Author: Rene

This amazes me every time I watch it. A size comparison of the Earth to the Sun and then to ever larger (an understatement) bodies in the Universe.

Wow!

It’s with a heavy heart that I spent the day reminiscing about a perfect vacation that we embarked on one year ago today.

On February 23rd, 2011, Siobhan, Me, Phoebe, Cory, Dana, Steve and a plane load of Dana and Steve’s friends flew to Puerto Plata to spend a week at the Iberostar Costa Dorada in the Dominican Republic. Steve’s good friends were getting married there and we were invited to join them all.

The trip was perfect! (did I say that already??) The people of the D.R. were some of the friendliest people I have ever met. Always smiling and always there to have a laugh. The resort was perfect and the food and drinks were great. We had one bartender – Julien, who served me up a “Red Fruity Drink” at 10:30 one morning after I had spent an hour hunting the resort grounds trying to find anyone I knew. I then introduced the rest of the gang to Julien and the drink and we’ve been hooked ever since. After returning home we spent many weekends trying to figure out the right mix of different beverages until we were happy with what we had.

We made many new friends, and shared many great memories. The Star Friends were great, the staff was great. Elvis, the excursion salesman in the hotel lobby was a great help. He introduced us to Mindy, a wonderful tour guide who took us out and showed us the sights of the city. We had a great bus and boat ride to “Paradise Island” where we went snorkeling. We experienced the beauty and simplicity of a Caribbean Resort wedding.

Up until this trip I had never really thought about going South for a vacation… since this trip I haven’t stopped thinking about returning. The only problem is that I want to go to other places but at the same time I want to revisit the Iberostar Costa Dorada!

Check out the video below. I put it together as soon as we returned. The music is the same music we heard throughout our trip, ending with the Iberostar theme song (Dale Palla) that was played every night at the end of the show. If you look closely you can see Siobhan dancing on the stage at the end of the video.

What a trip!

Nathan is quite curious everytime I start to work on a computer. He was quite happy to get his hands on the screwdriver and start fixing his Qimo computer.

When I asked Nathan today what he wanted to be when he grew up was quick to tell me he wanted to be a Policeman.

Nicholas, on the otherhand, has always been the one to say he wanted to be a computer fixer and move to Fiji… and then maybe to Africa and learn another language.

We were all at my Mother’s house for a big family supper this evening when a few of the boys got curious about their Nan’s old rotary telephone. They had a hard time understanding how it worked. I had to show them a number of times before they finally figured out how to dial someone’s phone number. When I was satisfied that I had showed them how to use the phone I had one more question to answer. “So you can’t ‘end’ with that phone?” I then had to explain that the handset presses a button on the main part of the phone when you hang it up.

Wow, have times really changed that much???

After a weeklong camping trip we are all home tucked back into our house.

It was a good trip with some rocky beginnings. First of all we were an hour late leaving home so we ended up being a little late for a planned family boat tour in Twillingate.

Once we got off the boat we headed to our campground. Peyton’s Wood’s RV park. We weren’t overly impressed. There was just enough room between our camper and the next to squeeze our truck in. There was’t even that much space on the other side of us. Nowhere for a campfire. Just us in our camper. The site did have unserviced lots. But they were small and mostly unkept. The next time we will be staying at the Dildo Run Provincial Park and bringing our generator.

There’s a lot to do in the Twillingate are and we plan on heading there again. We only really had one day to explore the area and the wind and weather was bad that morning. I did manage to find one Geocache with Nicholas (160 meters from our campsite) before he had his nap.

That afternoon the wind settled down and we headed out to the lighthouse and some really steep cliffs. We found another geocache near the lighthouse and Nicholas snacked on some blueberries. We drove around the area a little and found a fun 4×4 road. There were a few steep hills and I had to take off the hitch as we almost brought up trying to get up one hill and the hitch brought up solid. Once we got to the end we took in the beautiful views and Nicholas once again snacked on some more blueberries.

While Siobhan prepared supper I headed out to fill up and found another Geocache. After supper we all headed up near the water tower where there is a beautiful walking trail around a pond and we found yet another Geocache. From there we headed up a road towards Durrell. We saw a sign pointing out French’s Beach so we headed out on a fairly rough dirt road until we finally got to a beautiful rocky beach tucked into a cove. We spent a half hour or so there with Nicholas pointing at all the birds and making funny faces after sucking on salty rocks.

The next morning we packed up and headed East along the Kittiwake coast.

We were all hungry and Nicholas was starting to make a lot of noise near Musgrave Harbour so we headed into town to find somewhere to eat. After a bit of digging around we found a cute little restaurant with a three unit hotel attached. It wasn’t exactly the finest dining, but the hosts were very friendly and the food was good and quick!

