We queued up for the ferry to Newfoundland around 10:30pm Wednesday evening. You have to check in 2-3 hours early (which would have been about 2am in our case, for our 5am ferry). We were exhausted from driving all day though, and frankly, there’s not much to do in North Sydney after 9pm anyway! So we took the opportunity to catch some shut eye while parked waiting for the boat.
We were in this lineup, crammed tractor trailers and other vehicles – everyone trying to get some sleep; surprisingly, there are a lot of jovial and happy people at a ferry terminal at 2am! Excitement , I suppose. I mean, I was kind of excited too (while Dave happily snored beside me).
They started loading the ferry around 3am. And guess where we got to park?! Deck one. The lower deck. The lowest deck. The hole. Drive into the boat, and then down a ramp, and then turn around and back into your spot. And THEN, climb 4 flights of stairs to get to the main deck!
Pretty cool boat though. Biggest I’ve ever been on anyway. 1200 passengers, 300 cars. It wasn’t full, which was nice, so it didn’t feel crowded at all. They’ve got a restaurant and bar, a lounge area, places to be outside on the deck, a ‘teen room’ full of ancient arcade games, computers and internet access, gift shop, and the recliners. Oh, the recliners! A room full of recliners and big screen tvs. This is where we spent most of our boat ride, trying to get some sleep. The snoring coming from that room was horrendous! But we managed.
Finally, land! Just around lunchtime; our first glimpses of The Rock. Just the ferry backing to the terminal was pretty cool! And then unloading. Being the first ones on the boat, we were of course the last ones off. Which was fine with me, because it meant that we were at the end of the line of ferry traffic. Tim Hortons was still packed with traffic right out onto the road when we drove by it though!
And then! We drove for another 5 hours. That’s right. 10 hours of driving, followed by a 7 hour ferry ride, followed by another 5 hours of driving! Dave was about ready to fly home! I let him sleep though while I drove. The first hour of driving in Newfoundland was a taste of what the weather could do. Wind and rain. The highway isn’t in great shape, water pools on it everywhere, and hydroplaning is easy! The gusty wind certainly doesn’t help the situation. Needless to say, we didn’t make very good time in that first hour and I was starting to think that this is what our entire week was going to be like!
By the time we made it to Corner Brook though, the wind had died down and the sun was shining. Good thing too, because the further north we drove, the bigger the hills got, and the windier the roads. We’re talking similar to the foothills of Alberta. I had no idea that Newfoundland had mountains like this. Mountains and ocean! Finally, I’ve seen them together.
We pulled into the Gros Morne KOA campground around 7pm. Nice little place. Dave, the guy who only pretends to like the outdoors, and doesn’t actually care much for camping, even mentioned just how nice a place it is. I call that progress. One of these days he’ll be asking me to go camping.
Rained part of the night, but we were tucked cozily inside our tent. And things were dry and sunny in the morning.
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