The Christiansens invade Newfoundland: July 20-Heading to Bonavista

Woke to more rain, packed up and off we go. We have no site booked for tonight, as we were unsure of how much time we wanted to spend in the next area, so had left it open. We left Dildo Run and worked our way down340 to meet up with the 330, but instead of heading south to the TCH, we decided to travel north and east to see the shore through Musgrave Harbour and Lumsden, missing Gander entirely. The weather was grey and drizzly all morning, which probably didn't help, but we found the drive around 330 and 320 not worth the effort, until we got to a small town called Dover. It's claim to fame is geology, and we had to go and see the Dover fault, which is where you can clearly see the line where 2 continental plates met. They had a beautiful trail up the hill to a viewing platform, which was perfect after many hours sitting in the truck. Lots of signage and information, which we all enjoyed.

Back along the TCH, we traveled south east, heading into Terra Nova National Park. We had not looked too intensely at this park as we were focusing more on Gros Morne, and we were mainly looking to camp in hydro sites as it was easier for us with so much time on the road each day. We stopped at the visitor's centre to see what was in the park, and discovered an amazing touch tank full of marine life, and we were encouraged to pick up the various creatures and look at them. Devon loved being able to touch anemones, sea cucumbers, scallops, crabs, mussels and starfish, and then look through an underwater camera that you could maneuver yourself and see the very same animals in the wild that were in the tank, along with lots of fish swimming about.


Touch tank


Underwater shot of touch tank inhabitants

The weather had vastly improved by then, so we sat outside and ate ice cream while watching boats in the bay. It was a perfect stop. We discovered there are tons of hiking and biking trails in the park, but felt we needed to move on as we had only one night available to see Bonavista, which was one of my mom's favourite places when she had visited years ago, and didn't want to miss it. Back onto the TCH and carried on to Bonavista peninsula. We called around to a few nearby campgrounds and found one with room for the night, Cabot RV park . The sites were clumped together again in a gravel lot, but we were getting used to the idea by then, so didn't mind so much. We dropped the trailer, plugged in, and back on the road to head north east to Cape Bonavista. We have become so accustomed to traveling with the trailer, that when we leave it behind, the truck seems to fly along the roads. We checked out Dungeon Provincial Park with it's sea cave, very nice spot, traveled over a few cattle gates here as there were some horses on the property.


Dungeon Provincial Park

We saw Puffins, Guillemots, Whales and all kinds of other birds at the cape by the lighthouse, what a great evening. We ate dinner at a nice spot in Bonavista at the harbour, with lots of amazing seafood on the menu. By the time we left, it was dark, so traveled back to the trailer slowly (relatively speaking) as the roads were twisting and up and down, and we were not too keen to meet a moose. It was a long day and I was so tired that we had to keep talking to each other to stay awake. (7 1/2 hours driving, 530 kms)