RV Trips: NL #7 Moose, More ‘Bergs and Tickles

Waterfront View

Lots more icebergs in this post, so the waterfront view is of a typical fishing village, this one is in Robert’s Arm:

Day 10 June 30

We woke to typical St. Anthony fog and headed north to L’Anse aux Meadows. On our way, we saw a moose (ran before a picture), a great place for tomorrow’s Canada Day shot:

…and a kitchy but appropriate Viking image:

We drove up to Raleigh and were rewarded with two more moose (I saw the butt of a third) willing to finally pose for us:

We headed back south and saw our Bald Eagle again in Eddies Cove and some nice woodpiles, lobster pots and roadside gardens along the highway. I love the ingenuity:

We decided to stay at the Arches, since we didn’t see any “No Overnight Parking” signs and watched families and a busload of old farts get out to enjoy the view.

I forgot to mention that at each campground, there is usually a Campground Bunny. In Labrador, ours was a Snowshoe Hare:

At the Arches, there was a Campground Cat. Not ours, but a white one, quite healthy and used to treats from visitors. This is Mandy’s response to it:

And here’s our (free) campsite view:

Day 11 July 1

This was a perfect Newfoundland day. We went to sleep and awakened to the sounds of the ocean! We had a great sleep hit the road early. We saw a “Gospel Tent” in PARSON’S Pond. The “Moose Deaths” sign heading back in to Gros Morne cited 4 (and there were 0 when we first arrived). And there was still snow on all the mountains.

We decided to head to Triton, a place we visited quickly on our second trip here. We lunched in Robert’s Arm, “The Loch Ness of Newfoundland”:

Triton is an interesting village complete with old houses, newly sided ones, and large, incongruous ones built with Fort Mac money. Oh, and ice cream!

Brighton is only 8 km away, so we headed there and were rewarded with an iceberg right in the small cove:

It was so close. I spent some time talking with an old guy who had, essentially, never left this small village, and he told me about his family, including four granddaughters and (finally) a Lad-i-o (great grandson).

And some fellow tourists took our required “couple shot”, complete with iceberg (we followed that one in later):

We chatted with a family (she lived in Brighton and her parents were visiting from Twillingate) and they were so sweet and funny! Another family was sitting at their Fifth Wheel trailer on the harbour. She gave us some iceberg ice to suck on (delicious and unlike any ice we’ve had) then invited us to park beside them for the night. Her son and family were visiting from Bahrain where he is working the oil fields. The wife didn’t have too much positive to say about that life. Can’t imagine how it is for a small-town Newfoundlander.

So we parked and went to see the iceberg again. It had changed already:

I could have climbed down for this souvenir, but decided to enjoy the rest of the trip injury-free!

An amazing day of sites and lovely Newfoundlanders. If this beauty had been for sale, we might have been tempted :

Here’s the (free) Canada Day view from my chair:

Day 12 July 2 (my Mom’s Birthday!)

We checked out our icebergs and they had changed drastically. The one further out was now much further in (and about half the size; we learned that some loud “thunder” we heard last evening was an iceberg “foundering” or breaking apart; it might have been this one):

The one close to shore had really changed and we got some video of it rolling. Amazing (once I learn how to post video, I will!). But here’s how much it had morphed:

On we headed for more icebergs and some nostalgia. We had found Leading Tickles a few years ago and remembered the Oceanview campground, so headed there. We saw some things en route:

a Mobile Take Out (which was a chip truck)
signs saying “Parked Vehicles and Pedestrians 500 M” just before a road-side spring and tap
a notice for Canada Day festivities with Elvis at the “Graceland Pub” near Botwood (we’d missed him by a day)

We got to the park and were able to get an RV Overflow site ($15 no services) even though the park was almost empty. This is the site:

We beachcombed, climbed up to the lookout and saw the Brighton area icebergs off in the distance:

Love the safety feature of snowmobile tracks attached to the paths (and my great shoes):

Here’s the view from my chair:

Day 13 July 3

Once again, fell asleep and woke to the sound of the ocean beating against the rocks on the shore. Wonderful.

We had a perfectly lazy and completely outdoors day. We watched the Arctic Terns fish badly and the Ring-billed and Herring Gulls drop Sea Urchins and Crabs from above to crack them open for snacks.

We climbed to the lookout again and saw (and heard everywhere) a lovely White-throated Sparrow (that’s the bird whose song is like “Oh, Canada”):