The Viking Trail

July 7, 2015 - Day 21

We took the Viking Trail for 285 miles up the west coast of Newfoundland, which took about 7 hours.  What a beautiful drive!  At the drivers meeting the evening before, we were warned to be watchful for moose.  There were many moose signs, even a “moose fencing area” which was a stretch of highway with fences on both sides, to keep the moose off the roadway.   Every year there are 700 collisions between moose and vehicles.  The trucks and buses have “moose lights” on them, and big tubular bumpers covering the entire front of the truck.  You can tell they are familiar with the moose warnings!   We kept our eyes open but only saw one freshly dead moose on the side of the road.

We finally saw an upright moose…. this one was right in front of the gas station!

The Viking Trail hugged the shoreline, and provided  beautiful views, along with curvy roads and steep hills  as we passed through small towns…Lobster Cove, Sally’s Cove, Cow Head, Three Mile Rock, River of Ponds and Hawke’s Bay. At some points it looked like we were going to drive right into the water! 

All of the towns are small, and some of the stretches of road seemed very remote.  It’s interesting to think about this as an island, and that everything or everyone must fly or ferry in. 

Even with so few people, we passed a couple of golf courses and even a ski resort! 

Another thing we noticed were the “containers” to hold the telephone poles and sign posts.  They have to do this since its so hard to penetrate the ground of The Rock! 

We arrived at Port au Choix, a small fishing village, with colorful boats sitting at the dock.

Our campground Ocean View, is right in town, across the street from a grocery store! It is a campground owned and operated by the Lions Club, and overlooks the shore.  There are 22 spots, and our group took every one of them!  We look out the front windshield to an awesome view of a rocky shoreline and water as far as you can see,  with an occasional boat cruising by.  We walked out onto the flat smooth rocks, and surprisingly, the surrounding water is crystal clear.  The loons were playing in the water and it reminded me of "On Golden Pond".

We had an impromptu group campfire and weenie roast tonight, with a beautiful backdrop of pretty skies and water.

This rivaled the faint rainbow last night that we saw from our campfire. 

 

We are waiting for the sunset as we plan for another big day tomorrow.