June 29th - Ziplining and Cape Spear

Saturday we headed to Petty Cove to zipline at the longest zipline course in Canada. It has to be true, it is on the sign.

Here is a picture of Kellen in his gear ready to go.  The bus took us to within a 1/4 mile of the top. We then had to walk up a steep slope the rest of the way to begin our ten stations. From there it was across and downhill, over a half of a mile.

Here is a picture of Kellen headed across one canyon. 

On the longest section we were doing 60 mph and it felt like it. The course took us from the ridge above town to an area half a mile down the road. Here is a picture of the ridge we crossed. You can barely see a couple of the stations at the top.

We started in the town pictured below and ended up here giving us quite a view of the harbor town and the iceberg in the bay.

While Kellen and I were ziplining Kelly did a little shopping and found a place we needed to check out next - Cape Spear, the farthest point East on the North American Continent.  It was only about fifteen miles away. It had the original lighthouse there and the newer one built in 1955.  Here is a picture of the lighthouse built in 1955 with Kellen sitting on the top of the rock cliff looking out at the ocean. He just went out there on his own to contemplate the trip and take in the view.

This is a picture of the original lighthouse located about 1000 feet away from the newer one. It has been completely restored with a little outside work still going on.

It was crazy how cold it got up there when the fog moved in. Here is a picture from the top with all the steps leading up. The buildings are all being refurbished to accommodate tourists.

We are glad we made this short trek. We have now been to the Easternmost point, the Southernmost point in Key West, and the Westernmost point which is in Hawaii. We didn't go to the Artic Circle while in Alaska.

Today we will relax and pack everything up for the ferry ride tomorrow. We must check out of the park by 1:00 p.m., which works out fine because we have an hour drive to the ferry and must be there two hours ahead of departure. We take off at 5:00 p.m. for a seventeen hour ride back to Nova Scotia. Since the trip is so long we booked a cabin so we can sleep. When we arrive in Nova Scotia we will have to find a campground with a laundry before we proceed on down the road. Laundry piles up just like at home.

 

June 26th-28th - Brigus and Whale Watching

We arrived at the Old Mill RV Park in Avondale early on the 26th. We are staying at this park for five days and daytripping around until we catch the ferry on July 1st. There are no hookups at this park and no shower house. We can run our generator as needed during the daylight hours. When we got here the rules said inverter type generators only with a maximum decibel level of 56 dB. When we made reservations nothing was said about that. Our RV generator is quieter than construction generators by far but it is not a quiet inverter generator. I cranked it up and it is 60 dB. Close enough I think.

When we registered back in May she said she would put us in a big site down by the river. Did she ever do us a favor. We have the largest, nicest site in the entire park.  We are next to the river with only a row of picnic tables for those using the river between us and the river. Here are a couple of pictures.

The place was pretty empty when we arrived but she expected it to fill up because this is a holiday weekend with Monday, July 1st, being "Canada Day", their 4th of July. I'm glad we made a reservation.

After setting up we took a ride through the town of Avalon. While driving I spotted an iceberg and we headed down the road hoping to get closer to it. On the drive we saw the sign for the town of Brigus, which had been recommended to us by a friend. Brigus is a little historical fishing village with a beautiful harbor. From the harbor we could see the iceberg but it was quite a distance off. Here is a picture. Unfortunately the camera makes everything look farther way. But you can see the iceberg out in the middle.

One of the places to see in town was the tunnel. It was cut through the rock by the locals by hand to make it easier for the ship captains to get to their boats. Here is picture of us in it.

The views from the harbor are beautiful. Here are a couple of more pictures

Kellen was interested in the picnic tables they made out of large stones overlooking the water.

On the 27th we scheduled a whale watching and puffin watching tour in Bay Bull. This day appeared to be the best for weather conditions. The ride out there was on the worst road we have encountered yet. Here is a picture. I was glad I wasn't hauling Marge.

The weather was clear but on the way out fog set in. We saw a Minke whale and followed him around. He came up and down in the water so quickly I couldn't get a picture of him. Kellen was thrilled to get to see one. The humpbacks are just now starting to migrate through here so we didn't see any. Our final destination was an island where the Puffins and various Seagulls nest. They estimate 500,000 birds nest here every year. The Puffins mate for life and come back to the exact same place every year to mate and nest. They told us they only need four square inches to mate and nest. They can identify their own egg by the color, which is like a bar code. Pretty amazing.  Here are a couple of pictures of the birds even though it was a little foggy.

The brown mass on the following picture are birds.

