TRAVEL DAY
From: Sir Richard Squires Memorial Provincial Park, Cormack, NL.
To:Sop’s Arm Park, Sop’s Arm, NL.
Day 42 – The low temperature last night was 47 degrees – ever changeable! It rained from dusk to dawn, so we didn’t expect to have good weather today. We left for our next campground at 10:40 a.m. It was 55 degrees and cloudy.
The first 25 minutes of our journey was traveling over those unpaved, pot-holed, very rough roads that we’d traversed previously when coming to Squires Park. It was another 15 minutes of not-so-good, partially paved road before the unhappy girls (and I) could relax. Turning left off Route 422 onto Route 430 was downright exhilarating! And soon heading east on Trans Canada Highway 1 was wonderful! Grin.
Instead of continuing north on Route 430 on the west side of the large and long northern peninsula, and going through Gros Morne National Park and further to the end of the Viking Trail, which is what we did in 2019, we are now heading east across the Province of Newfoundland. We will be coming back to the northern peninsula in mid-August when the weather should be nice and warm. Meanwhile, while the weather is still cooler (if not downright cold), we will be going north to the end of several smaller peninsulas in search of icebergs. And if we saw a Polar Bear or two, we wouldn’t be upset!
We continued on Highway 1 east until we reached the turn-off for Route 420; then we headed north again. Route 420 is on the eastern side of the great northern peninsula and from Highway 1, it heads north for 70 km to Jackson’s Arm, a tiny town near the end of the road at White Bay. At this point, there are no other roads along the eastern side of the northern peninsula; no towns, no communities, just miles and miles of wild land until several roads near the end of the northern peninsula head east and reach the Ocean.
There is one two-lane road, Route 420, that travels from Highway 1 to the end of the road. It travels through the mountains, passing by lakes and a few small towns. The route was beautiful. The road was rough most of the way, but at least it was paved. Because we were climbing up into the mountains, there was still snow on the ground. But since spring is trying hard to chase winter away, there were also lots of tiny yellow flowers lining the road. (It’s kind of confusing: Is it still winter? Has spring arrived yet? What about summer? It is almost June by the way!) Also, YAAY – Moose #5 was charging away from the road as we approached. The picture isn’t very good since we were bumping along at a good clip, but at least there IS a picture. We continued on Route 420 until we reached our destination, Sop’s Arm Park.
We arrived at the campground at 12:40 p.m. The Park’s season didn’t officially begin until tomorrow, June 1, but the campground hosts allowed us to come in a day early. We drove through looking at campsites and found the site we liked best, #19, a large and private campsite in the woods. We let the girls out and made lunch first, unpacking and setting up afterwards. It was sunny and 53 degrees with no wind.
The high today was 62 degrees and it remained sunny. We sat outside for awhile. Rob made two separate trips around the campground to take pictures of the birds, which were plentiful. Since they aren’t open yet, we were the only people around. We have no hook-ups here. There is drinking water available. We have no internet signal once again. We’ll be at Sop’s Arm Park for 3 nights, and weather permitting, we’ll check out the tiny towns and the water view at the end of the road tomorrow.
