Week ending June 28

We arrived just out of Truro, NS on Tuesday to camp at Hidden Hilltop Campground, a nice campground with lovely level sites, so we didn't have to unhook to level the trailer, a real bonus when you are just stopping for the night.

The next morning we headed for Sydney, planning to catch the ferry to Newfoundland the next day. As we drove along, the sun actually broke through the clouds and shone for almost an hour.  We know that sounds mundane, but given the weather we have had, seeing the sun was quite exciting. We got a campsite at Arm of Gold campground, only 6 km from the ferry. The fellow who runs the campground has sisters living in Calgary and has spent a lot of time in Alberta. The campground has been in his family for 45 years.  We unhooked and drove down to the ferry terminal to get tickets.  Despite everyone warning us we needed reservations we had no problem getting booked on the 10:00 A.M. ferry. The lady selling us the tickets called someone over (who was in a security area that was out of bounds to us) to provide us with travel information about Newfoundland.  After a quick shopping trip to a local mall to pick up a pair of hiking boots for John, we headed back to the ferry dock area to have dinner at a seaside restuarant. The seafood was pefect, the scallops as tender and delicious as I remember from 28 years ago, when we were last in Nova Scotia.  They had the picture of the ship 'Joan' below on one of the placemats.

Thursday dawned sunny and almost warm. As we were hitching up the trailer, we knocked it off the blocks we had under the front legs, because Joan took the gizmo braking the trailer wheels off before we hitched up.  The front of the trailer came to rest on the back of the truck and we couldn't raise the front legs enough to get it off the truck. The man who worked at the campground came to help us with his hydraulic Jack and extra blocks.  It took us a few minutes to get the trailer raised so we could hitch it and head for the ferry. The crossing was wonderful, a calm, clear day. We had a mid-morning nap, a bit of lunch, played computer games and surfed the net looking for a campground close to Gross Morne for our stay there. We got off the ferry, camped at Little Paradise campground at Port aux Basques. We hosted happy hour in our trailer with some people we had met in Ottawa and ran into on the ferry, as well as some neighbours from last night's campground who had tried to help us get the trailer back on the truck, to discuss our plans for the next while, compare notes, etc as to what we planned to see and do in
Newfoundland.

On Friday, we stopped in Deer Lake at a service station called Deer Lake Truck and Tire, before heading into Gros Morne,  for an oil change.  We hadn't booked this, but within an hour we where on our way, oil changed and brakes checked to be sure they were still okay after the problems we had going into Ottawa.  The weather so far is holding out. If someone had told me Newfoundland would be an Emerald Isle, I would not have believed them. The area so far is beautiful, lots of up and down, green trees. We were surprised that there was even some snow still on the hills.

Saturday we did a short, but strenuous hike to Lookout hills, 5 km return, elevation of 640 m. The sun shone all day - a real treat.

Headed out Sunday to do an easy coastal hike of 6 km return, with an elevation change of 10 whole meters.  We picnicked at Lobster Cove Lighthouse and then walked around the site to a few viewpoints.
Monday morning we went on a mini-vacation. We left our home at the campground and headed up the northwest coast to L'Anse aux Meadows, a National Historic Site, where a replica has been made of the first Viking settlement in North America 1000 AD. We went through the viking village, talked to one of the interpretors that was working on making a fishing boat in the tradional viking way. 

We also saw an iceberg in the harbour, which was one our must-sees in Newfoundland. We had found a web site that told us there were ice bergs in the St. Anthony area and we found one in the exact location promised. We were lucky to be able to see it from the historic site. 

After we were done there, we stayed in a nice little hotel in St. Anthony's, and had a good dinner in their restaurant.

Returning home (back to the trailer) on Tuesday, we stopped at Port aux Choix historic site.  There are archaelogical digs there of pre-historic Indian and Eskimo sites. 

The trip was interesting we saw several moose, a caribou and a bald eagle.  When we were talking to one of the rangers at the Viking place, we discovered that Moose is not native to Newfoundland, nor are coyotes, but the caribou is.  The moose are prolific enough, that they are planning a cull by issuing hunting licenses for five hundred this fall.  

Week ending June 20

Finally some progress, and we were able to leave Ottawa. Almost $2,000.00 lighter we have new axles, new tires and new brakes, what more can a person want. The people at Frisby Tire in Ottawa where really great - we dropped in about 9:30,(no appointment) and had 4 new tires on the trailer by 11:20. They even had to go to the suppliers and get 2 tires because they only had 2 of the required tires in stock. So we programmed our travelling companion to take us to Drummondville, Quebec. After 100 KM we stopped at the Canadian Tire store in Casselman. (Following the tire installers instructions) They torqued the tires with the same torque wrench John had bought earlier in the trip. It took 3 people to do the job, one working the others chatting with us. When they found out we were from Calgary the one fellow told us that his brother is the GM at Mount Norquay. Not only did we get the tires torqued for free, we got all sorts of travel info about places to see in New Brunswick. All in all a very good stop. 

At the Quebec border we stopped at the Quebec visitor info and picked up enough info to keep us reading well through Quebec. Camped at Drummondville, where most of the campground was permenant sites, we were the only overnighter, so had lots of space and made a back-in site into a pull through, they were very level, so didn't even have to unhitch the trailer - made this morning a breeze, hit the road before 8:30. Stopped in Levis (Accross the river from Quebec City) visited the Levis Fort. Time to improve our education. The purpose of the fort was to protect us from those nasty Americans. It was never used for the purpose for which it was built.  Had lunch and then carried on.

We then arrived at the beginning of the Gaspe. Stopped at a municipal campground in Trois Pistoles. It reminds us of National Park campgrounds, because there are loads of trees, only difference is they have full services. There always seems to be a disadvantage, the one here is we can not get satellite because of all the trees. So much for watching the 7th game of the playoffs.  We couldn't even find a radio station.  Trever emailed me with the news that my Boston Bruins won (I've been smiling ever since).

At Ste. Anne-des-Monts, we still didn't have satellite reception, but could send and recieve email, but no other internet service here on my computer. Our travelling companion (GPS Lady) was very unhappy with us today, as we took the scenic route , which was clearly marked NO TRUCKS - she figures we are the same size as a truck and at every intersection she insisted that we turn around. It took her almost 30 KM to figure that we were not going to heed her warnings.  

The next morning, we woke up to rain, rain and rain. Once we got packed up, we went to retract the sliders. All went well until the bedroom slider, which wouldn't move.  We checked all of fuses, and found one that looked suspicious.  You just can't drive down the highway with the sliders out, so we went to ask the campground host if he knew where we could get someone to look at the problem. It turns out he was an electrician, so he came over with his circuit tester and confirmed what John had suspected - we had blown a fuse. He replaced it with a fuse of lesser strength, allowing us to close up the slider. He advised us to get the correct fuses.  No charge for his extra service.

The drive along the St. Lawrence was very picturesque, numerous waterfalls, sea birds, and water lapping up against the rocks. 

We arrived at Camping Des Appalaches in Gaspe where we had made a reservation for 3 nights, in order to allow us to explore the area around Gaspe and do some hiking in Forillon National Park.   As we drove around the area, we found that every campground was overlooking the Bay, except the one we were staying at.  The weather was not the best, typically it still always seems to rains on weekends.  We still got out and did some sight seeing. It did put a damper on out hiking plans though. The Gaspe is scenic and well worth the visit even though we had to tolerate low cloud with rain, rain and more rain.

Sunday dawned cloudy, but no rain, so we hiked up to Mont St. Albans lookout. We encountered a fox on the way up. John was standing on a bridge waiting for me, when a fox came out of the bush, wanting to cross the bridge, he waited,and I arrived at the bridge, so he disappeared into the bush. The weather on the way up was good, but by the time we got to the top, clouds had rolled in.  The view none the less was spectacular, and well worth the uphill trek.

Today, we packed up early and headed around the south shore of the Gaspe toward New Brunswick. We set the GPS for the campground we had located on the internet the night before, but our GPS lady wanted to take us back along the north shore to Ste. Anne-des-Monts and then south to New Brunswick. We ignored her, and headed south.  We had to ignore her for quite a while, because everytime we passed a point where she told us to turn back, she would recalculate the route and tell us to turn around at the next opportunity.   This kept happening until we were within about 20 km of the junction with the highway coming across the Gaspe from Ste. Anne-des-Monts.  She is nothing if not persistent in deciding what route we should be taking.  Usually she gives up long before she did this time though.

We got a shot of Perce Rock because we were lucky enough to find a spot to pull the trailer over. 

One thing we learned driving around the Gaspe was that they have all of the rest areas and viewpoints on the shore side, which makes a certain amount of sense.  However, this meant that we always had to cross the highway to stop.  We were surprised at how much red rock there is in cliffs along south shore. The color reminded us of the Sedona area in Arizona.

Week ending June 14

Our second week in Ottawa began with a lot of hot air in Ottawa. It has been a long time since we have experienced temperatures in the mid-thirty's. As a result we spent the day doing nothing- enjoying our air conditioning and being domestic.  We read the news and discovered that there had been ferocious storms through the area during the previous evening.  A roof was ripped off a building across the Ottawa River in Gateneau. Fortunately they missed our campground. We did have some wind, but only a few drops of rain. The next day we went to the driving range to hit some golf balls. A full round of golf would be too 'retired'. We then came back to the campground and decided it was time to wash the bugs off the front of the trailer. We discovered that plain old water was just as effective as bug remover.  Around 6:00 PM I (Joan) was sitting reading the news on my computer and when I glanced out the window, I saw a red fox walk through the campground. I was rather surprised as this campground is rather urban, and has a few permenant units in it. 

We finally broke down and decided to do some of the things all tourists seem to do when they come to Ottawa, we went downtown to By-Ward market, got some fresh veggies and special cheese, then walked along the Rideau canal, and took a picture of the parliament building.

The 5th annual world naked bike ride was in progress as we wandered through the market. It consisted of men and women on bikes, all topless, protesting the world's dependence on oil. We haven't figured out what the significance of the toplessness was.  Maybe our clothes are using an overabundance of the worlds oil.

On Sunday afternoon, to add insult to injury, Joan's computer stopped working.  On Monday morning, after taking the trailer to the RV service centre to get it's replacement axles installed, we took it to Best Buy to see if they could tell us why it wouldn't even power up.   Once again, the helpful people there did their magic (removed the battery, let the computer sit for a few seconds, plugged the power cord in, and started it just like it is supposed work).  After that, we drove around the University experimental farm, and came across the Rideau Canal Hallwell locks National Park site.  We were lucky to be able to watch them raise a small pleasure boat through a couple of locks, but left quickly when it started pouring rain. 
     

The axles were finished late on Monday afternoon, as they had to replace the bushings as well, so we decided to return to the same campground rather than heading further east.   The tires are looking worn in places, so we will get them replaced on Tuesday, then hopefully head toward Montreal.  It is nice to have trailer brakes again, so the truck brakes don't have to do all the work.  

If we keep having problems with axles etc, maybe we will change our mode of transportation. This just might be a possibility.

Week ending June 7

On June 1st after stopping at Tim Horton's for coffee and muffins (in support of camp day) we headed for Upper Canada Village. It is a large heritage Village on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. The village is on a site that played a prominent roll in the War of 1812. They have recreated life as it used to be, using equipment from the era. Each building had at least one person representing a trade from the mid-1800s.  We watched them saw logs into wood for use in the village, grind grain into flour which they use in the bakery. This showed how much you could do with only a few feet of water power.  The bread is sold at the gift shop and used in their restuarants. They have their own sheep, which they shear and then card and dye the wool. We watched a young lady at a spining wheel making thread from the wool,  which they also have available in the gift shop.

They also make it into blankets using water-powered looms, which of course they sell in the gift shop. After spending almost 5 hours enjoying the village, we  headed back to the campground to enjoy our modern lifestyle, by swimming in our heated pool.  It was a very windy day, so our satellite dish had lost its signal. After some adjustment we got it organized so we could watch the first game of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

On Friday we decided to do laundry.  It seemed like everyone else decided Friday was laundry day as we had to wait for a couple of other people to finish their laundry.

Saturday morning we went to a local farmers' market, where we bought some nice fresh vegetables. There was some great woodwork and other crafts for sale.

Sunday morning we headed to the flea market at the Rideau-Carleton racetrack and casino.  It took us about 5 minutes to wander through the tables, since there was nothing special there.
 
Monday morning dawned warm and sunny. We decided it was a good day to head to Gatineau Park to do a couple of hikes. One was an interpretive trail, about 35 minutes long, the other took us a little over 2 hours and took us to 4 viewpoints. Except for the over abundance of mosquitoes, this is a great time of year to hike. No fees to enter the park and the trails are very quiet. We felt like we had the park to ourselves.  Can you see the parliament buildings in our view of Ottawa from the park?

Tuesday AM we did a bit of grocery shopping and then stopped on our way home at Eva's Chip Wagon, on the side of the road, for lunch. A great choice. We had cabbage rolls, some of the best we have ever tasted, and of course chips. The chip wagon (a common feature in Ottawa) was operated by a retired trucker. Although he didn't say and we didn't ask, we think the cabbage rolls were made by his wife, since the wagon was located in his front yard.