I spent the night in a campground near Gander, the third largest city in Newfoundland located near the center of island. It came into being as a military base during WWII and was also famous more recently as the place where trans-Atlantic flights were forced to land on 9/11/2001 leaving several thousand people stranded for several days.  I spent a rainy morning hanging out in a coffee shop until things began to clear majorly shortly after noon. I continued southeast for an hour or so on the Trans-Canada Highway, the only road all the way across the island and one that was only built in 1960. Before that date coastal towns were connected to the outside world only by sea.

Terra Nova National Park is the oldest in Newfoundland and the easternmost in Canada. It consists of hills and forests along bays and coves, quitr typical Newfoundland terrain and nowhere near as spectacular as Gros Morne. My main stops in the park were just at a few viewpoints and to drive to the tops of Blue Hill and Ochre Hill, the two highest points in the park with good views of the surrounding terrain.  I continued onto the Bonavista Peninsula, one of several peninsulas between large bays in eastern Newfoundland that give the island an amazingly long coast. l lucked out and finally got to see a few true icebergs grounded in bays, ones much larger than the small pieces, so called “growlers” I saw farther north.

Driving into Bonavista in the evening I had no idea what my accommodation would be for the night, possibly car camping. Then I passed a sign for Bonavista Hostel. “Ooooh, it’s a hostel!” I got a bed and shower for a quite reasonable price in a room with six bunks but only one other roommate, one of the benefits of traveling in what’s still considered somewhat off-season.