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.