been here before to connect with the wifi but hadn’t check it all out.  There is a museum in this building with lots of displays and information about Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, MD.  D...

July 16, 2017  Sunday We have to drive about one and one/half hours to St.Barbe to catch the ferry to Labrador.  We are sailing at 10:30 am and return on the 6 pm.  Very quick trip but worth going.  The ferry crossing was fine even with the very overcast skies.  We drove to Point Amour Lighthouse and toured there.  We actually were taken all the way to the top.  Walked around inside the glassed light tower and looked out over the ocean.  This lighthouse is the second tallest in Canada and is still working as a lighthouse.  Most of the lighthouses have been shut down by the previous government.  With all the new technology it was decided they were now unnecessary.  The guide at the lighthouse told me that the Gulf of St. Lawrence was still frozen in June and a ice breaker was brought in to break it all up so the ferry could run and the fishermen could get out of harbor.  Hard to believe but true. On the way to the l...

July 15, 2017  Saturday Today is another beautiful cool morning.  We drove to L’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site.  There is a beautiful visitor’s center with artifacts of Norse origin.  We had a wonderful guide to take us through the outside walking paths and explaining the archaeological digs back in the 1970’s and the ongoing exploration of the area.  There is a recreated Norse village with people dressed in costumes and tell about life at that time.  Well done.  We even saw a moose…our first since being in Newfoundland. After leaving there we drove to Norstead to see the Snoddi, a Norse ship.  There is also a Norse village there with costumed people giving demonstrations and talking about how the people lived in that time. Time for lunch.  We found The Norseman (of course) for lunch.  We had fish!  The view from the restaurant was amazing.  It was nice to eat some more good food and rest awhile enjoying t...

July 14, 2017  Friday This morning I awoke at about 5 am after a night of swatting mosquitos and trying to sleep.  Jim spent yesterday evening washing our filthy car and cleaning the windshield of the motorhome.  He came in saying the mosquitos had arrived.  We’ve really had no problem with them so far.  He must have had some stowaways on his clothes and they buzzed us all night.  Jim spent the early morning moving the motorhome “wreckage” from the tow car to the motorhome storage.  He had to rearrange some things to get that done.  While he was doing that I did some cleaning inside.  While doing that I killed two mosquitos and about three biting gnats or something that looked like that.  Hope that cleared away our pests from last night. We got everything we’d need for today’s boat trip and loaded the car along with Jim’s computer.  We went up to the club room near the office to check out the strength of the wifi…not go...

July 13, 2017  Thursday Woke up and went to the gas station to check if we could use their Wi-Fi.  I managed to get through to the Labrador Marine website on my phone and tried to book our trip to Labrador.  Had to call the office to complete but we have reservations on the ferry on Sunday the 16 th at 10:30 am with a return later that day at 6 pm.  Better than nothing.   We drove all the way to St. Anthony’s.  The drive way gorgeous...mountains on the right and the sea on the left.  We drove through several little fishing villages.  The roads were roly poly part of the way.  It was like being on a children's roller coaster. After arriving at the campground we unhooked the car and drove through the park to find a spot perfect for us.  There was a huge open section which was reserved for a caravan coming in the next day.  The office said we could camp there so we picked a site in the very back corner.   We...

July 12, 2017  Wednesday Went to the Visitor Center early this morning to use wifi.  Jim had some business to do.  I called Triple Falls RV Park in St. Anthony to make reservations.  Went back and packed up the motorhome and headed out to St. Paul’s.  We will park the motorhome in their parking lot today and stay tonight.  We have Western Brook Pond tour today at 3 pm.  Weather is very overcast and raining this morning but the girl at the Visitor Center said it would clear before 3 pm.  She was right!!  Beautiful but COLD tour on the pond through the cliffs.  Met a couple from Quebec.  Francoise and Robert.  They are both retired..he was a police officer and she worked in Ottawa for the government.  When she was 20 years old she lived in Lafayette and Beau Bridge and pealed crawfish for a living.  What a small world!  They were lots of fun to talk to.  We enjoyed the tour and meeting new people. On ...

