Newfoundland at Last

After completing the Cabot Trail circuit I continued on to North Sydney to catch the ferry.  It was still early enough to possible catch the 8:00 PM ferry, but I had no desire to make the crossing at night and arrive at 7:00 AM, too tired to begin traveling.

 In retrospect this was a mistake; I could taken my sleeping bag on board and slept comfortably (without appearing out of place), saved the expense and effort of a campsite and arrived fresh in the morning with a full day ahead for travel.

There are two ferries routes that make the crossing from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland.  The short route is a nine hour crossing that drops off at the southeastern tip of Newfoundland (the starting point for exploring the western shoreline all the way to Labrador); the second route is a hearty seventeen hour “cruise” that ends in Argentia, Newfoundland, on the tip of the Avalon Peninsula the site of the US Naval Base (that my brother Don, remembers well).

I chose to take the short route to Port Aux Basques and proceed up the west coast to Labrador.  It was nearly 8:00 PM when I disembarked the ship and I new that I would have to quickly find a campground.  The Canadians are leaps and bounds ahead of America with respect to the free travel assistance that they provide.  At the entry point of every province (as well as in many cities) they provide free maps, travel brochures and knowledgeable travel assistance symbolized by the easily recognizable (?).

After stopping at the travel office and being given the much needed information regarding a provincial campgrounds, a mere seven kilometers to the north, I still managed to ride ten minutes past the site before realizing that I had surely GOOFED.

Not wanting to turnaround, I instead turned down a gravel toward what resembled an Indian reservation (it wasn’t), and was able to find an elderly woman who advised me of another campgrounds a mere 5 kilometers up the road and proceeded to inform me that I was about 20 km past the provincial park.

A simple decision, I proceeded north and found the expected campground; what was not expected was that the lady in charge would advise that the campground was full!  I needed a less than fifteen square foot piece of ground on which to place my tent (surely she was jesting!).

Back on the road, I proceeded north in search of the next available campground which the lady had (Kindly?) advised was less than ten kilometers to the north.  I never found it!

I finally arrived (some 30 kilometers to the south) at the provincial campgrounds I had, not so, innocently passed more than an hour ago.  I was cold and weary, but happy to have not fallen victim (my biggest fear) to a wandering moose on the highway at night.