NEWFOUNDLAND – NOTRE DAME PROVINCIAL PARK TO LEADING TICKLES.
Day 92 – Today was the end of Month #3, Trip 6. Our third month’s recap is at the end of today’s blog. Today was 65 degrees this morning at 7 a.m., sunny and it was warming up quickly. We left for a drive; the campground was crowded and we knew it’d be hot & noisy in no time. We headed west and north for a long drive to a town called Leading Tickles, hoping it would be cooler closer to the Notre Dame Bay.
When we first heard of waterways and towns being called tickles, or a tickle, we cracked up. Now we know that a tickle is where a waterway is crowded by land on both sides, so close that it tickles it. Up near Grates Cove, one of our favorite stops so far, there was an island called Baccalieu Island off the mainland. The fairly narrow ocean waterway that passed between the island and the peninsula was called the Baccalieu Tickle. Many, many shipwrecks have occurred throughout the last few centuries when ships have passed through and misjudged where the cliffs were on either side.
Route 350 north of the Trans-Canada Highway at first travels alongside the Bay of Exploits, then heads inland as the peninsula narrows, then follows the South West Arm and the West Arm of the Notre Dame Bay. Once you’ve gone beyond the larger towns within 20 km of the TCH, the highway becomes more isolated and there’s not much traffic. We passed through a few small towns: Northern Arm, Point Leamington, Pleasant View, and drove by the turn-off to Glover’s Harbour – before reaching the town at the end of the peninsula, Leading Tickles. We quickly saw, now that we knew what a Tickle was, the reason for calling this town a tickle – a bridge was built over the waterway from the mainland peninsula to a small island. This became Leading Tickles and it was charming. And amazingly enough, off of the town was an Iceberg. An iceberg that appeared to be melting, but it was amazing that towards the end of July, there would be one at all.
I’m melting…. In the 85 degree heat! Leading Tickles, NF
We discovered there was a campground there and drove through, directed by the campground owner to check out site #10. Wow, on a cliff over the harbor, looking across at the small town, that was site #10. When asking about availability, we found out that it’s festival time in Newfoundland. Right now a festival was going on at Glover’s Harbour which was causing the campground to be full. And beginning in less than a week, Leading Tickles would have its own festival. A grassy, overflow camping area and parking area had been set aside because they get so busy with days of fun.
Not having made any set plans yet, we left our name for site #10, for Tuesday & Wednesday of next week. Those were the only two nights it was available until August 17. We drove through the town and headed back down Route 350 to Point Leamington where we ate our lunch & tried to stay cool. It was 85 degrees. We also checked out a small town park campground there, just in case. (We know lots of people like hot weather and some consider 85 degrees to be quite nice. And we know that lots of people have been sweating out temperatures in the northeast, mid-atlantic, and southern states. Temperatures above 85 and into the 100’s for over a month, with few breaks. We are glad we’re here and haven’t been in NY for all of this; we feel for you. So a day or two at 85 or higher isn’t so terrible, right? However, we MUST complain.)
Because we thought we’d be heading back up this peninsula in several days, we didn’t complete the other part of our exploratory drive, up Route 352 to Fortune Harbour. We figured we’d just do it when we came back. We turned on the air conditioner in the car, finally, and except for the LONG delay on the freshly tarred section of the TCH where we were sure the car would overheat, we were comfortable. Arriving back at the RV, we quickly headed out to the screened tent with battery-operated fans. We had no electrical hook-ups, so no A/C for us. Even in the late afternoon, the swimming area was packed with screaming kids. Hope they had sunscreen on! The traffic on the campground road was steady; the noise was worse than yesterday. The high today was 87 degrees and the evening didn’t seem to cool off much. Towards midnight the teenagers were hiking around with flashlights on and shouting still. This is a busy campground on a summer weekend.
TRIP #6, MONTH 3, RECAP: One month ago, we were at Grates Cove, which is still one of our favorite places one month and many coves later. We visited other peninsulas, northern & southern. The Bonavista Peninsula, one of the more-visited areas in Newfoundland, was first, but we didn’t stay long. It was cold and dense fog, plus the large crowds, chased us away. We will come back to this area again, but not during the summer peak season. After just a couple of days there, we left for a southern peninsula that was not as popular. The Burin Peninsula turned out to be as memorable as Grates Cove and we stayed a week. Two small villages on this peninsula really stood out for their beauty – Harbour Mille & Petit Forte. We kayaked from our campsite at Frenchman’s Cove Provincial Park. The weather was perfect. Leaving Bonavista was the right decision. After Burin, we stayed near Gander, then traveled north again since the foggy weather had moved on. We stayed in Twillingate, then on Fogo Island. Both were great experiences. But oddly enough, the Capelin were late in showing up on the beaches to spawn; therefore, the whales had not yet arrived. Nevertheless, we enjoyed both places. From there we traveled to Notre Dame Provincial Park in central NF, where we are now. A hot spell has come in and we are doing what we can to avoid the heat. As we approach this 4th month we are looking forward to La Scie & Fleur de Lys, at the tips of the Baie Verte Peninsula. We’ve heard so much about how beautiful this area is. And we’re really looking forward to the Connaigre Peninsula and Harbour Breton, a southern peninsula that is quite remote with only one road going in & out. Supposedly amazingly pretty, too. We hope to see Moose, maybe Caribou, and possibly some Bears at either of these two peninsulas. We stayed at six different campgrounds during this month and ate some really good lobster & crab. We’ll see what happens next month!