Another day in Twillingate, and on to the East

Morning view from our side window at our overnight boondock site

Friday June 9

It was a nice quiet boondock last night at the little Durrell town park at the end of the road (same place we had lunch yesterday). There was only one other vehicle there overnight, a European couple in a rental truck camper, never heard a peep from them all night. 

Later we went back to Wild Cove, our favorite iceberg viewing area. Things had changed a bit overnight:

 

A misty morning

A refrozen crack in this one, it looks like

 

It did clear up some, later on

 

Several people thought it looked cold most of the places we've been around Twillingate. This gal clearly thought differently:

Ease on in

A quick but thorough dip

 

Success!

Notice the bergie bits in the water!

 

She was quite red afterwards, but said it felt Great, really gets the blood moving! We're pretty sure our blood would stop moving altogether if we did something like that. :))

A bit later, one of the iceberg tour boats came around, loaded to the hilt with tourists like us:

We decided we liked our ground-based viewings just as well as a boat tour, maybe even better.

Later still we watched the big Zodiac zoom off from shore into the mists with a full load of passengers, to find some bergs:

Just a nice relaxing day at the "beach".

 

In the evening we, along with Diane and Gary, went to the Dinner and Theatre we had booked. Lobster and mussels for 3, and I went for the cod:

The lobsters were a good size, maybe not quite as big as they look here

 

There was even dessert

The performers put on a real good show, some very talented people playing various instruments, singing, and performing little skits:

It wasn't quite a full house, but we thought about 120 in the audience:

The audience was mostly Canadian. Ontario had the most (apparently on average 85% of their audience is from Ontario). Quite a number from BC too, and 4 or 5 from the US, one couple from Florida. Guess they went looking for cooler weather, and they sure did find it here. How you could withstand Florida heat and humidity and still cope with Twillingate in mid-June, I just don't know.

After the show we dry-camped overnight in the large theatre lot (with permission). There was 1 other camper there besides our 2 vehicles. Another nice quiet night until about 4:30 when the fishermen started coming in to work and zooming off in their boats. Cathie didn't hear any of it though, so not very noisy.

Saturday June 10

We headed off pretty early this morning, towards Bonavista peninsula, Trinity Bay etc. We had to make a stop south of Twillingate for a diesel fillup, as the only station in town with diesel was out of it, since the tanker truck broke down on the way here the day before. Just a reminder of how remote Twillingate is.

Potentially a scenic drive the way we went, it wasn't so scenic today. Lots of mist and fog, with heavy rains at times. We had a good lunch and break at Gil's Grill in Gambo, where we rejoined the main highway to head further east.

Along the way we saw one of the woodpiles that are often at the highway. NL residents can get a license to harvest firewood (mostly White Birch) from certain areas of the Crown Land bush, and they cut and pile it up by the side of the road to season for next winter:

Also along the way, seagulls really liked this spot, kind of protected and with many roosting rocks:

 

We'd been thinking about stopping in Terra Nova National Park for a night on our way back, so dropped in today to get oriented. On the way in to the Visitors Centre we noticed some things that could be handy someday:

Tesla EV chargers like ours at home, but 2-3 times faster

Another couple of chargers that Teslas can use

These aren't Tesla Superchargers, but would be good for a topup while in the Visitor Centre, or to plug in overnight for a full charge.

The Visitors Centre is worth a visit, especially if you have kids. The main attraction is a large tank with living critters in there, and people are encouraged to stick their hands in and feel the creatures. We chickened out, but apparently very popular with school trip visitors.

These pictures are from the top looking down, through the fairly shallow crystal clear sea water that is constantly pumped through right from the nearby sea:

A lot of these creatures did actually move

 

And here's the view from our campsite tonight, in Lockston Path provincial park:

Our path today from Twillingate: