Terra Nova National Park to Bellevue Beach, New Foundland – 10 August 2023
The road to Bellevue Beach was horrendous – just full of potholes. However, our dismay with the roads soon disappeared when we saw Bellevue Beach and our campsite. This has to be the most beautiful campground we have ever stayed in. Our siste was right by a beautiful lake and just over the rise was an equally beautiful long beach with turquoise water and craggy cliffs swirling in mist on the side. Incredible! We were very pleased that we had a decent of time (6 days) in this park to relax and enjoy the scenery.
Unfortunately we were given a back in site which was tricky to get into. Derek tried to back down the road and swing into the site with me guiding the back in, and did not see the sign post near the truck on the opposite side, so when he turned in he caught the sign on the window of the Fifth wheel. Luckily no major damage and after a number of attempts we were straight and in place with the sign post still standing.
The following morning I took Jax for a nice walk along the Vinland Hiking trail in between the lake and ocean, which was full of orange gold grasses and bright pink flowers. Later that day we drove to Clarenville to the Canadian Tire to buy an external tank. It was so nice to finally get one, especially as a lot of the campgrounds here in NL do not have sewer connections, which restricts us when it comes to showering and washing clothes. I was so sick of short washes in the bathroom and dying to wash my hair. We stopped on the way back at Bare Mountain Coffee House and celebrated with a delicious Chai Latte and Lemon square. The Coffee House was a heritage house with both indoor and outdoor seating overlooking another beautiful lake.
Next day was rainy so we got busy with work and decided to walk later in the day which is often a lot sunnier. We left about 3.30pm for Chance Cove which I had heard from one of the NL residents was a very nice hike. It was more than very nice. We parked at the beach entrance and walked with difficulty across the very pebbly beach to the entrance of the trail which was at the bottom of a tall finger of land jutting out into the ocean. Every corner had warning signs about cliffs so we had to be very careful with Jax who got over excited in the forest. Views again superb!! Water turquoise blue. Loved this walk.
With the external tank now doing its job a lot of pressure is off in terms of using water, which is great. We now need to make sure we can manage our electrical needs so we can make more use of provincial and state parks or even campgrounds where we can opt for less or no hookups and save some money on campground fees. Campground fees in the States are really expensive with our average bill being around $75US a night but can easily go up to $100US a night. This is not sustainable and our plan is to get more solar panels so we can manage with less. In the meantime, Derek started work in his man cave below preparing the Electrical Management System so we can do that.
The following day was Sunday so we decided to tackle the Bordeaux trail. It was a lovely sunny day for a change and the walk around the coast was windy but very scenic.
I have been having problems with my businesses’ customer relationship management (CRM) system, for a while and running duplicate systems, so the past few weeks i had been buckling down and getting it all sorted out. This has been a lot of work involving reintegrating emails and getting contacts and tasks up to date. As I now have thousands of contacts and many duplicate and incomplete files I have my work cut out for me. In the meantime, I have Derek working on an integrated support system as the support is getting to the stage where Excel spreadsheets just don’t cut it anymore either. We have also had issues integrating the two systems so lots of work for both of us constantly working with the CRM support team. Sometimes its hard to break away and go exploring, but we always feel so much better after we have got out and had a good mental break. The downside is the busier we get the more badly we sleep – a problem we have both had for a long time now. CBD oil at night has helped but we ran out a while ago and haven’t been able to get any in the remote communities in NL. Hopefully we can get some in St John and have a decent night sleep again!
Yesterday, after a busy day of work we took Jax for a walk down to the beach at the campground in the late afternoon. After a while Derek beckoned me to come and sit down and just watch the ocean. We both just sat and looked out at the beautiful waves when all of a sudden right in front of us not more than 50 yards away a Whale suddenly dove into the waves. It was incredible. It happened so unexpectedly that neither of us even said a word never mind thinking to grab a camera. After that we only saw a glimpse of the Whale in the distance, but what an experience. Just shows you sometimes just need to “sit and smell the roses”. We would have never noticed him if we were just walking on the beach. I often wonder what we miss when we are hiking, because invariably our heads are down just looking at the ground to make sure we dont fall as it is generally quite uneven.