Several times the birds would all take off by the thousands and fly out over the water. This meant a predator was flying around. When the Puffins abandoned their nests temporarily like this the Seagulls would get their eggs. We actually saw one do that. They only lay one egg per year. As we were leaving we saw an immature eagle sitting on the cliff.  Really cool.

On the way back to the harbor we had some spectacular views. Here is one which I might make my screen saver.

We had a wonderful seafood lunch at the restaurant across from the tour boat and headed back. On the way back we decided to go to opening day of the new Costco in St. John's. We knew it would be a mad house and boy was it ever. There were cops at all the intersections and roundabouts directing traffic. We were barely able to find a parking spot on the huge lot. Inside there were so many people we couldn't get through most of the isles. It was crazy. We got the items we came for and got out of there!  I was checking out and it rejected by Visa card. I put in a second Visa card. It rejected it. I put in my Discover card and it rejected it. I was then told by the checker that they only took Mastercard. My bank debit card is a Mastercard. I tried it and it was rejected. I was about to apologize and abandon our basket of food when I realized that I had enough Canadian cash to pay for what we purchased. I was glad I had been conservative on the use of the Canadian money I got before we left home. For traveling I guess we need to get rid of one Visa card and get a Mastercard. 

Friday we scheduled ziplining for Kellen and me. The forecast changed and it was to be cloudy and rainy so we rescheduled for today (Saturday). Instead we drove into St. John's yesterday and saw the movie "Toy Story 4". It was a nice movie.

We got back to the campground and there was a marshmellow roast at the community campfire by the river next to our campsite. Kellen and I had a few with the multitude of kids there. We talked to several of the kids who had just gotten out of school the day before. They go back to school in September.

June 24th-25th - Green's Harbour-Hearts Content

Yesterday morning the sun was out and it was a great day for a drive to our next destination, Green’s Harbour. Most of the drive was on Trans Canadian Highway 1 (TCN). The road pavement was great for a change. The TCN is like the U.S. highway system in the states. It rolls up and down with the hills and valleys. Roads and highways intersect it. In Newfoundland it is one lane with lots of passing lanes on the hills for slower vehicles like us. Everyone is patient and waits until the next passing lane to pass. The shoulders are wider on TCN allowing a vehicle to get off the road if necessary. It was a scenic drive.

There were a lot of signs warning of Moose crossings on the road but we saw none. It is hard for me to watch for Moose as I drive trying to avoid the potholes. We have seen four Moose so far during the trip, two out at the edge of a field and two by the side of the road. No bulls though.

As is usually the case the GPS could not find our campground even though I put an address in. The address was Route 80 and Main Highway. As you go through these small harbor towns there is only one highway, the one you are on, so the address struck me as strange. We got to a spot and the GPS said we had reached our destination. There was no campground or anything else in sight on either side of the road. We proceeded down the highway through the town of Green’s Harbour. After getting totally through town it was obvious we missed the campground. I got to the top of a hill where there was a road on the left. I turned down the road with the intention of then backing Marge into the highway to turn around. Kelly thought this was a major mistake because the cars came flying by on the curve. The problem is that there are no places to turn around a big rig on these provincial highways. About every stretch of the highway is hilly or curvy. Once out of town there are only houses. There are no big lots or roads to turn around in so I took my chances here. Kelly got out and watched for the oncoming traffic as best she could and gave me a sign when it was clear to back out. As soon as I could clear the front end of the truck I pulled forward to get to the side of the highway as quickly as possible. Luckily there wasn’t a lot of traffic on this Monday morning. Right down the road was a craft store with enough gravel area in front that I could get off the road and go in and ask about the location of the campground. I was told it was further down in the direction we were headed about a mile and that the entrance was right next to the hardware store. As we approached I saw what she meant. The entrance sign looked like you turned into the parking lot of the hardware store but it was in fact a road back to the campground.

The Golden Arm RV Park is a large campground with a lot of permanent sites. You have to love these rural places. Momma checked us in while a fellow I assume was her son was putting cooked food on the table for lunch right next to us. There was a sign posted to not drink the water unless boiled. There was a lot of that here in Newfoundland. At Terra Nova Park we were told all the water is potable. I went to the potable water spigot and filled two jugs for drinking water. Both jugs when full were a green/tan color. Kelly said she wasn’t drinking that so I poured them out. Luckily we have several unopened jugs of water left we brought with us to use.

After eating a sandwich we drove into a town we passed on the way - DILDO, NL. We had to go there right? The town has a nice harbor and for the first time this entire trip we saw a number of large pleasure boats at the docks, 35-40 foot cabin cruisers. Kelly had seen a sign for a winery so we thought we would check it out. It ended up not being a winery but a brewing company. Here is a picture. A very nice, new place.

