May 30, 2006

May 30, 2006

Leading Tickles to Rocky Harbour, Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland

YEAR 2 DAY 347

 

Today started out raining and cold in Leading Tickles, and ended up sunny and cool in Rocky Harbour.

This morning we delayed our departure preparations awhile waiting for the heavy rain to diminish. When it finally did, we prepared for departure and left Leading Tickles, travelling 66 brutal kms. south back to TCH 1. They need to improve the secondary roads here in Newfoundland if they want tourists to visit ! We travelled west, then north, then west on TCH 1 stopping for lunch at South Brook. I noticed that the service stations in the coastal outports sell seal oil by the gallon. I wonder what it's used for ? Could it be a substitute for kerosene ?

After lunch Joanne drove while I napped in the passenger's seat. I awoke when the phone rang. It was my asshole doctor ( in more ways then one ! ) finally returning my phone call from 5 days ago. He had the pathology report from the biopsies taken during my colonoscopy. All is well, relatively speaking. Great ! And that, dear old chap, concludes our relationship, forever more ! Goodbye to you, Dr. Champion !

Joanne drove to Deer Lake where we stopped to refill with diesel. From there we turned north onto Hwy. 430 leading to Gros Morne National Park. When we entered the park, we stopped at the Visitor Centre. I went in to get some information on the national park while Joanne walked Bo. In the gift shop attached to the Visitor Centre there were Newfoundland produced walking sticks for sale. I bought one for Joanne. T'was only fair since I broke her walking stick recently. Shortly after leaving the Visitor Centre we saw a male and female moose on the side of the road. Quite an impressive antler rack on the male !

We drove a short distance further to the town of Rocky Harbour, and found Rocky Harbour RV Campground. We got set up in our site, then chatted with some other campers in the campground. They are from Kitchener, Ontario. They retired and started full time RV'ing about a month ago. It's the first time since our first night in Newfoundland 9 days ago that we have been in a campground where there are other campers besides us. We walked around the campground to find the laundry and Wi-Fi room, then drove into town to buy a few groceries. After buying groceries we drove around the town of Rocky Harbour to sightsee. It's a little larger than most of the towns in Newfoundland we've seen, and since it's in a national park, there are quite a few tourist related businesses. I noticed that the local restaurants advertise home made moose soup. As opposed to Campbell's Moose Soup ? ! ?

We returned to the trailer, and while Joanne prepared supper, I downloaded and processed today's photos, then took Bo for an obedience walk. After supper I did today's accounting and journal entry while Joanne washed dishes, then planned our day tomorrow. We'll explore Gros Morne National Park by road tomorrow, without the trailer. Joanne wanted to do some laundry, so we walked down to the laundry room, and while she did laundry, I got online with Wi-Fi.

When we walked back to the trailer at 10:20 P.M., there was enough twilight to enable us to see. I guess we're quite far north.

DSK