NEWFOUNDLAND – YES, PLANS DO CHANGE.
Day 68 – Foggy and 51 degrees this morning at 8 a.m. It rained hard last night. We were able to look at the news this morning; it had been a long time. We’re better off not knowing. The ice is still melting in Greenland; the Japanese have begun whaling again. There is flesh-eating bacteria everywhere; four asteroids will collide with the Earth; a whole bunch of Democrats are running for President. Donald Trump is still Donald Trump.
We left at 10:45 to scout out a few other campgrounds & do a little exploring along the way. Since we happily have internet again, we’d researched the upper Bonavista Peninsula for camping possibilities. When we left it was 54 degrees and foggy. The mosquitoes have arrived; now it’s a battle between the Biting Black Flies and the Monster Mosquitoes for our blood. They think it’s quite tasty. It got all the way up to 56 degrees this afternoon and the fog got thicker. We saw some outrageously beautiful rocky headlands and some coves with waves crashing below, but only if we were really up close. The fog was that dense. We’re assuming the views were astonishing. No pictures were taken; it was that bad.
We looked at one campground that was in a field and not crowded. Another possibility was a Town Park in Elliston, but it was off a small road that climbed to a beautiful headland where thousands of people come to see Puffins. The traffic was steady from the people coming and going. And we sincerely doubt they could see a thing. The third place was the parking lot for the Bonavista Lighthouse. A lovely setting but it was just a parking lot. And they need that lot for the hundreds of visitors that come to see the lighthouse. Not a very relaxing stay for campers, I’m sure. The ranger said that campers had to be out of there early in the morning so the tour buses had a place to turn around. No thank you.
At that point we came to a couple of conclusions. We looked at the weather forecast (because we now have an internet connection, did we mention that, LOL). At this peninsula, and the next couple of peninsulas west of here, it will be cool, rainy & foggy for most of the next ten days. And we couldn’t see whales in this weather. The incredible views are rarely visible. We’ve been hanging around, not going too far from eastern Newfoundland because we wanted to go back to the Cape St. Mary’s Seabird Ecological Reserve to see the young birds in their nests once they’d hatched. That would’ve been in about three weeks. If we want to go in another direction and see things where it’s not so foggy, and then come back to this area when it’s a little warmer, we can do that now & not go see the birds again later this month. Since we’ve already spent time at Cape St. Mary’s, we decided to leave the fog behind (hopefully) and move on tomorrow to a southern peninsula rather than the northern ones. We’ll come back to see the whales later.
We returned to the RV around 3 p.m., cooked up a huge batch of Chili for the next several night’s dinners, and relaxed for the evening. Tomorrow is another day.
Lockston Path Provincial Park: Route 236 (a dirt road), about 6 km from Port Rexton, NF on the Bonavista Peninsula, (709) 464-3553 or (709) 637-2040; e-mail nlcamping@gov.nl.ca; website www.nl.camping.ca. The campground is open mid-May to mid-September. This campground is fairly small with 37 unserviced campsites and 20 sites with electricity and water. There is a dump station. The Park is 5 km from the main highway and off a dirt road. There is no traffic noise. It is densely wooded with mature trees. There is a beautiful freshwater lake with a boat launch. Lockston Path Provincial Park is close to the historic town of Trinity. It is also about 45 minutes to an hour from Bonavista and the lighthouse, where there is much to see and do (fishing, hiking, restaurants, craft stores, museums, boat tours, Puffin watching, Whale watching, and Iceberg watching). The fog here can be quite dense at certain times of the year, hampering some activities. The historic towns draw many tourists; it can get crowded. It’s kind of trendy with Inns and B&B’s. This was an excellent campground. We had site #47 with electric & water hook-ups. We had an internet connection. We would stay here again.