We Made it to Newfoundland!

 We boarded the ferry to Newfoundland in North Sydney, NS. Before boarding we tucked the dogs into the camper, opened a few windows and headed upstairs for our 7 hour journey. Barb does not remember the exact cost but she thinks the ferry was $260ca. Under $300 for sure. 

The accommodations on the ferry itself exceeded our expectations. Nice comfortable reclining chairs with multiple TV's. The problem is that you needed headphones we left ours in the camper. 

The seas were calm with a gentle rocking motion side to side but nothing that would upset our stomachs. We watched some baseball (without sound), read our books, napped, got a burger from the restaurant and walked around. 

There was not a lot to see outside until we got closer to Newfoundland. The first thing I noticed was snow in some of the higher elevations.  Newfoundland has always been a bucket list items of ours, I don't know why but it has always held some kind of mystique with us and we were about to land!

There she is, Newfoundland!

When the ferry was docked they allowed us to go down to our vehicles. All in all the dogs were down there about 8 hours. They were happy to see us but no worse for wear. 

It was about 8:00pm and we were ready for bed. The dogs were ready to play. So we compromised and took them for a walk when we got into town. We spent the night in the public library parking lot. Barb had heard they allow it and bonus, they had free Wi-Fi! 

So here's a strange and interesting fact about Newfoundland. They are in a different time zone than Nova Scotia. So we added another time zone to our list. Newfoundland Time Zone or NT. The weird thing about it is that it is only 30 minutes earlier than the Atlantic Time Zone. Who knew?!?!? Here is what the google has to say about it:

The Newfoundland Time Zone (NT) is a geographic region that keeps time by subtracting 3.5 hours from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) during standard time, resulting in UTC−03:30; or subtracting 2.5 hours during daylight saving time.^[1]  It is observed solely in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Newfoundland Time Zone is the only active time zone with a half-hour offset from UTC in the Americas. 

The terrain here is very rugged, lots of hills, mountains and sharp cliffs covered in low vegetation and trees. I will try to get some more pictures of the terrain for our next post. 

The next day we headed north to Corner Brook where we stopped at the Visitors Center. We stopped there for two reasons; one was to get information on what to see in the area, the second was to check out their parking lot for our overnight stay as they allow overnight parking in their lot.

Barb gathered the information she wanted and we combined that with what Marie had given us on the area as well. In fact Marie and her husband are from Newfoundland and she had lots of great information on what to see while we are here!

One of the sites she said we should see was Captain Cook’s lookout. She did not steer us wrong there. A beautiful spot that overlooks the inlet and the city.

A quick stop by the Antique Emporium resulted in no new treasures for us from this area.

We then took the dogs for a walk in Margaret Bowater Park. A beautiful park along a stream with lots of walking trails.

There is a grate bridge that we had to cross there that Dakota was not a fan of. Yes, Harry, it is a dog video but it is worth it, really!

Since it had started to rain (again) we decided to take a drive the lady at the Visitor’s Center recommended up to Bottle Cove. We walked the beach and Barb found a few pieces of sea glass to add to her collection! It was a nice drive up the coast and took up about 1 hour up, one hour back.

By the time we got back to town it was after 4:00 and time to check out the two breweries in town! The first was Bootleg Brewing Co where Barb again had a flight and I had a pint.

 A friend of ours had posted a comment asking why we had not been posting our beers on Untapped, an app that allows you to keep track of the breweries we have visited, what we drank and how we liked them. It also allows others to “follow” us and see what beers we liked in each area. Well, Barb actually, as I have not downloaded the app for myself yet. If you want to track Barb her user name is Beerforbarb. 

We then walked down to Boomstick where we split a flight as they did not have many beers that sounded appealing to either of us.

I had to use the restroom before I left and found no signs indicating “Men’s” or “Women’s” but instead found these two signs…..

By then we were starving! Barb had seen an ad for “The Best Sushi in Newfoundland”. It may be the only sushi place on the province, but we headed there to give it a try. We walked in to Newfound Sushi, there was a glass door to the right where we could see a couple guys making sushi and some stairs leading up to an unknown area. We walked in to the area that they were making the sushi and one of the guys asked “Are you here for takeout?” “No”. “Do you have a reservation?” “No”. He mumbles something in the mic attached to his collar and says they have room for us upstairs. We walk up there and the bartender greeted us and asked “Are you the walk-ins?”. Who knew you needed reservations?!?!

They sat us at the bar, we had great service and great sushi. A little spendy, but worth it. 

We got back to the Visitor’s Center about 8:00 and tucked in for the night. The Visitor’s Center will not only fit any size rig, it also has a dump station, fresh water and they also have free Wi-Fi!

The next morning we got up and started our 1 ½ hour journey to Gros Morne National Park. Along the way Barb checked the weather. 75% chance of rain today, 100% chance tomorrow and 53% the next day. Perfect, we have 3 days there. We tried to make the most of our first day, it was cloudy and overcast but so far that 75% chance of rain had not come to fruition yet. We stopped by Southeast Brook Falls, a nice and easy 700 meter hike to the falls.

Then we went and checked into our site (#59) at Berry Hill Campground right there in the park. This is one of the few reservations Barb had made on this trip. Our $40/night site included water and electric.

Since the rain was still holding off we decided to tempt fate and go for another hike around Berry Hill Pond. Talk about beautiful scenery! About ¼ of the way around the pond it had started to rain. Do we carry on for 30-45 minutes more or do we turn around and be in our camper in 15 minutes? If it was just Barb and I we would have kept going, but the thought of two wet and smelly dogs in the camper had us beelining it back! We got wet but not soaked, we made the right decision.

This morning we woke up to the sound of rain on our roof and it has not stopped in the past couple hours. 100% chance until 4:00 then it goes down to 75%. Looks like we are going to have to find some indoor activities today. I was going to wait until we were done here at Gros Morne to post this but it is already getting long and we have two days left. Plus, today is Father's Day. Do you suppose Barb got me a new gun or did she get herself something like a 3 day package at a spa somewhere?!?!