We did the drive from  Lockport to North Sydney in about 8 hours we went through Halifax, Turo, Canso straights, Cape Briton and  into North Sydney.

We stayed at the Golden Arm campground, a farmer’s field, but the best bathroom shower house you ever did see, this place had polished floors. Laundry room, Free Wi-Fi and was close to the Ferry terminal. Once at the campground we dropped the trailer and made a dry run to the ferry terminal and scouted the area and sized up what we were in for. The place is huge, 2 large boats at the terminal docks. The MV Smallwood about 600 ft long and 7 decks, it has 6 lanes in the center for cars and trucks, campers, motor homes and motorcycles.

 After being in awe for a few minutes we headed for dinner at the local diner called Lick-A-Chick, oh yea I know this was going to be one of those meals that was ether really really good, or one that will lay you up in the hospital for 2 days. We strolled in and ordered Fish and Chips, now with a name like lick-A-Chick you could imagine all the shirts and hats and paraphernalia that was for sale, I bit and bought 2 hats for the guys at work. The meals came and I must say they like there chips! There must have been pound and a half of French fries and 2 pieces of fish, a small cup of slaw and a roll. Once we started into the dinner we booth looked at each other and said, at a place called Lick-A-Chick you should probably order chicken. The meal is still with us 12 hours later. Our stomachs rumbled all night long, Tom’s worse than mine, he went over to Lick-A-Treat after dinner and had a big ole milk shake. I couldn’t do it, I know things were going to start cooking down there (thank god were on a boat today)

One good thing the free Wi-Fi kept me up till midnight answering emails and trying to fix a server application at my work, enough of that! I’m on vacation.

This morning we woke up at 6:30 to get to the docks early (we heard you should be there at least 3 hours early)

We arrived got in line, rolled up to the gate got our tickets and was told to go to row 7 and get in line. And what a line it was, there must have been 150 vehicles, cars; trucks trailers, camper’s mote homes and you name it for about 12 lanes. There was a party going on and it was 3 hours till we event start to board the ship. We talked (Dave was in hi gear, he been ramping up all week and really cut loose here) It was fun, a lot of people all wondering when we going to load, how we’re going to load and did anyone make this trip before. Yes there were some seasoned Newfiee’s and they kind of filled us in on what the deal was. Well we didn’t load on time, we didn’t leave on time and we defiantly didn’t arrive on time. We were running about an hour late loading and about 2hours late leaving. It was interesting to see how they loaded all the vehicles on and got all the passengers situated. There are lounges and a restaurant and a few decks of cabins, you name it and it was there. We sat inside, we walked outside, and we explored the ship like kids in a maze.

Well were about to Dock here shortly and it’s 1 and a half hours earlier than EST. We charted our course to a place called grand Codroy camping park, about 28 KLMs from the ferry terminal in Port Aux Basques. Its dark out and there is a sliver f moon low in the sky but it big really big. The Harvest moon and the hunters moons are the biggest in the night skies and here it just seems really large.