Sonya's Blog - Day 92 - Driving to Gros Morne

Sonya’s Blog - Day 92 - September 22nd - Driving to Gros Morne

Today we had to drive to Gros Morne and that was going to pretty much take up our whole day. The drive promised to be pretty boring as well since we have to head across Newfoundland from the eastern shores to the western shores. We had a quick breakfast, packed up and headed out on the road. The kids continued to do school work in the car. We had to drive through Terra Nova National Park first. We didn’t get to see a lot of the park, which was unfortunate. I really would have like to have seen the Dover Fault line. This is the fault line that shows evidence of the collision 540 million years ago between the ancient continents of Laurentia (which is now mostly North America) and Gondwana (Europe and Africa). This was a massive collision and the rocks fused together, then the bigger chunks broke off to form there own continents. Now Newfoundland floats out in the ocean all by it’s lonesome with evidence of the collision (I am probably simplifying things). Pretty cool stuff nonetheless. I learned about this the night before in the cabin when I was reading information that the owners had compiled together about the area. Had I know about it a little earlier we may have been able to plan for a visit, however, we did not really have the time to venture out that way as we really did not want to drive in the dark again.

So we drove and drove and drove with very few stops and it was pretty exciting. We finally stopped in Deer Lake for a late lunch and some homemade pie. We still had about an hour to drive till we got to our cabin. We had booked a cabin near Norris Point at the KOA they had there. When we arrived at the KOA the office was not open and we had no idea what cabin we were in. They had really limited office hours now that they had gone to shoulder season hours, like one hour in the morning and an hour and a 1/2 in the evening. We were there at 4 or 5 and they didn’t open up until 6 PM, so we were kind of at a loss. It would have been fine if we were just camping because we would just go to a site, but we were staying in one of their cabins and needed a key. We drove around and found a couple of cabins. We tried the door of one and it was locked. We went back up front and looked around some more and I went to the office and read all of the night check-in rules, which Blake had neglected to do, just sayin! It stated that if nobody was in the office and you had a reservation there would be a list taped to the night check-in stand telling you where to go. I looked around and our information was taped on the underside of the flip down table. The only problem was that it said our cabin was #27 and that the door would be unlocked for us, this was the cabin we had already been to and tried the door (which was locked). Well we headed back there and tried the door again, still locked. There was another cabin a little ways away, #25 so we headed over there and tried that one. Success, door unlocked. We moved in and figured they had just put the wrong number on our map and we weren’t moving even if they gave us a bad time because it had taken us forever just to get to this point. We got all settled and it was a cute little cabin. The double bed was in the main area with the kitchen, there was a small bathroom and then a tiny room with bunks in it. The bunks were like a little cubby hole for our kids, they both loved it. We got all set up and decided to head out for supper. By the time we were heading out someone was finally in the office so Blake popped in there and told her about the mix up. She had no idea what was going on really, but we were good to stay in #25.

The campground is about 5 minutes away from Norris Point and 5 minutes away from Rocky Harbour, which are both tiny little towns on the outskirts of Gros Morne. We decided to head to Rocky Harbour and check it out and find somewhere to eat.

We walked around for a bit and checked out the sunset then headed into Fisherman’s Landing for supper. They were very busy, but a table had just come available and they seated us. We ordered right away, but it took a long time to get our food - over an hour. While we were sitting and waiting a lady came over to ask us how our trip was going. It took us a minute to clue in that we were being asked by Ann Smyth. Her husband, Bob, was at the cashier paying for their meal so we jumped up to go say hi. Ann and Bob Smyth are neighbours of Blake’s parents in Calgary, they live right next door. They are touring Newfoundland with Ann’s sister and her husband and happened to be in Rocky Harbour at the same restaurant we stopped in at. We were flabbergasted, what are the chances! I guess at this point, they are 100% since we were all there at the same time. We talked to them a bit, but we were blocking the entrance. It turns out they have booked tickets on the boat tour we were thinking of doing tomorrow. So we may see them tomorrow as well. We finally were served our meal and then it was time to head back to the cabin and get to bed as it was late.

When we arrived back at the campground they had a rope going across the entrance to the campground. It was only 9:30 at night and quiet time is not until 11, so that was puzzling. Blake had to get out and take the rope down so we could drive through to our cabin. Not overly impressed with the service at this KOA, I must say.

Sonya