NEWFOUNDLAND – A LONG BUT PRODUCTIVE DRIVE.
Day 104 – It was 60 degrees this morning at 7 a.m., partly cloudy & humid. We will be staying here through the weekend, leaving on Sunday for our last set of camping & exploration before we reach the west coast and Northern Peninsula again.
When we arrived in Newfoundland in May, there were plenty of places on the western side that were not open yet due to the cold temperatures and the remaining ice & snow on the ground. Our plan was to travel to other parts of NF during the summer & then return to the beautiful Northern Peninsula and west coast for late summer/early fall. This plan included visiting Labrador plus spending much more time at Gros Morne National Park, and also a return trip to the tip of the Northern Peninsula when the Pistolet Provincial Park would be open to learn more about the area where the Viking artifacts had been discovered.
Before beginning that final section of our trip, we had one more north central peninsula area to explore. This included the area we’re in right now – Robert’s Arm, Triton, and the many small villages here; then moving on to what people have said is some of the prettiest scenery in NF: the Baie Verte Peninsula including La Scie & Fleur de Lys and all the coves & villages up there. There are only two campgrounds in the Baie Verte Peninsula; we knew we’d better scout these in advance & make reservations that covered next weekend for sure. August is the busiest vacation time here.
We left at 9:30 a.m. First up was Flatwater Pond RV Park near the town of Baie Verte, almost 100 km from our current campground, followed by Island Cove RV Park, a very small campground run by the town in La Scie, about another 70 km. Then the drive back to Robert’s Arm. (Sometimes we think it would just be easier to call on the phone or go to the internet & book sites there. But how do you know if the Park is decent? If it is someplace you want to spend time at? Or which campsites are big enough, level enough, quiet enough, etc. We’ve done it the other way and ended up very unhappy – I mean you don’t want to end up in an unsafe place.) Well, we were glad we scoped out beforehand today.
Flatwater Pond RV Park was written up as a former Provincial Park with plenty of sites on a pristene pond with plenty of privacy & trees. Island Cove RV Park was written up as having an incredible view of the Ocean, but there were only 9 campsites with some hook-ups & 5 sites with no hook-ups. Small parks like this, particularly town-run parks, usually are RV’s parked in a row & no privacy or space between sites. We both thought we’d be ending up liking Flatwater Pond more and booking there.
Flatwater Pond was crowded, filled with seasonal campers, no privacy, and some roads through the campground were almost impassable. Of the few unoccupied campsites, one was vacant because the ground was soft & it needed repair. The campground was located right by the road where large logging & mining trucks drove by. We left there thinking, uh-oh, that just leaves the very small campground – how likely would it be that they’d have a place for us for 8 to 10 days straight including a weekend?
Island Cove was located on a cliff with hiking trails around it & amazing views. The Capelin had arrived & people were walking down to watch the whales. The village of La Scie was pretty. But the campground had only a few campsites big enough for us; most sites were tent-sized. We saw three campsites that could accommodate us & they happened to be the ones with the best views. We figured we wouldn’t be able to get in at one of these sites for the timeframe we had in mind and would have to give up the visit to this peninsula until another visit to NF.
The campground manager returned from lunch. She looked at her book & she could give us one of the three sites for our timeframe. We were surprised! Coming all this way certainly did pay off. We reserved the campsite, ate lunch at the Park, and headed back to our RV. It was humid & quite warm, 82 degrees & partly cloudy. We spent an hour in the tent, then headed out to the only game in town for dinner: Fudge’s in Triton. We’d heard that you could sometimes see whales from the deck.
All deck tables were taken but we did get a seat by the window. It was a nice place, but it filled up rapidly & there were only two waitresses who not only took orders & delivered food, but ran the counter, took care of seating customers & taking their payments, played bartender, bussed & set up the tables, etc. Right after we got there, a party of 20 came in and was seated. Understandably the service left lots to be desired & it took a very long time to get our food, but the food was very good. We had the Spinach Dip appetizer which was surprisingly good and we split two fish dishes: The Pan-Fried Cod with Carmelized Onions and the Fish & Chips, both meals with excellent Onion Rings instead of Fries. We watched people wait in line 20 minutes to pay their bill. We did not watch whales, didn’t see any. But the scene in the restaurant kept us entertained. Those employees were gonna be pretty tired at the end of this night! Back at the RV, we sat out in the tent and stayed cool out there, until it started getting dark. We were happy not needing to worry about where we were going to stay for the next couple of weeks.