NEWFOUNDLAND – VIRGIN TERRITORY.
Day 43 – We got spoiled having the entire Armistice RV Park to ourselves. Last night at this campground in Deer Lake, people nearby had their country music blaring and they were shouting back & forth with some arguing going on. We both had to put in earplugs at bed time. We got up a little before 7 a.m. this morning; 42 degrees and cloudy. No Red Foxes to greet us. Today we are driving into virgin territory, roads we’ve never been on before as we head from Deer Lake east on the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH) to Terra Nova National Park.
239 miles, (5:15), 39818-40057
First, we have to do a little tribute to the girls. It was 5 years ago today that we brought these little babies home with us. They were just little teeny kittens, 2 of them each not yet weighing one pound (Pixie & Luna). All four were underweight for their age (10 weeks old), their weights were being measured in terms of ounces, and they’d all been sick with the Feline CaliciVirus. Several kittens from this rescue of three litters of barn cats from the Catskills had passed away. We’d waited for 6 weeks for them to be healthy enough to bring home. (Pixie was still quite ill, but we felt she should be taken out of the environment of sick cats with her sisters. All four had to be weighed daily, and several trips to the vet were made. The foster family had a vet coming to their house daily and both Pixie and Luna had been hospitalized at one time before we brought them home.) But look at them now! Lovely little ladies traveling around seeing so many birds, sleeping on heated pads, and spending lots of time in close quarters with each other (good thing they get along!) and us. Adopting them was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. (These pictures were taken soon after we arrived at the campground yesterday, and they’d settled in after their journey.)
Click any picture below to see a slideshow.
We departed Gateway to the North RV Park at 9:45 a.m. It was 52 degrees and cloudy. We are traveling from west to east and south in Newfoundland to visit St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve. In researching the area, we’ve found that there’s no place near the Reserve to camp. The closest campground is 1 hour and 45 minutes away. Trips to and from the Reserve would be spent driving back and forth for pretty long distances. Visiting St. Mary’s would probably not be a one-time venture, but something we’d hopefully want to do daily for several days to a week. This area of the Avalon Peninsula is fairly remote without many towns. There is a very small town 10 minutes from St. Mary’s, St. Bride’s. I saw online that they had a place there, Bird Island Resort. It supposedly is the place where the birdwatchers stay when they come to the Reserve. I thought maybe the people at Bird Island Resort might know somewhere we could stay closer to St. Mary’s, rather than driving so long to get there. I called this morning and spoke to the owner, asking her if she knew anyplace we might be able to camp. She said we could stay at the Resort in the parking lot, for a nominal fee, and they could offer us water & electricity! No dump station so that would limit our stay to maybe four nights, but I am telling you, these Canadians are the nicest people! Thrilled, we now know we have some place to stay tomorrow night.
The drive to Terra Nova National Park was scenic with beautiful rolling hills, lakes, and many trees fluorescent green with spring color. Since leaving the Northern Peninsula, the weather has warmed, but now we have bugs. Had to happen sooner or later! The entire journey was on the TCH. We went through some fairly big cities, well bigger than the tiny villages we’d been seeing lately, and one such city was Gander. We had particularly wanted to drive through Gander. On that fateful day, September 11, 2001, when the United States had to close its airspace, 38 jetliners bound for the U.S. were forced to land in Gander. The citizens of this small community and surrounding towns were called upon to care for the thousands of stranded, distraught travelers. (Their stories are chronicled in the 2002 book by Jim DeFede, “The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland”.) We got gas in the RV and stopped for lunch, both extending the length of the drive, but the real excitement was the clouds in the sky. At lunch the sky kept getting darker and darker until almost black, by far the darkest sky I’d ever seen. Tornadoes are virtually unheard of in Canada (except coincidentally, for a small one in Ottawa just last week). Rob said if he saw a sky like that in the mid-western U.S., he’d definitely be worried. Anyway, most of the scenery took place in the sky. It did rain but the clouds were amazing. The high today was 70 degrees.
We arrived at our campground, Newman Sound Campground in Terra Nova National Park at 3 p.m. The attendant let us pick our campsite and we chose site #104 with a small water view and plenty of privacy with no one around us. The National Park is beautiful; the campground is nice. We opened all the windows and enjoyed the warmer temperatures. Soon, though, it rained but we welcome the warmth. A squirrel has been entertaining the girls, peaking at them on the dashboard. All is well.
Newman Sound Campground, Terra Nova National Park: Trans Canada Highway, Glovertown/Traytown, NL 10G 4K0; (709) 533-2801; website https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/nl/terranova. Check in 2 p.m. Check out by 11 a.m. Reservations are recommended in season! There are three organized campgrounds within Terra Nova National Park: Malady Head, Newman Sound, and Southwest Arm. There are also backcountry campsites accessible by boat only. Southwest Arm Campground is for backcountry camping; no services are available and you must hike in to your remote campsite. Malady Head & Newman Sound Campgrounds both have campsites that you can drive into to pitch a tent or camp in a vehicle or RV. Malady Head is open from June 12 to September 22 (2019) and is considered to be more rustic camping without lots of amenities, more private and not as crowded. They weren’t open yet, so we didn’t get to check that campground out. Newman Sound is open from May 15 to October 14 (2019) and is a very large campground with nearly 300 campsites, offering everything from tent sites to cabins to electric hook-ups to longer-term campsites to no hook-ups to extended generator hours, etc. Evidently this campground can be full in the summer when school is out. We got a campsite with electrical hook-ups without having reservations and without any difficulty, but until next weekend, it’s still considered off-season here. We drove through Newman Sound Campground and checked out all of the campsites. A few have limited water views and some have great privacy. Recommended are campsites #28, 80, 104, and 112, but many of the campsites are just fine. We picked site #104, electric hook-ups; there was no one camping around us. There is water available and there is a dump station at the campground. There’s lots of things to do here. Plenty of hikes and trails, boat rides, kayaking, etc. The setting is beautiful. We intend to come back for a week or so on the way back to the western part of NF. This time we are only staying one night because we’re on the way to St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve. The Park is located in eastern Newfoundland, approximately 200 km west of St. John’s and 60 km east of Gander. http://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/nl/terranova/visit/com-get. Terra Nova National Park is accessible by motor vehicle along the Trans-Canada Highway. From eastern or western Newfoundland, you will enter the Park’s east or west gate respectively along the Trans-Canada Highway. The highway runs through the park for approximately 40 km, with signage indicating campgrounds, trail heads, roadside pull-offs, day-use areas and the Visitor Centre located at Salton’s Brook. The Newman Sound Campground is situated 2 km from the Trans-Canada Highway, 10 km from the western park entrance, and 30 km from the eastern park entrance. Malady Head Campground is situated 15 km west of Newman Sound on Route 310 of the Eastport Peninsula. It offers 102 reservable campsites, all unserviced; there is a water fill-up station and a dump station. Newman Sound Campground offers 286 reservable campsites, 212 have electrical hook-ups and the others are unserviced. Generators are allowed in the campground loops which are unserviced and designated for generator usage. There is a laundromat, several playgrounds, outdoor theatre, convenience store, a water fill-up & dumping station, and the standard heated washrooms & shower facilities. Long-term campsites are also available at Newman Sound and reservations for these campsites can only be made by calling 1-877-RESERVE. Note: for all the campgrounds at Terra Nova, if all reservable sites are booked, please call the Park directly for information on additional campsite availability. The charge for site #104 with senior discount and off-season rate was $23.50 Canadian currency. We will definitely stay here again.