Day 9 – Plum Point

Travel day, heading up the Northern Peninsula toward L'Anse aux Meadows. Still haven't become immune to the awesome sights of Gros Morne N.P. It's misty today, giving in a Tolkienesque feel. Stopped at Rocky Harbour for gas, cash, upload blogs, check e-mail, scout out other campgrounds (we'll be back to this area after our trip up north) and, most important of all, buy fresh fish fresh at the pier we discovered on our last trip - it's scallops tonight

Continued up the coast, stopping to see "The Arches", a strip of limestone that's been carved by storm action to form a large 3-chamber archway. The terrain is changing from mountainous and forested to limestone and tuckamore. A little further up the land becomes gravel flats with litle vegetation.

Stopped at Port au Chois to see the National Historic Site - making good use of our passes. Excellent video and displays about the various peoples who have made this location their home over the past 5500 years - Maritime Archaic Indians from Siberia (from 3500 - 1200 BC), Groswater Paleoeskimos (from 800 - 100 BC), Dorset Paleoeskimos, Beothuk (from 100 - 700 AD) and other recent Indians (from 0 - 1200 AD), then Europeans (Norse, Basques, French and English, since the 18th and 19th centuries). All were attracted by the abundance of fish, seals and whales.

The mountains of the long range petered out as we left the Gros Morne Park area but re-appeared near Port au Choix. Accents are becoming more difficult to understand, like the guy we bought propane from in Port Saunders and the women at the campground.

We camped at Three Mile Lake near Plum Point where, again we were the only campers. The campground is in disrepair but is well off the road and suited our purposes. Our surroundings are arboreal forest at the edge of an inland lake, lots of reindeer moss drapes the trees - quite a change.

This is our 4th consectutive night of dry camping but our batteries still show 12.47 resting voltage - between 80% and 90%. Other that some minimum lighting and heating they have mostly been used to power a CPAP every night.