FRIDAY 29 July
On Hwy 1 (Trans-Canada Highway) shortly after disembarking from the MV Highlanders ferry in Channel-Port-aux-Basques, NL. (Photo by Linda.)
Unlike the boarding process, disembarkation was quick to the point of feeling a bit rushed. We were no sooner off the ship and through the terminal gate when we were on Hwy 1, the Trans-Canada Highway, and working our way north out of Channel-Port-aux-Basques. In the rush, we forgot that we needed to pull over somewhere, turn the propane on, and start the refrigerator. We eventually saw an Irving fuel station with a large, easy in/out lot and pulled in there to take care of this.
We’re here! The “Welcome to Newfoundland-Labrador” sign makes it official. (Photo by Linda.)
We had almost no fresh food with us at this point and needed to restock the refrigerator before we got to the KOA. Linda’s research had turned up a Sobeys supermarket in Corner Brook. Corner Brook was the largest city in western Newfoundland and was on Hwy-1 enroute to our first campground, so that seemed ideal. The distance was ~ 220 km with estimated travel time of 2 hrs. 20 mins. From there to the KOA near Rocky Harbor was ~ 125 km with an estimated travel time of 1 hr. 25 mins. If we took an hour for the grocery shopping, we should arrive at the KOA just a few minutes early.
We passed a Walmart coming into town, but headed on to the Sobeys as we have had good experiences with them so far. It turned out that the store was on the 2nd floor of a 2-story indoor mall in the heart of downtown. The parking lot was small and not well-suited to a long/tall vehicle, but I found a place to park where I wasn’t blocking traffic and it looked like we could also get out without too much trouble. We put Juniper back in the trailer so she could eat, drink, or use her littler tray. Linda then went in to buy groceries and I stayed with the rig and the cat. Lucky for us, I was parked alongside a Tim Horton’s. I bought two cups of coffee, a bagel and a classic honey-dip donut as we had not eaten breakfast or had our morning coffee yet. When Linda returned with the groceries, she loaded the refrigerator. We put Juniper back in the truck and we were on our way. She called the KOA to ask about early arrival. Our site was available, so the timing was no longer an issue.
We had been “warned” about the condition of the roads in Newfoundland, but the man we talked to while waiting to board the ship said they were better than what we had already experienced in the Gaspe peninsula. Most of Hwy 1 was in good condition up to Deer Lake where it turns east, but we exited onto NB-430, The Viking Trail. This would be our main route up the western peninsula. It had apparently been recently rebuilt and was in “like-new” condition.
Our 3-services patio site (#61) at the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA near Rocky Harbor, NL. (Photo by Linda.)
We pulled into the Gros Morne – Norris Point KOA around 1 PM and Linda went in to complete our registration and then set up camp. Our site (#61) was a “3-way” (water, electric, and sewer) 30 Amp with “patio”. That meant we had a pour concrete area on the curb side of the trailer with a table and four comfortable chairs. It was, however, our first back-in site of the trip.
Even with pull-thru sites I had not yet managed to pull in and get straightened out on the first try. And when I finally had the truck and trailer fairly well aligned, we still had to move the trailer slightly in order to level side-to-side. Our back-in site had a wide road in front of it with empty parking spaces across from it. That made it quite a bit easier to swing the truck around to initially position the trailer, and then back it into the site, more or less. At that point it was just the usual back-and-forth to accomplish several things simultaneously: 1) Truck/trailer aligned so the Propride 3P hitch was close to centered (if this is not the case we cannot lower the tongue jack), 2) trailer tires on the two parallel gravel “pads,” 3) low side tires pulled up onto the Anderson Levelers for side-to-side leveling, 4) curb site of the trailer close to, and parallel with, the edge of the concrete patio, 5) trailer back in the site as far as possible while still having the entry steps open onto the patio, and 6) not backing into anything in the process. As always, Linda served as spotter at the rear of the site, and I Got Out And Looked (G.O.A.L.) often.
With the trailer position and leveled side-to-side, we chocked the tires, disconnected the truck from the trailer, and leveled it front-to-rear. I hooked up the electrical power while Linda moved Juniper from the truck to the trailer, and started setting up the inside. The hook-ups (utility connections) where all together at the left/rear corner of the site and the left/rear corner of the trailer ended up close to them. I set up the fresh water system, which is the most involved, and then went inside to have a snack and something to drink. When everything was situated, we went for a walk to check out the campground.
A grove of trees in the KOA with interesting late afternoon light.
The full-hookup sites here are spacious enough and somewhat open, while the water/electric sites are carved into the forest and offer visual privacy on three sides. This is a KOA Holiday, so it has most of the family-oriented amenities. It does not have a swimming pool, but it does have shoreline on a lake. In fact, the entire lake might be part of the campground. The Wi-Fi here is, once again, reasonably good, which is to say, the signal is strong and steady. As expected, the data rate was low when everyone was up and using it, but I suspected it would be quite usable early in the morning and late at night.
I like to top up the fuel tank in the F-150 after we have towed the trailer to a new location so I drove to the Parkway Irving fuel station, propane, and convenience store in Rocky Harbor, only a few kilometers away. As we have seen in other parts of Atlantic Canada, this was a “pump first, pay inside” facility.
Back in camp we just to took it easy until dinner time. I processed photos from yesterday and today, but was too tired to work on the blog post. We had two Beyond Meat burgers in the freezer that Linda had moved to the Styrofoam cooler for the crossing. They got “smooshed” a bit, so she decided to crumble them up and make vegan sloppy Joes. She added corn to the mix and served them open-faced with potato chips and sliced pears for a very satisfactory, easy meal.
I finally started working on the actual blog post(s) after dinner. I checked e-mail at some point, and saw one from Akismet. Akismet is the WordPress plug-in I use to filter out spam comments from the blog, so it is critical to the blog operating effectively. I have a paid version that costs 1$/month, paid annually. The payment date was today, and the charge did not go through. It said they would retry the charge in a day or so. Oops. We had replaced our VISA cards earlier in the year, and this was one of the lingering subscriptions I had not updated. We do not use park W-i-Fi for anything financial, so I turned on the hotspot on my phone, went to the Akismet website, and updated the information.
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