May 27, 2006

May 27, 2006

Bellevue Beach to Bonavista, Newfoundland

YEAR 2 DAY 344

 

The day started out cold and cloudy with intermittent light rain. By late afternoon, the cold, rain, and wind were severe.

This morning as we were driving through the campground on our way out, we stopped at campsite no. 49 which was the trailhead for a trail to the cliffs overlooking the bay. We hiked a short distance to the lookout point. While we were admiring the scenery, a Bald Eagle soared by, just beneath us, along the cliffs. It was quite special to see. Hiking back to the trailer, I spotted ... fiddleheads ! Woo-Hoo ! We picked a huge bowl of them. They are a teensy bit beyond their prime. The ideal time to have picked them would have been about a week ago. We drove over to the campground dumping station, and as we were dumping the waste holding tanks, we chatted with the owner of the campground, a very friendly, very Newfie fellow. When I told him about picking a huge batch of fiddleheads, he didn't know what they were. I explained, and showed them to him. HA HA HA ! ! ! The Manitoban teaching the Newfie about fiddleheads.

We drove north along TCH 1. We drove into the village of Arnold's Cove to see a wild bird sanctuary and a scenic lookout. We couldn't get up the narrow, winding, gravel road to the scenic lookout. There were no wild birds at the bird sanctuary. Goodbye, Arnold's Cove. Further north along the Trans-Canada, we stropped at a larger town, Clarenville. We refilled a propane tank, filled up with diesel, withdrew some money from the Bank Of Montreal, shopped for groceries at Wal-Mart and at Sobey's, then had a late lunch in the mall's parking lot. I bought some back ache medication. It helped somewhat, although it made me drowsy. That made driving this afternoon difficult.

We turned east off the Trans-Canada onto Hwy. 230 to drive across the Bonavista Peninsula to the town of Bonavista. Hwy. 230 was in terrible condition, as are many of the roads here in Newfoundland. And as we drove, the weather deteriorated. The temperature dropped, the rain increased, the wind became very strong. It was quite a storm. We found our way to N & N Campground and Restaurant in Bonavista. It was our intention to stay in their campground, and have supper in their restaurant.

From this point, the day went rapidly downhill. The entrance to the campground was blocked by cars belonging to the very tiny GM dealer adjacent to the campground and restaurant. Their total inventory was about a dozen vehicles. I've never seen a new car dealer that small. The campground owner phoned the car dealership owner to come and move some cars. No answer. So the campground owner moved some cars. I guess he's got access to the car dealer's office ! ? ! We entered the campground, and tried unsuccessfully to get into a site. We tried a few different sites, and a few attempts at each one we tried. I finally gave up. We were both soaked, and freezing, especially Joanne who was outside trying to guide me using a walkie-talkie. The campground owner came over to see how we were doing. In disgust, I told him we would be leaving, and required a refund of our camping fee. This small campground just could not accommodate a rig our size. He had to move more vehicles to allow us to exit.

We drove back to another campground about 8 km. / 5 mi. away. The weather was wicked ! We got settled into a site. I sneezed a healthy sneeze, and ... uh-oh ... I have a cold ! Just what I needed ! Joanne began to clean some of the fiddleheads for supper. She was having difficulty cleaning the brown part off them. When we ate them for supper, they weren't very good. Either they're too old, or ... maybe we picked something that wasn't fiddleheads ? ! ? We threw them all out. Pity !

I did today's accounting and journal entry. Joanne is feeling "down", worried that we drove all the way across the Bonavista Peninsula to get here, and the weather will be too horrible tomorrow to allow us to see and do the things she's interested in here.

My backache persists, although the medication I bought today is helping.

DSK