Newfoundland Part 2 - Gros Morne NP to Terra Nova NP

 I've heard the phrase "better late than never" so many times, and I sure hope that you agree with it, because we left you last in Gros Morne National Park and it was June 21 ish.   This post will move the football a few yards down the field and bring you up-to-date as of July 3rd or so....   5 days ago.

First order of business is the trip map for this blog.   The map below (above the yellow line) shows our travels on the island since our arrival thru this post.    The section below the yellow line includes where we are now.

We departed our Campground in Gros Morne National Park on Sat June 22.   Our next stop was Peytons Woods RV Park in Twillingate, NL.   Often called "the iceberg capital of Newfoundland"

We departed on a clear sunny morning and enjoyed the beautiful sights along the way.    There are just so many coves on the craggy shoreline of newfoundland.   At first I think we are passing by a lake and the expand the view on the GPS to find out its another long fjord

After stopping in Grand Falls Windsor to shop for groceries, we finally arrived at our destination for the next 4 nights.

Peytons Woods RV Park Twillingate

A neat clean park in a great location, we already wished we were staying longer.    Unfortunatley we are learning that this year has seen few icebergs and there are none in Twillingate,   Perhaps the few we found last week was our huckleberry.

Peytons Woods RV Park Twillingate

Twillingate is a picturesque town set on a picturesque landscape.    All the homes here on the rock are painted in these bright colors which I am sure lends some color to what at times must be a bleak landscape.

The photos below were taken on our morning walks about town

The gang on our morning walk.

Colorful homes along the shore in town.

Driving further afield yields views of more colorful homes and businesses.

A few miles further out on the peninsula brings you to the Long Point Lighthouse.   The views from there we just stunning and no pictures can do it justice.

In town, the harbor in Twillingham was busy with boats of all types.

Canadian Coast Guard returning to port in Twillingate

Kate has been finding the trip a bit exhausting so we stoped to rest on this bench.

We visited a wooden boat museum and spoke with the gentleman building this boat.   He told me that in the past - generally if a fisherman needed a boat - he built it.     We had a nice chat talking about boat building techniques.   I built some wooden boats in my past using different techniques so we enjoyed trading war stories.    This man was a real craftsman and this boat was somewhere around his 40th or so.

Outside the boat museum (below on left) with the local church - one of the oldest wooden churches in Newfoundland

We went to a local fish market and bought some pre-cooked lobster and mussels for dinner one night.

And on our last night in Twillingate we were treated to a decent sunset.   Not an Arizona sunset mind you - but I'm gladly trading the heat for the loss of sunsets right now.

Wed June 26 we were back on the road headed to our next stop for two nights.   The town-owned Banting Memorial Municipal Park Campground in Musgrave Harbor.   The campground is named after Thomas Banting who was a Canadian Pharmacologist and Nobel Prize winner, who first isolated insulin and died in a plane crash near the park.

Yours truly leading the way

This campground is a pretty nice place.   Nestled between a salt water pond and the ocean, it has a long sandy beach, which is a rarity in Newfoundland.

The view out the windshield of the salt water pond

Our campsite had 30a electric and water hookup

Across the dune to the beach

Looking back towards campground from the top of the dune

Long wide sandy beach.

Cold, cold, water

We let Annie get in some runs on the beach.   This was her second time to the beach, the first being in England.   She ran thru the water for a bit which was new.

Annie gets her feet wet in the cold Atlantic

Everywhere we travel, the wildflowers along the roadsides are a constant, beautiful, companion.

We left Banting Park in a rain that got heavier as the day progressed.   Our next stop was Terra Nova National Park - the Newman Sound Campground.     Its a very nice campground.   We had water and 30a electric.    Compared to Gros Morne, this National Park seemed to benefit from more money and upkeep.

Amazingly enough, I did not get a single photo of the campground or our site.

While here we did a number of day trips.   One was to the little fishing village of Salvage.

Salvage, NL

More pretty views and colorful houses in picturesque locations.  Not much more I can say as this place seems like endless eye candy.

Salvage, NL

On Sunday night we had tickets in Gander to see a production of "Come from Away".  It's a play about how on 911 about 38 airline flights were diverted to Gander when US airspace was closed.    The town, with a population of about 10,000 played host to about 7,500 stranded passengers for several days.

The play was excellent and the story was heartwarming.

We visited the 911 memorial in front of the Gander town hall.   The steel beam from the twin towers was donated by the Bethpage NY fire dept and is reportedly the only one that is outside of the US

Local school kids donated art work for the memorial

Another day saw us taking a 2 hr drive each way to visit the Bonavista Peninsula and the town of Bonavista.   It was a damp, foggy, and rainy day but we got some real decent views of whales right from the shore.

Another reason for our trip was to see the Puffin Colony.    The Puffins like to nest on islands but this one is close enough to see them from shore.  There were thousands of Puffins on the island and on the sea surface.   We were lucky that one flew over to our area and we got up close and personal.

Rob and Pat walking back to the car.   You get an idea of the weather.

We all agreed that the weather was perfect for this outing.   A little bit of good ol Newfoundland weather makes the outing more authentic.

Well I'm going to cut it off here.

We are now in St Johns, the capital of Newfoundland and have a bunch more things to talk about but that will be in our next post.  Lots of sights, more Whales and Puffins, and even some screetch.

Hope you are enjoying riding along.