NEWFOUNDLAND – FRENCHMAN’S COVE TO GANDER.
Day 75 – At 6:30 this morning it was 53 degrees & partly cloudy, but it promised to be another pretty day. But we’re leaving this southern peninsula for a northern one. We figure if we are inundated with fog & rain again, we’ll just pack up and go back down south.
223 miles, (4:45), 40822-41045
We departed at 9:50 a.m. after dumping tanks. There were amazing clouds in the sky for the first hour or so of our drive. Then around the time we left Burin Peninsula and headed west on the Trans-Canada Highway, it started pouring down rain. Was this an omen? It rained on & off all the way to our campground.
Click any picture below to see a slideshow.
We had not scoped out campgrounds in this area in advance. We picked Jonathan’s Pond Campground to try to get a site at, then if there were none available or we didn’t want to stay there after seeing it, we figured we’d just head around the peninsula to the next campground. And keep trying until we got something. This campground is at the southwest edge of this peninsula, about 15 km above Gander & the TCH. Gander is a city we’d wanted to visit.
Immediately after getting off the highway and driving through a small portion of Gander, we entered dense woods. That was a good sign. We arrived at Jonathan’s Pond Campground, on a rough dirt road away from the road (Route 330), at 2:35 p.m. It was 56 degrees, cloudy with a little rain (and LOTS of bugs). OMG, we’d been by the Ocean with the wind blowing an almost constant breeze – bugs tended to be minimal. Go into a place that’s damp with rain, humid, and heavily tree’d? OUCH.
The advertisement for this campground had said that all sites were private. Good, we said. Most of the campsites were not available for the four nights we requested. We were given three to choose from that were available. We drove to take a look at them. First, their idea of private is different from our idea of private, evidently. Yes, the RV’s were not all lined up in a row in a parking lot – been there, done that – but every campsite was smallish with a few trees around it & surrounded by other campsites, smallish & fully occupied. Still, we’d been spoiled by staying at these fantastic provincial parks in great locations without hook-ups (therefore, not many people wanted to camp there). Jonathan’s Pond is bordered by, guess what? Jonathan’s Pond, a large, very pretty lake. Every campsite on the lake was already taken by seasonal campers. Oh well, we decided we’d already driven long enough, we’d stay in the middle of the campground in a semi-private site – it’s only four nights. AND we had electrical & water hook-ups, what a concept! Plus, it was about time to do laundry and they had laundry facilities. There are some advantages to independent campgrounds vs. provincial or state parks.
We had camp set up by 4:30 p.m. and had rid the RV of the mosquitoes & black flies that had entered when we went in & out of the vehicle. The girls settled in quickly. They like a good bug chase to keep them occupied and feed them a snack. Yuk!
We discovered that we have intermittent internet & phone connections here. We’ll see what happens as to whether we can post the blog or not.