Central Newfoundland-Part 1 (08-03-13)

Why “Part 1”? 
There are several ways to tour Newfoundland.  One way is to arrive in Port aux Basque on the short (6) hour ferry ride, see everything you want  along the drive over to St. Johns, on the other end of the island,  then take the long (14) hour ferry ride back to Nova Scotia from Argentia.  The advantage to that ferry is that it runs overnight, and you can rent a sleeping cabin (if they aren't sold out) and spend the entire crossing sleeping. 



The disadvantages are that, even accounting for fuel to drive back across the island,  it costs more, plus, we would have to deal with no propane to the refrigerator for 15 hours, and the cat would be alone in the rig the entire time- not that he would care.

   I will say that for me, there was another consideration.  As much as I love boating, and cruising, for some reason, having my home and all my worldly possessions on the ship with me bothers me- 

especially after watching this video:

(If you can't see it,  the video is of the ferry being tossed around like a twig)

So, we elected to keep our trip to the shorter ferry ride, and instead of seeing everything we want on the way to St. Johns, we are only seeing half and we’ll see the other half on the way back.  I also insisted on booking our ferry ride two days ahead of our “drop dead, gotta get off the island' day, just in case the weather is nasty. Anyone watching Canadian news may have noticed that a Newfoundland ferry ran aground the other day-while leaving the dock. Of course, its the one we were going to be on, so now they are scrambling to figure it all out.
(Update- they have now canceled all the sailings from Argentia so that they can use that boat at Port aux Basque. Anyone who was booked on the Argentia ferry for the next two weeks will have to be accommodated  on the Port aux Basque ferry.  Now I’m Really glad we decided to go the short route!)

   Anyway, so Rte 1, the main road that runs across Newfoundland doesn’t detour much into the many peninsulas along the way, and we have been in RV parks along route 1 and then day tripping up to the scenic drives along the peninsulas.

Our first outing was to the town of Twillingate, where we hiked a trail called “Top of Twillingate Trail”.  It was about 4 miles round trip, and the trail needed some maintenance, but the views at the top were worthwhile.  Twillingate is part of “Iceberg Alley” .  During Iceberg season, this is a prime place to come and watch the bergs. 

Driving along the coast, the views were truly amazing.

  This is also a prime area to see whales from the shoreline, and it’s where we first saw whales but weren’t able to get a picture.