We shared their beer sampler which was eight different brews. Some were pretty good, some were n not so good. Kellen enjoyed two glasses of Pepsi. We ordered two cheese pretzels, which were some of the best we ever had. Here is a picture of Kelly enjoying her tasting. It was nice to sit there looking out the window over the harbor.

On the way to the Dildo Brewing Company we passed a craft and ice cream store so back we went to get Kellen an ice cream (the boy gets what he wants pretty well, after all we have a limited time to spoil him these days).  Kelly bought herself a Dildo coffee mug. Sitting outside the craft/ice cream shop was this boat. I loved it.

Kellen rarely takes pictures but he had to take this one to send to his buddies I'm sure.

We then headed back to the campground were the sun was shining and we were able to sit out and enjoy the warmer weather and sit by the water. Here is a picture of the view from our campsite. Not bad.

Kelly made a nice pork and gravy over rich dish for supper. We have no Wifi nor cell phone service so we watched the DVD “The Dust Bowl” by Ken Burns. I learned a lot about this man-made environmental disaster.

This morning we took a drive to Hearts Content, NL to tour the museum of the first transatlantic cable office. The building was really nice and all the equipment is still in place even though the cable operation was shut down in 1965. I was astounded at the amount of equipment involved in telegraph messages like this. At one point 300 people were employed here which was huge for this little fishing village.

Here are some pictures of the equipment inside. It was all much more electronically complicated than I ever thought it would have been.

Here is a picture of the cable just as it came out of the water 100 years ago. It was all quite an engineering feat requiring 4,300 kilometers of unbroken cable from Great Brittan. Amazing.

Tomorrow we head to our final campground destination in Newfoundland. It is on a river bank with no electric, water, nor sewer hookups for five days. It is the closest campground we could find to the ferry landing. Thus there may be no posts for up to a week. We will be taking day trips into St. John's, the Capitol, but probably won't be able to blog from there. Our Newfoundland/Labrador adventure is coming to a close, then a leisurely trip back home.

 

June 22nd - Terra Nova National Park

Saturday we drove to Terra Nova National Park, one of two national parks in Newfoundland. It is a beautiful area with extremely dense forests. Upon checking in we learned that bear are a very big concern here. We were given lots of warnings because there has been recent bear activity near the campground.

It is a holiday weekend here, "Discoverer Day", but there was no problem getting a nice campsite in the park.  Here is a picture of Marge backed into our spot carved out of the woods.

Not far behind our campsite is a great playground for kids. Something we had never seen before in a playground was a ziplining rig. Kellen really enjoyed it. Here are a couple of pictures. He did it multiple times. I enjoyed watching be a twelve year old.

We needed fuel bad and learned that the closest diesel was in Glovertown about fifteen miles back. I thought about stopping there on the way to the park but saw no station close to the highway so we passed it up. I'm glad we came back without Marge attached. Getting in and out of the station and then turning around in town would have been a challenge. It is always easier to get diesel with no trailer attached. By the way diesel here averages about $1.30 Canadian per liter or about $4.00 per gallon. I've been afraid to check my fuel mileage with all the hills we go up and own every day.

We drove down the coast a little and took a left turn toward East Pointe. A quarter mile down the road was a wooden decked, one lane bridge. Here is a picture of it. I literally had about six inches of clearance on each side of my dual wheels. Each side had a ramp up to the bridge so you had to drive all the way to the bridge itself to see if anyone was on it coming at you.

Later, with a little direction, Kellen cooked supper for us. We had fried pork chops, baked potato, and corn. It was all very good. He is eager to learn how to cook. Grandma is teaching him about the importance of seasoning. Here is a picture of Kellen digging in.

While we were sitting out under the awning after supper it poured down rain once again. (The weather changes here pretty often.) Here is a picture of the pouring rain. It is hard to capture on a picture how hard it came down for a while. I guess I need to learn how to take videos and download them. With the poor Wifi we have most of the time they probably wouldn't load anyway.

Sunday is laundry day and a little hiking if the weather permits.