July 11, 2017  Tuesday Woke up this morning and went to find the Visitor’s Center which is right up the road from the campground.  We needed to use the wifi and hope our wifi calling would work.  The center actually has phones I could use to make local calls so I reserved us seats on the Western Brook Pond tour tomorrow at 3 pm.  While sitting at the desk the lady next to me asked where I was from.  We started talking and we had a great chat.  Her name is Ginny.  She and her husband Steven are camping in Gros Morne National Park in a tent.  They have been traveling across Canada.  They are from a tiny island between Vancouver and Vancouver Island in British Columbia.  They sold their house and all their stuff and are full timing.  She said they would soon purchase a trailer.  Tent camping is proving a real challenge especially with the weather we’ve had in Newfoundland.  She was very nice and gave me some advice about...

July 10, 2017  Monday Gorgeous morning in this beautiful campground.  Our site is surrounded by birch trees and the light coming through the leaves is so serene.  We plan to head out to our next destination…Gros Morne National Park.  We have reservations at the Gros Morne/Norris Point KOA. After packing up we started out.  Jim, of course, was driving the motorhome and I was guiding…somewhat.  I was in front and watching to make sure Jim did not hit any of the trees in front.  We had looked all around the motorhome and thought we had plenty of touring radius…we were sadly wrong.  As Jim was turning and I was watching I heard a horrible cracking.  Of course, I had Jim stop immediately.  I walked around to find a tree…a multi-trunk tree stuck in the back of the motorhome.  We hit the tree just at the seam where the side panels and the cap end come together.  The passenger side cap was pulled away and the access door for t...

July 9, 2017  Sunday I think it will be a great day in Twillingate but we have to leave.  Before packing up I saw one of the ladies I met when we checked in.  Her friend has a brother in Mandeville and I wanted to know his name.  His name is Nicholas Gentile and he has a son and daughter who went to Mandeville High.  Nick Gentile is the son and he should have graduated with Zach.  I’ll need to check on that when I can.  These two ladies have been traveling full time since 2009.  The lady I met is from Virginia and her friend, Barbara, is from Mandeville.  Small world. We had a good trip all the way to South Brook.  We have reservations for one night at Kona Beach RV Park.  It sits beside a lake and is full of birch trees.  It’s a big park and looks to be close to full of people.  Our site is a pull-through nestled in those trees.  Very pretty.  We are staying only one night.  Since it was early Jim ...

July 8, 2017  Saturday Woke up to clouds.  Not as cold as it’s been which helped me get out of bed.  Started raining early in the day.  After breakfast and taking care of some business Jim and I headed out to see what we can see.  It is an indoor day so we went to the Twillingham Museum first.  It is in an old house which was previously the Anglican Church Rectory.  It was furnished with turn of the century furnishings and had many displays and exhibits about Twillingham. One room was completely about opera singer, Georgina Stirling.  She was born in Twillingate and was famous in Paris and Milan.  After her career she returned to Twillingate where she is buried. We went on further down the road to the Iceberg Interpretive Center.  Turns out it is mostly a gift shop with photos of icebergs and such.  You can also book a boat tour there.  Today is not the day to be on the water. From there we went to Durrell Muse...

July 7, 2017  Friday This morning we are still trying to get our phones to work.  We decided to go back to McDonald’s and use their internet to try and download a program which will enable us to do wi-fi calling.  Jim had already gotten his to work but my phone was being stubborn.  This morning I finally had success!  The park we are camped in does not have strong wi-fi and that is our problem.  I think I will run down the list of calamities which we’ve been faced with on this trip on the last day of the blog.  Maybe by then I will have forgotten all about them and have only good news to share. Once back at camp we pack everything up and started back on the road to Twillingate.  It is at the very top of this peninsula…actually it is on an island just off the tip of this peninsula.  Icebergs and the big draw there and we’re hoping to see some and maybe some whales too. The trip was fine…same old potholes all along the way.  B...

