Journal Day 22

We woke up to rain today.... it has continued most of the morning.... Yesterday evening, I went to the Park office to upload changes and email, and after a number attempts with the 800 number finally listened to the message which was telling me that there was a local number in St. John's and go find that one to use... so I looked it up in my "dialer box" and sure enough there was a local number... I ran back to office since there was only about 5 minutes left before closing and the secretary agreed to let me try again... this time I got on, but in processing email, found someone had sent me 10 emails with 3 photos attached to each (showing some prize pumpkins)... after about a half hour of downloading, I cancelled my email, and started to upload changes to my website...but after about 10 minutes could not keep the secretary waiting any longer, so cancelled, leaving my website only partially updated, with pieces missing... I told her I would return this morning to finish..... so... today I finally got all the email downloads cleaned out... and finished the updating started last night, so hope my website is intact again....

We got the car fixed at 1:30, then moved to Holyrood which is on the Irish loop (southern Avalon Peninsula) for this evening.... tomorrow we plan to drive that loop.... We use the Good Sam campground guides and have found them very lacking in Newfoundland.... some of the entries they have are erred.... this campground was listed as being 3 miles from Holyrood when in fact it was about 10 miles out.... we did a lot of running around until we found someone that put us on the right track.... also, they a campsite dot for Birchy Bay, but the camp is actually at Birchy Lake, a couple hundred miles away.... then there are many campgrounds available that are not listed, so it made things hit and miss except for the major park areas.... Next time we will also carry a Woodall to compare against... seems they are mentioned in many of the campgrounds up here...

The night is early, so here are some facts we have not have passed along..... Newfoundland is in its own time zone, 1/2 hour ahead of Atlantic time, or 2 1/2 hours ahead of central time in Minnesota.... Newfoundland has no snakes, skunks, poison ivy, rag weed, Lyme disease (no Ticks) and a few other things we worry about in the states.... so this is a hikers and campers paradise... although they have the largest Black Bears in North America, you seldom see one.... Good wine is hard to find.... Beer and ales are plentiful, sold in gas stations... Blueberries grow wild here in the late summer... we have found them everywhere we camped, and going into St. John's saw many cars parked along the highway as the occupants walked the stony hills with little pails picking berries.... Berry pickers were every place we went it seemed...

We plan to get an early start in the morning to drive the Irish Loop... we are well positioned on the perimeter of the loop and close to TCH 1 for our start East the next day....

Pippy Park Entrance View from Pippy Park toward University