Bob and Pam's travels 2021 and 2025: Newfoundland Trip 2025

In the fall of 2022 we toured the Canadian Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Quebec. Unfortunately we did not record that trip using this blogsite and used Facebook instead. In hindsight we have decided that using Facebook was a mistake. We are moving back to this blogsite to record our trips.

We did not make the ferry trip over to Newfoundland in 2022 because it was late in the year and we did not have enough time to see all the things the island had to offer. That proved to be a wise decision for several reasons and one was that hurricane Fiona hit the island. We had to leave Prince Edward Island two days early because of the storm and if we had been on the island of Newfoundland it would have been necessary to ride out the storm. Not something we would want to do in an RV. We are planning to spend 24 days on the island this year and have started this blog to document the trip.

We have reservations for both the short and long ferries and for every campground we plan to stay at while on the island. The ferries we are booked on sail at night and our dog, Buddy, has never spent a night without at least one of us with him. For that reason we reserved a pet friendly cabin on both ferry trips. The short ferry is about 8 hours long and the long one is 16 hours. If you don't have a pet friendly cabin you must leave your dog in the RV or put them in the kennel. You are not allowed to go to the RV while underway. We have been told the kennel is terrible so reserving the cabins where we could have Buddy and also get some sleep made sense.

We will update this blog as we get closer to the time to start the trip.

June 14,2025

We started our journey last Sunday morning, June 8,2025. We have been driving for six days for a total distance of 1700 miles to reach the Arm of Gold Campground in North Sydney, Nova Scotia. A number of years back we decided that driving more than 300 miles a day was more like work than fun and attempted to limit our travel days to 300 miles or less. Even that approach is hard on my 79 year old body when the travel days are consecutive. We reached the Arm of Gold Campground yesterday afternoon about 3:30 local time. As soon as you cross the border into Canada from Maine you are in the Atlantic Time Zone. That puts the time one hour ahead of Eastern time. What will take some getting used to is the Newfoundland Time Zone. Yes, they have their own time zone and it is 30 minuets ahead of Atlantic Time. You learn to appreciate the fact that your cell phone automatically updates the time as you travel.

We have crossed the Canadian border 5 times now and only been searched twice, the first time and this time. The first time was about 27 years ago when we went to Niagara Falls and stayed on the Canadian side. We were driving a pickup truck towing a travel trailer. The guard ask me if we had any firearms and when I replied no took one look at my Tennessee license plate and said pull over there. This time they asked about firearms, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, cannabis, mace, and tasers. When I replied no to all of those I don't think they believed me. What self respecting white headed 79 year old from Tennessee does not walk around with a cigarette hanging from their mouth sporting a side arm. So one hour later we managed to get our passports and keys back and were on our way. They opened every drawer and cabinet in the motorhome and also searched the truck we are towing. They seemed disappointed that the redneck from Tennessee was clean. I am sure they were scratching their heads over the quantity of tools we are carrying. I normally travel with a good assortment of tools but on this trip we have increased the number of tools significantly to include wooden blocks, a bottle jack, air compressor, tire repair kits, and my 1200 foot pound DeWalt 20 volt impact wrench.

Buddy is in heaven. He does not like hot weather and gets very frisky when the temps are cold. On our arrival yesterday the temp was 59 with a breeze. This morning as I write this the temp is 45. On our walk last night he was ecstatic. This campground is immaculate and we could not find any soil or mud anywhere. Every thing is either grass, pavement, or gravel. The property is large and on the water. There is a walking trail that goes down to the water with a view of an interesting church. Here is a photo of the church.

And here is a closer look:

Speaking of the temperatures, I was remiss in not making sure Pam brought a heavy coat on the trip. Knowing the mornings in Newfoundland will be in the forties with highs in the sixties I remembered to ask her about that as we traveled thru Virginia. That is when I found out she did not bring a heavy coat. We have three boat tours booked and a heavy coat is essential while on the water. Fixing my mistake was easy but not cheap. Since we would be traveling thru Freeport, ME, the home of L L Bean, we stopped and purchased her a coat. That cost me.

This morning, June 15, it is 41 degrees. Yesterday, June 14, we had a free day without travel and started the day by checking out the route to the ferry terminal. That had the advantage of a Canadian Tire store being close by. We needed to pickup a few items. For those that don't know, a Canadian Tire store is like a combination of a tire store and an Ace Hardware with a little Five and Dime thrown in. The lady in front of me purchased swim noodles. You can find them all over Canada and our first visit to one was in Whitehorse, YK in 2016.

Buddy is an accomplished vehicle passenger and at home knows all the routes with dog parks and walking trails. When we get close to one of his favorite spots he goes into a state of excitement and expects us to stop. We often avoid a route because we don't want to stop at the dog park. He also listens to the GPS and when it announces "you have arrived" he jumps up and looks to see where we are. We believe he learned this pattern from the fact we often put dog parks in as a destination while we travel. He has become accustom to a vehicle ride each day with at least one stop at a walking trail or dog park. After we left the Canadian Tire he went into his "when are we going to stop" attitude. As we traveled down the main street of North Sydney I could see a green area on the GPS which indicates a park or golf course. As we got closer it became apparent that it would be an excellent stop to walk Buddy.

The park was Munro Park with a boarded walking trail around the park. It turned out to be an old military base from World War I that mainly was occupied by Americans to protect ships from German U-Boats. When I think of submarines World War II comes to mind and I was surprised that they even existed in the first world war.

https://www.saltwire.com/cape-breton/all-about-munro-park-20745

https://tinyurl.com/y9npj7rb

We saw a few pilot whales out in the harbor and Pam stopped to talk the ears off a local man who was watching them. In this photo you can see the daytime ferry to Newfoundland that just left port. There is a senior living facility next to the park and we suspect the man walked over from there. He had a mobility assistance device so don't think he traveled far.

After Munro Park we headed over to travel the Cabot Trail, an all day drive, and did not get back to the campground until 7PM. We stopped at an ice cream store named Mr. Chicken that turned out to be the high light of the day. It sold the best soft freeze ice cream I have every sampled. We even purchased Buddy a cup of vanilla. If you look close you can see our truck on the left and Pam sitting at a picnic table enjoying her serving of soft freeze.

Pam concentrating on the task at hand.

After the ice cream stop we made our way on down the Cabot Trail until we reached the Cape Breton Highlands National Park where we had to stop and pay an entrance fee. The Cabot Trail winds along the coast with commanding views of the coast line and The Gulf of St Lawrence.

The blue dot is the campground where we are staying.

This evening we will proceed down to wait our turn to board the ferry for our voyage to Newfoundland.

We lined up at the ferry terminal about 6 PM local time and managed to be first in line for lane 12. There are many lanes. This is the largest ferry we have been on and they loaded 30 or 40 tractor trailer trucks as well as RV's, cars, and other commercial vehicles. There were two levels with vehicles, level 3 and level 5. Level 5 was all tractor trailers and level 3 was a combination of everything. The crossing was smooth and we could not even detect that we were moving. We had a cabin that allowed dogs. Buddy has stayed in hotels and he thought we were in a hotel room. It was a long 8 hours to get to Newfoundland and at 4:30 am it was daylight. We did mange to get some sleep.