We are here, our last Province and an island at that. We had smooth sailing across the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the Ferry, Caribou. We were treated to a whale watching cruise at that. We steamed through a great pod of Pilot Whales about half way through our six hour sailing.

Upon disembarking we made our mandatory stop at the Visitor Information Centre. We then cruised up the coast in our “Land Yacht”, Arcturus, and found a scenic hilltop overlooking the town of Stephenville Newfoundland to dry camp the first night out. Just beyond the town is St. George’s Bay. It looks out toward the southwest, so we are anticipating a colorful sunset.

So far everything is going perfect. Highway 1, the Trans Canada Highway is the best highway we have seen on the whole eastern half of Canada. The only gripe we have in this department is the Canadian bridge builders all appear to belong to the same union. Every bridge has a bump at each end and the expansion joints are recessed an inch into the pavement. We typically roll down a hill toward the stream at the bottom at the speed limit. We then kick off the cruise control and let the engine brake slow us about 20 kilometers per hour and look over the bridge at the bottom very carefully. If there are black tire streaks on the pavement we slow all the way to 50 km/hr (30 mph) and ease the coach over the bump. The black tire streaks are from unloaded trucks with their helper axles retracted. The bump causes the air springs to jounce downward and the tires hit the pavement and have to start spinning. Of course now we must start up the next hill at a slow speed and accelerate back to highway speeds, but at least the dishes stay in the cupboards.

As we traveled along TCH 1 this afternoon, we spotted a car sitting just off the road with some plastic food tubs full of berries sitting on the hood of the car. We were half a kilometer down the road before we figured out what was up. Locals apparently go out into the brush and pick the wild blueberries. The next time we saw a car parked with berries on the hood we stopped and indeed were able to get perhaps a kilo and a half of wild blueberries for $5 Canadian. We had them this evening with Crème Yogurt….Yum, yum.

Well the sunset grayed out on me, so I guess no sailor’s delight tomorrow. Judy and I will say goodbye for now. We will keep you posted on our new found adventure in Newfoundland. Love to all.

P.S. No cell phone service here, but it looks like we can check our e-mail daily.

The photo below is a “moving giff” and shows the door closing sequence as the ferry steamed away from the dock.