July 6, 2017   THURSDAY We will spend today in Gander.  There’s really not much else to see here that we haven’t seen yesterday but we will give it a try.  We found the McDonald’s to have a coffee and use their internet.  We’ve lost our Sprint roaming since there are no affiliated towers away from the Avalon part of Newfoundland.  We are trying to download an app called Whatsapp which enables us to place calls.  Problem is we need internet to do that and our campground does not have good signal.  Jim was finally able to download and actually made some wi-fi calls with his phone.  I’m not having such luck.  I try to “message” through facebook. We made a trip to the local mall and took a walk through it.  Not very big so that was easy.  We did find a store which carried about anything you needed.  Jim needed to find some things for the motorhome.  We stopped by the Country Kitchen for lunch.  Pretty good h...

July 5, 2017  Wednesday We took our time enjoying the morning before getting underway and traveling to Gander.  It is a little foggy out and cold.  We left mid-morning and got back on the road.  Before long we were on the TCH 1 heading west.  This is the only big highway on the island and is mostly only two lanes.  Since the hills are big those usually have climbing lanes.  At one point we were in our one lane going down a hill when all of a sudden a big 18-wheeler comes roaring past us using the passing lane for the on-coming traffic to pass us.  That’s the craziest thing we’ve seen on the road here.  It helps that there is not that much traffic.  We did also run into construction on the road right near a provincial park I thought about visiting.  So happy we didn’t try to maneuver around all that. We did finally make it to Gander and got to the campground just fine.  It’s located on the northside of the town just of...

July 4, 2017  Tuesday  Happy 4 th of July!! Celebrating the 4 th of July in Canada is not exactly festive.  We will enjoy anyway.  We drove to Bonavista, a town at the end of the peninsula.  We took the long way and it was the best.  As we were driving up the hills and around the curves you could see water all around.  Once I thought I saw a huge white tent…maybe for some event.  The closer we got we saw it was an iceberg!  First one to see!!  We drove until we discovered the little town of Tickle.  Just off the harbor was a large iceberg.  Of course, we took lots of pictures.  Bonus it was a brilliant day.  We walked down to the dock and there was a good size iceberg just off the dock.  Took more pics.  Having just about all of Tickle we kept on our way to Bonavista.  When we arrived we found the visitor’s center.  Two young men were working there and we got a map…a few lines scribbled on ...

July 3, 2017  Monday Foggy morning.  Not exactly the kind of conditions we like when traveling strange new roads.  We got underway and soon lost the fog.  Found some sun on the way which made driving much better.  Still hit some patches of heavy fog.  Thankfully there is not the traffic here like in the US. Once we arrived in Trinity we saw a big tour bus parked so we parked there too.  We walked around the town and took lots of pictures.  It’s a very picturesque little village with several churches.  We went to the museum which is in a small old house.  It’s full of stories about the town which mostly revolve around fishing.  Had lunch at the Dock Marina.  We drove out to the Fort Point Lighthouse which sits on a peninsula across from Trinity.  We had to take the gravel road but the scenery was gorgeous.  At the lighthouse there were four cannons pointed out to the mouth of the bay.  We walked all ...

July 2, 2017  Sunday We had wanted to drive to St. Vincent’s to try and see whales but the trip there and back is about 350 miles.  Too much for us on the hope to see whales.  Vonnie, the lady we met on the ferry, had recommended Brigus, a harbor town about 30 minutes away on the other side of Conception Bay from St. John’s.  We took the scenic route and stayed off TCH 1 on the way there.  We drove through many small harbor towns.  Lunch at Cupid’s Haven.  We decided to try the special...fish cakes, touton,  We drove around the town and went into a little church on top of a hill.  It’s not a working church now but is open to see.  Two young students were there and answered our questions and were very helpful.  They took us out back to see the view into the cove. It was a windy day but mostly clear and cool.  We parked in front of a cute little park and went across the road to the Country Corner Restaurant and Gift Sh...

JULY 1, 2017  SATURDAY    Canada Day Today is Canada Day 150!  Lots of events planned to celebrate all around the province.  Unfortunately it is cold and raining.  We decided today would be an inside kind of day. We drove to The Basilica Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in town.  Beautiful place.  Lots of stained glass.  Looked around on our own.  Didn’t appear they offered any type of tour.  It is still a working church. We drove into town and went to The Rocket Bakery.  I had a coffee and an almond croissant.  Looks like everyone in town knows about this place.  It was recommended to us by the couple we met at the Yellowbelly on our first night here. We walked (mostly uphill) to The Rooms.  This is a combination of Archives, Art Gallery and Museum.  Beautiful building.  It was free for Canada Day!  We chose to take the elevator to the top floor and work our way down....

JUNE 30, 2017  FRIDAY Woke up to a beautiful sunny day.  Still very cold in the mornings.  Decided to do outside things today since the weather is beautiful.  We drove first to Cape Spear Lighthouse.  Since we have a Parks Pass we get in free.  It was a nice drive from the campsite…not very far at all.  There is an old lighthouse as well as a newer automated one.  We toured through the old lighthouse and saw where families lived who worked the light.  At one time in history a family lived there.  There was a bedroom on the ground floor and two small ones on the upper level.  The lights were seven oil lamps which needed to be kept fueled all night long.  They also had flags to use to signal the town on ships arriving.  We did manage to see some humpback whales out off the cliffs.  They would come up for air but go back down.  The photos I took were not sufficient to see much.  I need a longer len...

JUNE 29, 2017  THURSDAY Once we arrived at port at 10 am I was one of the first cars off the ferry and Jim was not too far behind.  We met at the Visitor’s Center which was about 2 km down the road.  Thankfully the parking lot was empty and we were about to park and hook up the car with no problem.  It wasn’t long though before everyone else found the parking lot and it filled up quickly.  We got on the road and headed to St. John’s about 80 miles away.  It was very easy to navigate to the campground in St. John’s.  We are camping in Pippy Park Campground about 5 minutes from the waterfront.  After setting up camp I was exhausted and took a little nap.  Jim and I went out later for dinner and chose Yellowbelly which was recommended by the lady we met on the ferry.  It is right on Water Street along with most of the other restaurants in town. While having dinner a couple from Connecticut was seated next to us.  We had lots ...

JUNE 28, 2017  WEDNESDAY Today we sail!  We had a leisurely morning making sure we have everything we need to take on the ferry as well as all the travel documents we need to check in about 1 pm.  We had breakfast and lunch in the motorhome. It is very overcast and drizzly.  We were hoping for a sunny day but it is not to be.  We packed everything up and headed out.  We are stopping for fuel in North Sydney before we line up for the ferry.  Everything is very close so we do not have to drive far. Checked in for the ferry with no problems.  Just a few cars ahead of us.  It did not take long before the place filled up with cars, motorcycles, bicycles, trucks, motorhomes and trailers.  Our ferry is much larger than the one we had from Portland, Maine.  I hope that means we will have a smoother trip. While we were waiting to board I met a man in a truck with a homemade camper on the back.  He is from West Virginia ...

JUNE 27, 2017  TUESDAY Woke up to a beautiful sunny day.  Jim and I drove to The Fortress of Louisburg.  This is a recreated “city” from the 1700’s.  The recreated part standing now is only 1/5 th the original settlement.   There are many private homes, businesses, military barracks and defensive weapons…cannons.  At the bakery they bake soldier’s bread loaves every day to sell to visitors.  Unfortunately, we were too late to get any.  We did see the bread oven which had a fire inside.  It was a long drive from the campground and we did not get there until lunch time.  We found the restaurant and was seated at a long table (seating 6).  There were only about ten long tables and one round table.  There were no lights inside only the sun coming through the windows.   We ordered the meal with fish.  The starter was split pea soup which was very good.  Everything was served in pewt...