The Deer Lake Campground doesn’t have a dump station but the town has one about two kilometers away so that was our first stop. After that brief diversion, it was onto Trans-Canada 1 East. Our plan for the day was a short drive to Sop’s Arm, a hamlet on the western shore of White Bay at the mouth of the Main River. It seems to be a relatively unvisited part of Newfoundland and has a little noticed municipal campground. It seemed a different place to spend a relaxed day that wasn’t raining.
The weather was mostly clear when we left Deer Lake and remained so until we left the main highway. As we climbed towrd Sop’s Arm, it started to get misty and foggy and the road turned wet. Fortunately this only lasted until we straight dropping down to the coast. It was fine by the time we reached the campground.
Sop’s Arm Park is a town campground and is well kept, but fairly primitive. The sites are mostly in heavy woods, with a couple that have a partial view to the river. We decided not to stay, mostly because of the still muddy conditions and the dampness of the dark woods after all the recent rain. It was 60km back to Route 1.
Our next attempt was to go to Fleur de Lis at the western corner of the Baie Verte peninsula on tne eastern shore of White Bay. There was supposedly a decent boondocking spot at the end of the road at the Ocean View Trail trailhead. About 150km later with a fair number of steep hill on the way, we were there. It was at the trailhead but the trailhead was just at the end of the main street with the waterfall on one side and houses on the other. Parkig in front of someone’s house is not our idea of boondocking.
The trail, on the other hand was delightful. It would through hilly woods and wetlands to an overlook the looked all the way down White Bay to North Atlantic. We could even spot a fairly large iceberg out byond the end of the bay.
On the way back to Speedy, we came across a lively Wilson’s Warbler who was flitting between bushes right in front of us. Bird of the day…except maybe the Bald Eagle seen later.
Time for a third alternative; but first lunch. We stopped in the town of Baie Verte at McKenna’s Family Restaurant, a new eatery in town. They had pretty good food. Ellen had Cod Tacos and I had Pan-fried Cod with Scruntions and Onions. Both were quite good
Time for the Speedy hiccup of the day. After we left the restaurant, we stopped of fuel When I turned off the engine ther was a metallic “Clank”. When I restarted the clank happened again. I looked underneath while Ellen started and stopped the engine but not discern the source of the sound. I did notice that there was a lot of motion by the exhaust system when the engine started as it is not as constrained by the temporary hanger as with the standard one. I’m hoping that it is some part of the exhaust sytem hitting one of the heat shields. It did not happen when we stopped for the day.
We headed east fro Baie Verte to LaScie and the municipal Island Cove RV Park. It was another 60km up the roughest road we have been on for a long time.
But it was worth it. The park is quite small, but is on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean…where we just had a great sunset. We have a nice powered site at the end of the row with a pleasant Quebec couple in a sprinter nearly identical to Speedy. It is another 2005 Sprinter, but converted by Leisure Vans rather than Roadtrek.
We expect to be here for at least two nights, hopefully the weather will hold out with nice days. And this is where we saw the Bald Eagle soar over as we checked in.
We haven’t decided where to next. With all the Speedy hiccups, it might be the ferry.
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