Tuesday - August 21, 2007

Today it wasn’t raining when we got up but somehow we were slow to get moving so by the time John was ready to start hooking up it was raining, fortunately is was just a light shower and was over quickly. A man from Port Severn came over and started chatting, then a couple from Newfoundland started to chat so we were really late getting on the road. The couple from here own a fishing business south of St. John’s and had never seen the inside of an Airstream so I gave them a tour and they really liked it.

Once on the road we drove the “Road to the Isles” for a bit then turned off and picked up the “Road to the Shores”. This took us around a peninsula to Gambo (home of Joey Smallwood) that is on the TCH, it was the long way to Gambo but was the scenic route and was very pretty.

One of the places we drove through was Musgrave Harbour and here is a piece of trivia for our daughters, Nan and Kel, who went to Banting Memorial High School in Alliston. Musgrave Harbour is the place where Sir Frederick Banting was killed in a plane crash on February 20th, 1941. His plane had left Gander and developed engine problems so the pilot turned around to return to Gander and they crashed at Musgrave Harbour. Sir Frederick Banting was the co-discoverer of insulin and when killed in the plane crash he was on his way to Ireland. There was a nice looking campground there called Banting Memoiral RV Park. We also drove through Hare Bay, home of Tara Oram (she was just eliminated from Canadian Idol).

We drove the TCH for about 15 km then picked up the “Road to the Beaches” and are now at the Eastport Sunshine RV Park. Great name – Sunshine Park, as it was pouring when we got here! We are not impressed, the sites are narrow and John has never had so much trouble trying to get us level and stable as the sites are not at all even and on this side of the park they all roll to the back. Oh well, it is only for one night so we will survive. After we got set up we drove to Savage which in 2002 was named one of Canada’s 10 prettiest towns by Harrowsmith Country Life Magazine. It was very pretty but I think I still like Tilting better.

There is a nice sandy beach down the road from the park and this is the area in Newfoundland for beaches but with the temperature about 12 the beach didn’t look the least bit inviting - funny, the beach was empty – can’t imagine why!

One of the things we noticed today was that there were no woodpiles along the side of the road (we have gotten quite used to seeing them) and there wasn’t as much wood piled up at houses. On the drive today the trees were very small and not as plentiful so that could explain the lack of woodpiles.