Our View From The Road

Wow, did the wind blow last night. The rain continued most of the night as did the wind gusting to 60+ km/h at times. A restless night unfortunately.

Today the park showers (10/10) felt wonderful as we readied ourselves for a travel day that would see us end the day in Lewisporte. We took our time getting ready as Barb prepared a grilled egg sandwich for my birthday breakfast. After emptying the tanks we set off back along the Dorset Trail towards the Trans Canada Highway (TCH). 90min of driving in the rain (heavy at times) and thick fog watching carefully for roadside Moose. None weee seen and before long the rain eased and we made it back onto the TCH heading East towards Grand Falls.

The TCH is quite a nice road with passing lanes every few kilometers helping to ease backlogs of cars caught following slower moving vehicles.

Stopping for fuel ($1.871/liter) near Bishops Falls allowed us to relax for a few minutes before returning to the highway for the last few kilometer’s. we turned off of the TCH and onto Route 340 which took us into Lewisporte where we pulled into the marina where we will be spending a couple of nights.

Our good friend Mark, with whom we sailed to Newfoundland in 2019, has sold his yacht which he has kept in Lewisporte for the past 6 years. He is here to remove personal belongings ahead of the new owner taking possession and we thought apropos to give him a hand and say goodbye to the yacht.

We enjoyed dinner at Li’s Restaurant a local Chinese establishment before returning to our van at the marina for the night.

Camp day today. Laundry, cleaning, etc. To aid with this it rained so we spent most of the day inside.

We did venture out later in the afternoon and walked to The Outport Museum and Tearoom. The owner of the home turned into a museum when there was a moratorium placed on Cod fishing. Being out of work and a history buff, he began collecting items from around the community that spoke of the history of La Scie and the area.

Today the old house is full of artifacts that speak to the lives of the people who once lived and worked to build the community that exists today. The owners took it upon themselves to tell us stories and add information to some of the pieces on display.

The tearoom serves traditional Newfoundland food and Barb enjoyed fish cakes while I had Moose soup. We also enjoyed dessert before heading out and back to the van.

It was lightly raining when we initially headed out earlier, our return walk was fraught with gusty winds and driving rain. Definitely a quiet evening inside.

Tomorrow we head to Lewisporte.

Shallow Bay Campground is wonderfully quiet. We had a nice nights sleep and awoke to a sunny morning after some light overnight rain. Parks Canada comes through again with their nicely equipped showers (9/10) and we got ourselves ready and packed to go before 10:00am. This included a quick stop to empty our tanks.

Re-joining Route 430 South we made our way through Gros Morne National Park towards Deer Lake where we stopped to re-provision and fuel up the van.

Heading East on the Trans Canada Highway, we stopped for lunch at the White Bay Restaurant. Continuing on the TCH, we arrived at the Route 410 exit that headed North into the Baie Verte Peninsula and towards our destination of La Scie. This route North is called The Dorset Trail.

La Scie (French for ‘The Saw’) probably hints at the towns forestry background. Today, fishing appears to be the primary industry with the very secluded harbour well stocked with all sizes of boats.

We are camping for a couple of nights at the Island Cove RV Park located at High Point on the North side of the harbour. The campground is small with only 9 serviced sites and about the same number of unserviced sites.

Before dinner we hiked up to the High Point Lookout for some wonderful views offshore. As a bonus there are a couple of icebergs below the cliffs.

After a later dinner we relaxed and then watched the sunset before retiring for the night.

Tomorrow is a day for relaxing and getting a few chores done.

Today we begin our trek southwards down the Western Arm of Newfoundland, as such we will be driving The Viking Trail again, but in reverse.

We awoke early and the foghorn let us know before we opened the blinds that the sea fog was still enveloping the van. The propane-powered furnace had kept us nice and warm throughout the night and we were keen to start our day. As such we pulled out of the parking lot at 7:30am on our way to top off our fuel tank and make a breakfast stop at Tim Horton’s.

Here is an updated list of items we wanted to see on this trip.

• Caribou – 1
• Moose – 5
• Icebergs – 9+ (Not updating anymore)
• Puffins – 0
• Whales – 2+

Yep, within 30minutes of driving out of St Anthony we saw 2 more moose (meese?) The first was simply eating in the roadside ditch. The second came out of the ditch and crossed the road in front of us (Firm brake pressure was applied but there was really lots of room). Here’s a picture of that 2nd moose.

Shortly thereafter it began to rain. The rain built in intensity and the roads become challenging to drive as all the potholes were now filled with rainwater along with the heavily rutted asphalt road now looking like dual rivers in each lane. Hydroplaning is a real risk as is loosing a wheel in a hidden flooded pothole so weaving between hazards became a sport for all drivers today. Luckily no damage was done and we ended the day in one piece.

Below are a few pictures ‘from the road’.

We made a short detour into Port au Choix to visit the Parks Canada site where they have unearthed evidence of human settlement going back over 4,500 years. We were really hoping to see Caribou as they are known to frequent the site, but alas no luck. We did however see our first whales (2) far out in the Strait of Belle Isle. No pictures due to distance.

Our day ended just North of Cow Head at the Parks Canada ‘Shallow Bay Campground’. A nice quiet & again grassy site for the night.

Tomorrow we re-provision and head eastward.

A cool start to the day at only 2°C and lots of sea fog. Icebergs that were visible last night are not this morning. The parking area was quiet and we both slept very well.

Today we start by heading to the Parks Canada National Historic site in L’Anse-aux-Meadows. It is the only authenticated location of a Viking Norse settlement in North America and dates from around 1000AD and quite possibly founded by Leif Eiriksson (son of Eirik the Red).

“Not all Norsemen are Vikings, but all Vikings are Norsemen.” – Our tour guide

As you approach the historic site it becomes very evident very quickly how remote this part of the island is. Our tour guide told us that this past Winter (2025/26) they had 16feet (4.88m) of snow. Now try to imagine yourself living in Norse village in a sod building in this climate. These Norse settlers had to have been incredibly tough individuals.

L’Anse-aux-Meadows is thought to have been a trade port from which goods would have been collected from further expeditions southwards before being sent back to Greenland, Iceland & Scandinavia. The thought is; however, that the settlement only lasted for a few decades before it was decided to shut it down and all settlers returned to their homelands.

We are both very glad we came to visit this wonderful place and hear about how it was discovered in 1960 and what the archeologists have found over the years that allows us to have an insight into how it came to be, how it functioned and probably why it was abandoned. It was a long drive to the Northern tip of Newfoundland, but one that we feel was very worthwhile and educational. The scenery ain’t half bad either.

From L’Anse-aux-Meadows we drove South to St Anthony where we spent a quiet afternoon relaxing in our fog enshrouded van at Fishing Point Park. We had heard that there were a couple of smaller icebergs near the entrance to the harbour and were hoping to see them.

Our patience paid off! After a couple of hours the fog lifted enough that we could see the ‘bergs clearly. A few photos are below.

At 7:00pm we attended The Great Viking Feast dinner theater that is held in a unique sod roofed restaurant. We were well fed and thoroughly entertained.

After dinner we retired to our van and stayed in the parking lot of the restaurant having previously obtained approval to do so. However, given the sea fog we were lulled to sleep by the soft bass tones of a foghorn from the lighthouse that is just the other side of the restaurant.

Tomorrow we head back toward the South.