20020601

June 1, 2002

Day 23

Start: Arm Of Gold CG, North Sydney, NS
End: Grand Codroy RV Park, Doyles, NF
Miles: 29 by road, 100 by sea

The low last night was 51f on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia and the high today was 71f somewhere in Newfoundland.

What a wonderful day!

We both woke up early, nervous that we had to get to the ferry, I suppose. So we packed up and went there. We were quite early and bought our ticket to Newfoundland ($240.50CDN for the truck, trailer, and two adults under 65 – of course that’s $154.71US, not quite as bad put that way).

The ferry (a double-ended roll-on, roll-off type), named “Caribou” came in around 7:00am. It raised its protective bow as it approached the dock, then pushed in. It took some time, but then a lot of cars and trucks and a few RV’s dashed out of both vehicle levels and down the road. The announcement came for us to report to our vehicles, and shortly afterward, we were signaled to drive aboard. We wound up on the upper level in the center. Then we walked up two levels to the passenger level, with our bag of books and sundries.

The ferry backed out, turned, and departed Sydney harbor. The day was mostly sunny, so I got a few good pictures of lighthouses and WWII defenses. Approaching the harbor entrance buoy, we had to slow to let another ship pass from our starboard bow across to our port side. The other ship was an engines-aft, pilot-house-forward, Great Lakes freighter with a name like “Gypsum International” out of Hamilton, Ontario. It had a self-unloading rig over the after half of the cargo hatches, typical of that kind of ship.

Shortly afterward, we entered a thick fog bank. That’s very typical for this time of year here. We didn’t see a thing till we saw the sea buoy at the Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland, end of the trip. We got underway at 9:00am Atlantic Daylight Savings Time, and arrived at 4:00pm Newfoundland Daylight Saving Time, which is one-half hour before ADST. We had a nice breakfast and a lunch on board. Most of the rest of the time, we read or pawed through the goods in the shop on board. We ran into a couple we met in the restaurant last night and spoke with them for a bit.

The harbor at Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland, is small, so it felt as though we charged into it. The entry, turn-around, and back-in to the dock was efficient but almost scary in such a small harbor. We were told to report to our vehicles. Shortly after we got there, we were waved off. We left quickly and got on the Trans-Canada Highway going east (actually north here). Since we were one of the first off, we led the parade until we turned off about 23 miles later and found the Grand Codroy RV Park campground.

There, we got a very friendly greeting and welcome to Newfoundland. The lady who registered us volunteered that a beluga whale was in the harbor, and told us of a restaurant she favors. We parked the little house and went to the Codroy harbor. The harbor looks like it belongs on a calendar. It was beautiful. The sky had turned deep blue, without a cloud. We didn’t see the whale, but we saw someone 
on the farthest pier looking at the water. When we got over there, we saw on her cap something like, “Whale Preservation Society”. We asked about the whale, and she pointed out where it should be. A few minutes later, it came to the surface about there. It was skirting the edges of a raft of lobster pots (here, when there aren’t enough lobsters to require a truck to ship them, they are re-loaded into lobster pots that are tied together and buoyed in the harbor to keep them alive). The beluga likes to investigate the lobsters.

This beluga, in company with two others, got separated several months ago from the herd on the northern point of Newfoundland. They proceeded up a river. The other two died, but this one was rescued and released off western Newfoundland. A few months later, it popped up in the Codroy harbor. It is under observation and they think it will grow and hope it will then leave and find other belugas. Currently, it’s about 9.5 feet long and weighs about 900 pounds. 

We thanked the whale person for the information and went to the restaurant. A busy lady was performing all the functions but cooking. We each asked for pan-fried halibut, D had a seafood chowder, and I had a Caesar’s salad. With three small glasses of wine, it came to $43.33CDN, or $28.36US. We’ll have to return here. We chatted with the busy lady (she wasn’t as busy now, there were fewer people in the place) and replied “Virginia” when asked where we were from. We walked out to the truck, but a lady came running out of the restaurant yelling, "wait, wait!".  Then she gave us fifty cents. Actually, she gave us a Canadian coin of fifty cents value, struck as a commemoration of Queen Elizabeth’s 50th anniversary. She is the postmistress of Codroy and has some to present to visitors, so she gave us one. These people are so friendly, it's incredible.

We returned to the campground and took the walking trail. At the first viewpoint, Dolores asked me if a certain clump of brush was a beaver house. I said no. Then she asked why the beaver on the island near it was there. Darned if it wasn’t a beaver. We watched it for a while as it swam from one little island to another and walked around investigating the food supply. The beaver is Canada’s animal. It’s even on the shield of the country. We saw an editorial the other day where it was referred to as the National Rodent.

We finished the walk as the sun set and returned to the little house in the campground on the Codroy River to rest. We’ll be off to Gros Morne National Park tomorrow.

What a wonderful day!