My Impressions of Newfoundland & our Vacation & learned Rules of the Road

-everyone is a “Buddy” or a “bud” or “love”

-there are no insects around to bite you when you camp in September!

-4 sleeping bags are better than 1 and allow you to pretend you are sleeping in the arctic and are covered with “hides”.

-a toque is the best way to keep your head warm when you are sleeping

-a toque also comes in handy during a September boat cruise

-the sun sets early in September so prepare yourself for 10+ hours of sleep (in bed by 8!)

-St. John’s has an amazing amount of new home construction and new industrial construction. There are even new streets and stop lights and subdivisions and industrial areas being built all over.

-St. John’s also has an incredible amount of communication towers on every hill

-I’ve never seen anything like the landscape on the stretch of land from Terra Nova National Park to the Avalon Penninsula. More Space Network shows should be filmed here. It’s all big boulders that must have been left by glaciers all over place. Trees can’t grow very tall and they are all on an angle from the wind.

-Avalon Ford is the best dealership’s service department I’ve ever visited. It’s clean, large, well laid out, even with computers and internet connections, tv, sofas, and the staff and they are really on the ball. They service 80+ vehicles a day. You drive up into the bays and they take it from there. They all have walkie-talkies and no one stands in a line long waiting. They seemed to have 2 guys at the service desk just to handle the customers and call the customers with updates.

-if you truck is making a really annoying loud squeaky rattly roaring noise, wait 2,000 km to see if it will go away, and if not then get it checked out by the professionals.

-not all campgrounds have water, and if they do, it might not be drinkable – bring your own water.

-I thought Nova Scotia was windy. That was nothing compared to Newfoundland.

-speaking of which, make sure you stake down your tent and use the guy-wires too. We did, and that is why we are alive to tell the tale.

-the best way to travel to and from Newfoundland is the ferry, and the night passage wastes less of your travel time, but please oh please don’t cheap out and book a bunk or cabin to sleep.

-when it is dark and you are huddled around a softwood campfire in a remote area of Gros Morne, listening to the snap crackle of the sap, and you are drinking some Black Horse beer, and suddenly your dog barks and leaps towards the darkness dragging the picnic table behind him… don’t assume the worse. There is a chance it is just a cute kitty cat hiding in the trees looking for table scraps.

-there aren’t many road kill – we see more dead animals on the road just driving from our house to town than we saw all week

-there aren’t many moose around – final count was:
Moose: 0
Caribou: 0
Dead Beaver: 1
Dead Moose: 1
Dead Caribou: 1 (something with antlers anyway that stunk bad and was being eaten by crows)
Dead Fox: 1
Whales: many
Puffins: many
Seals: 2
Gannets: 30,000
Housecat: 1

-when you are in a small Newfoundland town, don’t expect to find good quality vegetables and fresh meat. Frozen ground beef will do nicely, and dried onion flakes are delicious in spaghetti.

-you save a lot of money on ice for the cooler when you camp in September

-when ocean salt spray coats all your vehicles windows, not even washer fluid will help much

-speaking of that salt water, don’t let your dog drink too much of it, or he’ll puke up big frothy piles of salt water.

-Newfoundland has 2 closed pulp and paper mills. Perhaps one of them should reopen and produce some soft 2-ply. Every tourist spot, campground, and restaurant uses horrible 1 ply tissue paper on the massive roll. I’m a frequent pee-er and I notice these things!

-speaking of a frequent peer – there are no road-side picnic stops in Newfoundland, unless you are in Gros Morne National Park or Terra Nova National Park. When you finally find a place to pull over, you probably weren’t the first to spot it. Please exercise caution when you run off the road or you could run through human poo and you might not want to do this when you are wearing sandals.

-most of Newfoundland seems to burn wood for heat, and already have their fires burning. In many areas, balsam fir is the only tree growing. Many people get them as full trees with the branches removed and then stand them up on end in a teepee formation to dry.

-if you wave to the park warden, he may give you a free bundle of wood so he doesn’t have to bother to drive it back to the shed to lock up.

-speaking of waving, the Newfoundlanders aren’t big wavers. In Nova Scotia everyone in pick-up trucks wave to each other when they pass. In Newfoundland, not so much. Jeff got a wave from 2 vehicles in a row once and never again.

-there are either far fewer churches in Newfoundland, or they are much less prominent compared to Nova Scotia. Here they stand out as the biggest tallest thing in every community. I didn’t notice very many in Newfoundland.