WATERFALLS.
TRAVEL DAY
From: Deer Lake Municipal RV Park, Deer Lake, NL.
To: Sir Richard Squires Memorial Provincial Park, Cormack, NL.
Day 38 – It was 42 degrees last night with rain & wind. There’s a bigger storm coming in with snow and heavy winds. We leave today for a campground inland more protected from the wind gusts. It’s not a long drive to the Park; we checked it out a couple of days ago when we saw the winds were coming.
After dumping tanks and filling up with fresh water, we departed Deer Lake Municipal RV Park at 11:25 a.m. The Park we are going to for the next 4 nights is a Provincial Park with no hook-ups. They have water spigots throughout the Park, and they do have a dump station. But there is a “Boil Water” sign at the spigots. This is why we brought a full tank of fresh water with us.
We stopped for a gas fill-up in the RV, then proceeded north on Trans Canada Highway 1 for a short distance before getting on Route 430. This is the road that takes travelers north to Gros Morne National Park, one of the prettiest places we’ve ever seen. And north of the National Park, Route 430 travels all the way to the northern tip of the Island. This area is called the Viking Trail.
Soon we headed east on Route 422 through the small town of Cormack. Then the paved two-lane highway became rough and soon it narrowed and became a dirt road. This last part of the journey was made on fairly rough road. We only encountered two other vehicles coming from the opposite direction. We slowed way down to make it easier on the rough road. The farm land became forest land. It was pretty, but the girls weren’t happy with the bouncy and rolling drive. (We had done this trip previously in the car just to make sure it wasn’t too rough to repeat it in the RV. ) The scenery was nice. The numerous White Birch trees were starting to get their new spring leaves. This was where we recently saw the two Caribou; we had hoped to see them again, but we didn’t. We passed over a narrow bridge that was overlooking a raging torrent of water crossing underneath. That’s spring for you.
We arrived at Sir Richard Squires Memorial Provincial Park at 12:30 p.m. It was 44 degrees, raining lightly & windy, but not as windy as it was in Deer Lake when we left there. We went to site #101, a large campsite with a view through the trees of Big Falls. When we were here a couple of days ago, we drove thru the campground checking out the campsites. This was the one we liked the best. There aren’t many campers here yet. The campground just opened for the season. We let the girls out; they were happy to be off the road. First we made lunch, and then we unpacked and set up.
The girls immediately liked it here. They weren’t thrilled with the Deer Lake campground. They, too, had just opened for the season, and the whole time we were there, work on the grounds building new campsites was taking place with loud machinery and the beeping of backing-up trucks heard constantly during daylight hours. Pixie was even growling like a dog at them. They are used to being in a quiet environment and it has made them even more picky than we are.
We cooked up a big batch of beans for Nachos, then worked on the blog. We don’t have a solid signal here, so once again the blog will have to be sent out late when we return to civilization. If and when the weather gets better while we are here at this campground, we will certainly explore the woods and these waterfalls.