Crossing to Newfoundland

Baxter and Flip are so happy!  This had to be their weirdest travel day -- ever.  First we move along in the motorhome as usual, then we park with a bunch of other vehicles and it's noisy and dark, then very quiet except for the thrum of some HUGE diesel engine.  Then the motorhome starts swaying and rolling gently.  It gently rolls and sways for nearly 6 hours.  Then the diesel thrum subsides and it starts getting noisy again.  Engines start.  DAVID gets back in the motorhome.  And it starts moving again.  Then -- finally -- the motorhome comes to a rest, does its big shimmy as if settling onto a nest -- and grows quiet.  The walls move out.  We're home again!  AND Baxter sees a new campground with birds to chase.  You see why they are so happy -- now that that odyssey is over.

It took just about 10.5 hours, almost exactly as Google Maps predicted, to travel from our campground on Cape Breton Island to our new campground on Newfoundland.  We crossed the Cabot Strait:

It poured rain last night, but by the time we got to the ferry, the rain had stopped, although the clouds were still overhead.  Kathy put on a cheery face as we waited to leave North Sydney, which sits proudly in the background in this photo:

We took immense faith in the unsinkable lifeboats slung alongside our decks on the ferry:

Once out on the water, the scenery was pretty much the same in every direction, whether aft-er --

-- or be-fore:

Eventually, our ferry arrived at the dock at Port-Aux-Basques, Newfoundland.  More on that in a future blog entry, we predict.  We didn't take any photos, but hustled out separately in the motorhome and Jeep to get to our campground before 7pm local time.  Here it is -- Grand Codroy RV Park, with a view to the Table Mountains to the east, and the Grand Codroy River to the north and west.  You can still see snow on the top of the Table Mountains in this view from our campsite:

One of the locals said that this snow is so high, and we're so north and cold, that the snow will last into August.  Brrr....

Baxter investigated the campground this evening, but only rustled up some birds, so he hasn't yet decided whether he likes it.

Newfoundland is beautiful in an arctic tundra sort of way, and we're very excited to get out and explore it.  First, though, we need to roust Eddie and George out of their slumber and have them take a look at the area around our campsite.  More on that in the next blog post.