Toronto to Newfoundland

[pauly_boy]

Planning on a trip to NFLD in June. What's the experience on the ferry from Nova Scotia. Driving a 24ft Motorhome. Any challenges, things to watch for?
Was thinking of coming in from Quebec and leaving by way of the Maritimes but may be too challenging of a drive road wise?
Anyone with any thought's??
Thanks Paul

[dcason]

pauly boy wrote:
Planning on a trip to NFLD in June. What's the experience on the ferry from Nova Scotia. Driving a 24ft Motorhome. Any challenges, things to watch for?
Was thinking of coming in from Quebec and leaving by way of the Maritimes but may be too challenging of a drive road wise?
Anyone with any thought's??
Thanks Paul

We did the trip in 2013 (leaving via labrador to ny thru quebec) with our 24 foot motorhome. I know more paving has gone on since then (but not from lab city to baie comeau). So we were leaving after 6 weeks in the month of June so no snow. The worst part is the road from lab city to Baie comeau. Fast moving trucks with a mission. We happened to hit it right and nothing was immediately hot on our tail (but a ways back was a BIG WIDE mobile housing/office unit heading south). We stopped in manic 5 for the night and I woke at 4am and nudge husband...LETS GO and we arrived in baie comeau without incident.

What made the lab city to baie comeau difficult was that you couldn't go fast enough to let the suspension do the work because the road for the most part was ziggy zaggy weaving winding and it was not posssible to get up speed for those parts. That said there were some straight aways. When trucks came booking it we would just pull over to the side as far as safe and crawl...watching for soft gravel.

It could be dusty on the unpaved roads...helpful if you have your rv sealed up as tight as possible. We did not get the satellite phone but didn't have problems either...would get it next time. There are not many places to pull off the road on the 380. Might want to carry bug spray/head bug net just in case you have to get out of rv to do repairs so you are no ones dinner.

We arrived in NFL around 3 week of May and had it to ourselves...no reservations necessary to go over. But some things were not open (which we really didn't care about anyway).

We also visited in 2016 but didn't include labrador vowing next time more would be paved.

2013 we did day ferry in calm sunny weather and back via labrador quebec. 2016 we used a night ferry and made a reservation the day we wanted to return (june with 5 days of rain predicted/had enough rain). We initially did not book a room thinking we could find a bench and lay down but there were none or they were occupied and they frowned on sleeping on the floor but people were on both. We immediately asked about a room and they didn't have any. About 1/2 hour later the desk person came and found me!!! to let me know there was a room if we still wanted it. YES, women don't sleep sitting up.

[Veebyes]

Just another thought about the ferry. Don't feel pressured to make reservations way far in advance. A few days prior to the trip should be more than enough. Like anything weekends will be busier. Weekdays lighter loads.

It is amazing how many vehicles those ships can gobble up & still not be full.

[happycamper1942]

In 2009 we drove from BC to Newfoundland, a great experience.
The ferries are huge ships, and we had no problems towing our 28 foot 5th wheel, total length 46 feet.
You have to make reservations on and off the island. We were told to make a return reservation when we booked the trip over, but we didnt do this as we hate being tied to a schedule and we didnt know how long we wanted to spend there. This worked out OK for us, after 2 weeks we called to make a return reservation and had to wait about 5 days for a vacancy but this was fine, gave us an extra 5 days there.
We got the "short" trip over to Port au Basques and drove all the way around to St. Johns area, then had the option of driving back over the same route (approx. 1000km) to Port au Basques or getting the "long" ferry trip from Argentia. This was much more expensive, from what I remember the short trip was about $350 and the long trip about $650, but we saved the cost of driving back.
The long ferry trip is overnight, about 14 hours. You cannot sleep in your camper so you have 3 options:
1. rent a cabin: 2. rent an aircraft-type reclining seat, or 3. use a regular seat. Because we made a last-minute reservation all the cabins were already taken so we took one of the aircraft type seat which was OK.
It all went very smoothly, but as we live on Vancouver Island we are used to getting on and off ferries.
I'm sure you will have a fabulous time.

[Veebyes]

We are making our second trip to NL this year also.

The ferry is nothing like the ferries running the protected waterways of the west. The Marine Atlantic boats are ships the size of mid sized cruise ships. Two vehicle decks. The lower deck plenty high enough for semis & the second deck for cars. No issues no matter what you are driving. Seven hours from North Sydney across.

[ssthrd]

Hey Paul.

Please clarify your route. Will you take the Blanc-Sablon to Ste Barbe ferry to NFLD? And when you leave will you take the Port-aux Basque to North Sydney ferry, or the one from Argentia to North Sydney?

I have never been on the roads along the north shore of the St Lawrence, so I can't help there. It has been 5 years since we drove from Port-aux Basque to St John's, and the road was just like any other--in good shape.

The Port-aux Basque ferry was a nice trip in good weather, but when it gets stormy, the seas can be on the large side. I understand that the other route from Argentia can be more bumpy than the other. Take some Gravol with you for sure if you are prone to sea sickness.

Beware of the winds in the Wreckhouse area north of Port-aux-Basque. Click here for the hourly weather forecast. FYI, truckers have a healthy respect for the winds here and rightly so. Click here for more info.

The "Rock" is awesome!