July 1-3, 2024 – Newfoundland


 

Monday morning, we started on another long day of driving south from Mirimichi, NB to Sydney, Nova Scotia.  The scenery was beautiful, and we will see more of Nova Scotia when we return from Newfoundland.  We stayed at the Arms of Gold Campground just outside of Sydney.



This was a beautiful campground all in grass and beautifully landscaped walking paths.  The beach area had great views. Happy Canada Day!






Tuesday, we traveled to Newfoundland on a Marine Atlantic Ferry.  Marine Atlantic changed our departure time from 10:15 am to 8:15 am and we to be at the dock 3 hours before our departure.  So, we had to get up early and be at the dock at 5:15 am.  Luckily, the Arms of Gold Campground is only a few kilometers from the dock.




Waiting in line to board the Ferry.  Pets could only be left in your vehicle, put in a kennel or you could rent a pet-friendly cabin.  Because this is a 7-hour cruise we didn’t think it would be good to leave Tacky and Charlie in our vehicles, so we rented a pet-friendly cabin.  We had a great, but long, trip and arrived in Newfoundland ahead of schedule.  The clocks also changed by a half hour, which seems odd to us.




After departing the ferry, we drove a short distance to Cheeseman Provincial Park.  We were lucky to get camp sites next to each other


This is another beautiful Provincial Park, and we hiked a short trail to this nice waterfall.  We had a very restful night here and are anxious to see Newfoundland.






We are going to drive the west coast of Newfoundland first and then cross to the east coast.  Wednesday, we drove north and stopped at Blow Me Down Provincial Park.  This park is on a peninsula jutting into the Bay of Islands.  Once we left Highway 1, the road became very bad with lots of potholes.





        After getting camp set up, we walked to the beach.






The beach was entirely river rock with no sand, and the bay was beautiful.






We hiked a portion on the James Cook Heritage Trail which started with a climb up the Governor's Staircase.  This steep staircase is embedded into a 450-million-year-old wall of volcanic rock. 







The views along the trail were beautiful.



After climbing the initial staircase, we hiked along a boardwalk with more stairs – we counted 420 steps.







The views from the top were worth every step we had to take.  This is our favorite Provincial Park in Newfoundland so far.







 

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