Our next stop was Centerville to see if we could get a site at the campgrounds listed in the Travel Guide. After asking around and then realizing that the mailing address is in one town and the campgrounds are in another we finally reached our destination… only to find out it hadn’t opened this summer (or last summer by the looks of the campsites!) We then turned back to the guide to find the closest campsite. 17 Islands Bed and Breakfast, about 40 kilometers back on the road we had just travelled. It was listed as a Bed and Breakfast with 4 serviced sites. We were curious as to what we would be getting as a site but we were getting desperate and we wanted to explore that area a bit more so we headed back. Once we pulled into Newtown we saw the B&B and started getting nervous. Right smack in the middle of town was a B&B with four 4×4 posts out front with power and water hook-ups. Not what we wanted, but again we were desperate at this time.

We paid for our hookups and set up camp. No where here to have a fire as I’m sure it would be frowned upon to light a fire in a parking lot in the middle of town. I went across the road to take a picture and a mean looking dog decided to try and make a meal out of me (at least that’s how it seemed to me.) I shouted out to Siobhan to grab Nicholas and put him in the camper.

After we finished setting up we headed north to Cape Freels. Wow! What a beautiful place. Soft fine beach sand, dunes, and low tide. I had fun in the truck and Nicholas had fun walking around on the flat beach. He really didn’t like the sand on his hands though. We will be back here in the future!

From Cape Freels we decided to head to Windmill Bight, I thought I had seen a sign advertising a RV park and it was only a few kms from Cape Freels. We found Windmill Bight RV Park on the main highway, pulled in and asked the owner if we could have a look around. He said sure and once we got in we were cursing on ourselves for setting up at the B&B. Just 10 kms further back and we could have spent a few days here.

The next morning we got up, ate and were on the road before 9am. I didn’t want to stay in the parking lot any longer then we had to. Our next stop was the island of Greenspond. Siobhan’s Godmothers husband died here in a Kayaking accident. He was a lighthouse keeper and used his Kayak as a method of transportation to and from the lighthouse. It was pretty Somber for us at first as we took in the area and thought about Larry.

We visited the Courthouse which was full of old artifacts and then found the walking trail around the back of the island. We found an easy Geocache and then worked our way back to the truck and camper as Nicholas was getting tired and hungry around this time. Once we got some food in his belly we headed back to our next campground.

We called Square Pond Park to try and get a serviced site the night before but the best they could do was to move us around each of three nights we planned on staying due to previous bookings. We were desperate to have a campfire so we were going to do it anyways. On our way there we passed through Gambo and noticed a sign advertising the David Smallwood Municipal Park. We passed the entrance, had a few quick thoughts and did a U-turn and went in.

We spoke with the owners to see if we could go in to have a look (we didn’t want to have another open parking lot!) and they refused to let us in until we paid the $3 day use fee. This worried me a little at first as most park owners are more then willing to let you have a drive through to see if you like the park.

I went back to the truck and me and Siobhan discussed whether or not we would stay here or head to Square Pond. This place was definately wooded, though we couldn’t see the sites, and we would have serviced sites.

I went back to the owners and told them we would be staying, their attitudes changed totally. They took our money for two nights, led us to a site, and even loaned us a hose as ours was too short to reach the water hookup. The main person we dealth with was named Ingwald and he was probably the friendliest person I have met in my life. We ended up spending three nights here, celebrated Siobhan’s birthday, explored the area a little and actually had a campfire each night. The site was semi-private and the park was beautiful.

My brother Neil, his wife April and their two daughters spent one evening with us and we had a great time. The only real issue was the lack of a decent play area. There’s a swingset. but it’s a simple backyard setup. Not too far away is a beautiful swimming area in the town of Gambo. The kids all loved it!

The park has a Salmon River passing through which I brought Nicholas to see the morning we left. It is quite the river and if you come at the right time there’s lots of Salmon to see climbing the Salmon ladder.

From there we had to bring the camper into Gander for service so we ended our camping trip and stayed at Neil’s house for two nights. We took Nicholas to see Neil practicing flying a helicopter. Then we went swimming, geocaching, and visited the Aviation museum. That evening I broke out in sweats and got pretty achy. Siobhan checked me out and I had a temperature and my throat was getting sore.

Sunday I felt like crap. We unloaded the camper and left her in Gander as they have to replace the AC unit. Last night I slept like a baby. Today the aches are gone but my throat feels like there’s razor blades in it.

Next year the generator will definately be going with us! Unfortunately for us in Newfoundland the weather can be cool all year round. With a one year old travelling with us we had to keep the furnace running every night.

Rene

Camping at Twillingate. About to head out to find a geocache with Nicholas.