June 20th-21st - Twillingate

Yesterday we had a nice day for a drive to Twillingate, known as Iceberg Alley, because the icebergs float into the area. Twillingate is actually an island that has been connected to the mainland by a bridge. Two thirds of the road getting here was quite rough - pothole upon pothole, bad patch upon bad patch. Once we got here though we could tell it was worth the drive. It is actually a "town" of 2,400 people with the first hospital we have seen on the our road trip. We were told that twenty years ago the town had a population of 8,000 but people have moved West. It is a charming town with lots of B & Bs, lots of restaurants, and a dinner theater. You can tell that it is a more upscale vacation spot than the B & Bs we have seen in all the small hamlets we have driven through or stayed in so far. The town even has a Foodliner grocery store where we stopped to pick up a few things. Of course the prices on everything are high as elsewhere on the trip. Here is a pack of two steaks weighing about a pound for over $33.00 Canadian or $25.00 American. Chicken and pork was equally as expensive.

Upon checking the weather last night we found that today it was to start raining for the next couple of days. We checked about going out on an iceberg and whale watching boat trip and were told that rain didn't matter so we booked a trip for today. Getting up this morning it wasn't raining and actually the rain forecast had been moved back so we were in luck. We dressed in layers to deal with the temperature in the high 40s plus wind on the boat. There were only about fourteen on the boat which made it very easy to move around and take pictures.

Newfoundland is known as "the rock" for a reason. All of the coastline is rock and rock cliffs. Here are a couple of pictures we took on the way out into the bay.

This time of year is the end of the iceberg season and the beginning of the whale migration season. We were able to get up close to the only iceberg remaining in the bay. The Captain said this morning it was only one-fifth of the size it was yesterday and at this rate it will be gone by tomorrow. I am glad we booked today.  Here is a picture of Kellen in front of it, a picture of it, and a picture of the three of us in front of it.

Because it was small, about the size of our boat, the Captain was able to get up close. The crew had ice from an iceberg on board for us to taste. It is 12,000 years old water and pure as pure can be. It is so dense that if you put in your beverage it will last eight hours.  Here is a picture of Kellen trying it.

The icebergs here are from Greenland. It takes an iceberg four to six years to get here. I would have thought the ice would have taken on a salty flavor over that period of time in the water but it did not.

Here is a picture of the view from our campsite. Not bad. It is good that there are few bugs because of the temperature but it makes it a little too chilly to sit outside when the sun isn't out.

This is the only campground near the island and it had a lot of bad reviews. We have not found it bad at all. The driveway as you first come in has lots of potholes, which we are used to by now, other than that it is fine. As with all the campgrounds here you have to be in the office or the lounge area to use the Wifi. This frustrates Kellen but he is surviving by using Kelly's phone as a hotspot when he can.

Here is a picture of the town from one side to the other. The buildings are well taken care of and there are lots of bright colors. Surprisingly there are new buildings going up. Kellen wondered why there were so many B & Bs until Kelly pointed out that there are no hotels.

Here is a street map so you can see how I could take a picture from one side to the other. The red lines are the streets.

The first mate on the boat ride was "Paul". He was really interesting to talk to. This is the thirty-eighth boat he has been on in his career and four of them he was on went down. He loves the sea. He said his daughter is in the Canadian Navy and will retire this year with twenty years in. She loves the sea as well. He said his son gets seasick just walking down a dock. Paul hunts and traps for food. He was getting a rabbit out of a trap last year when he looked up and saw a moose right there. He must have been on the moose's path because it picked him up with his antlers and threw him against a tree. He broke his knee, his collar bone, and three ribs. He laid there until someone came by and found him. He was in the hospital for twenty-one days. He said he is now quite afraid of moose. He said you can get a tag every three years to hunt moose and every year to hunt bear. He said a couple of years ago a bear ran him up a tree. He was there for seven hours. He had his gun but he had just gotten there and his bullets were still in his knapsack on the ground. Every time the bear tried to come up the tree he hit him with his rifle. The bear clawed and clawed at the tree trying to get to him. Finally someone came by and shot the bear. Crazy. Paul has lived here all of his life. He loves the winter as well. He cuts his own wood for heat and splits it all by hand. They get a permit from the government to cut firewood in certain areas. He said houses here are incredibly cheap. A nice house with a basement can be bought for about $22,000.00. No market.

Paul suggested the winery for lunch. Kelly and I laughed at the idea of a winery when the closest place to grow grapes is in New Brunswick. We took his advice and headed there for lunch after Kelly bought a couple of souvenirs.  One thing on the menu we had to try was "jiggs", Cod tongue. They are deep fried and once were for the poor people but now are a delicacy. They have a gelatin/fish combination consistency and are quite tasty. Here is picture of Kelly and Kellen enjoying them.

As we left the winery I got a picture of "Kellen the Moose". We will have a relaxing evening in the RV before heading East in the morning.

 I'm not sure where we will end up tomorrow. Driving all day weaving around potholes in the rain will  not be fun.