Newfoundland and Labrador Coast to Coast - CanaDream

Nineteen nights and 3,604 kilometres in a loop from Halifax in a motorhome, across to Newfoundland by ferry and on to the Labrador coast.

North Sydney is where the crossing starts, then St John’s, the oldest city in North America by some accounts, with Cape Spear nearby, the easternmost point of the continent. St Bride’s and Cape St Mary’s follow, where a gannet colony sits on a sea stack close enough to the clifftop path to be watched at conversational distance.

Trinity and Terra Nova come next, then Twillingate, where icebergs drift down from Greenland in late spring and early summer and the whale watching goes out among them: this coast holds the largest concentration of humpbacks anywhere. Gros Morne follows on the west side, where the Tablelands expose the earth’s mantle at the surface. The Strait of Belle Isle ferry crosses to Labrador for Pinware and Blanc Sablon, then the route returns to St Barbe, St Anthony, Corner Brook and Port aux Basques.

The motorhome and the day-by-day plan come from CanaDream, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with insurance options priced at booking. Twenty days for a route with three ferry crossings on it is a fair schedule, and all of them need booking well ahead for a motorhome. The season is short, roughly June to September, and the iceberg and whale windows are early in it rather than late. The Labrador leg is the part almost nobody drives and the reason to take this route rather than a Newfoundland loop. Fog is a feature of this coast rather than a disappointment, and no wildlife sighting can be promised.