NEWFOUNDLAND – CONNAIGRE PENINSULA DRIVE #1.
Day 96 – We were fogged in again today which made us extend our stay here because supposedly we should get some sunlight Friday & Saturday. This area is too beautiful to miss it in all its glory. It was 59 degrees this morning, humid & thick fog.
We gave up on waiting for the fog to lift & decided to go for a drive. The Connaigre Peninsula is group of shorter southern peninsulas west of the Burin Peninsula which we loved because it wasn’t as crowded as the Avalon Peninsula & because it had some truly gorgeous tiny villages. This area is similar, but even less crowded due to its remoteness. It’s called the “Coast of Bays Scenic Route”. Not so scenic when it’s buried in dense fog, the fog still offers a certain mystique when you look down on the fjords from the top of the hills. As we drove, in places the fog would lift to reveal the amazing landscape around us, then close in again. Kinda like a Stephen King book.
We drove by rocky dirt road to Furby’s Cove, a beautiful village not even on the map. There are no stores or gas stations for many, many miles. We stopped at a turnout for a late lunch, then continued on the one road in & out, visiting towns like Hermitage, Sandyville, and Seal Cove. It was actually surprising that these towns had as many people living in them as they did. They certainly weren’t big towns, but it’s not easy here with so few services available.
Click any picture below to see a slideshow.
There are towns we didn’t see because you cannot reach them unless you have a boat. There are no roads to them. They lie in bays along the southern coastlines, serviceable by ferry. The ferry visits weekly and carries passengers & freight, no cars. Made me want to get a boat. Can you imagine living that way? (But that IS the way all of NF lived not so long ago since many of the coastal communities throughout the Province only got roads in the 1960’s.) The ferry departs from Hermitage and visits the towns of Gaultois, McCallum, Hares Ears Point, Francois, and Grey River; no roads go there. We wished we could see some of these really remote towns, but the ferry only runs weekly – where would you stay & who would feed the girls when we were gone; we couldn’t take the car & certainly not the RV.
On the way to & from the end of this peninsula, we saw campgrounds – not official ones – just trailers parked in quarries, setting up their own place to stay. (The only official campground in this whole area of small peninsulas is the one we are staying at in Harbour Breton.) But it appears lots of people are boondocking in the quarries. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Of course, there are no facilities, no restrooms or water or anything at all, but they appeared to be parked for the long term, and it certainly didn’t look like a homeless gathering. Speaking of homeless, we have not seen any homeless people anywhere in NF thus far.
Back at the RV, in deep fog, we sat out in the screened tent and enjoyed the quiet. If the fog continues, we’ll just take the exploratory drives anyway & see what we can. We didn’t do too badly today. The high today was 73 degrees.