Author: The Buchanans Rolling Down The Road

What can be said, about a crusty old curmudgeon, with no fixed address … not much I guess.

Grand Codroy RV/Tent Camping Park – Review

Name: Grand Codroy RV/Tent Camping Park

Address: 5 Doyles Station Road, Doyles, Codroy Valley NL  A0N 1J0

Rate: $28 unserviced $40 serviced weekly rates available

Phone: 1-877-955-2520

GPS: 47.833500 -59.204900

I should have done this review some time ago, as we spent two months at site #28 in this park from July 16th to September 15th in 2018. The park has approximately 80 sites, some fully serviced, as well as a number of un-serviced tent sites.

It is now a family owned campground, but twenty some years ago it was developed as a provincial park so the sites are large and the views are scenic to say the least. Dennis and Alice along with their son Jason run the park, but more family are involved with the daily operation, with Phillip doing park maintenance, and Arlene running the gift shop, and you must stop at the gift shop it is essensial to find local crafts as well as island treasures, the gift shop is not filled with your usual tourist trap items, just Newfoundland crafts and information and you have to get into some of the partridge berry preserves.

This is a true transient campground, mainly because of its relationship to the ferry port. So many people left the park early in the morning for the ferry’s morning departure and there was a line up most evenings after the ferry arrival. So most people were just there for an evening or two, which meant that most of them never got to explore the park or the Codroy valley that had so much more to offer than the first glance would indicate.

Most people do not allow themselves sufficient time to properly see Newfoundland, and although we spent two months there we only seen a small portion of what it had to offer, and will have to return someday soon.

This park caters to a number of RV caravans crossing Newfoundland, and are offered entertainment like “screech ins” which are a Newfoundland tradition, there is a pavilion where local entertainers would preform authentic music, and although the campground offered free campfire wood, there was normally a community campfire each night usually with campers or some locals providing musical entertainment. The campfire gave people a chance to met and talk about things to see and do as there was usually the same number of new arrivals as there was people leaving the island, so there were always lots of “you got to go here’s” over most evenings.

As with every campground the provided Wi-Fi was sporadic at best, and I spent a number of hours sitting near the office to get and stay connected to work, garbage was picked up at your site daily, it has laundry onsite, there was kayaking just a few meters behind our site, local sight seeing information was available at the office or for details and Alice was always close by to help you figure it out.

Usually there are a number of items that I can use as cons to offset the pros for most campgrounds and while I did not want this to seem like a paid promotion spot for Codroy Valley Campground, there just were no real cons to this park other than the Wi-Fi which is a given at most parks, I guess I could say my Rogers cell service was poor but that is because there are no Rogers towers on the east side of the island which makes their service total crap on the island except in the St. Johns area, but Bell the main service provider on the island was strong. And while there were not a lot of park amenities like a pool or pickle ball courts they were not missed because it is mainly a transient park. and there was more than enough natural things to explore to keep everyone busy. Port-A-Basque is the largest town to get groceries and the like but most items were available actually within a few miles if you asked at the office for directions. Like fresh home baked bread that was available most days at the office, there was golfing just a few miles away, as well as the Bay of St. Lawrence with provincial park and a sand beach, although the water always seemed too cool for me, many locals were swimming.

Here are some photos at or near the park:

  • My Birthday dinner
  • A view east from the park
  • Dennis at a “screech in”
  • Laurie’s certificate
  • The Community Campfire
  • The River behind the park
  • Site #28

A sore subject?

Wednesday July 7th 2021

I’m always happy when I can provoke a meaningful conversation. And apparently yesterday’s blog stirred up a few people, which is what it’s all about.

So the one most common comment was that the vaccine is experimental! And you know what that is true. So let’s call it an experimental vaccine that is saving hundreds of thousands of American lives, even the simplest of people had to notice the death rate drop as the vaccination rate went up.

Now I know there have been a number of elected officials that did not and still do not believe in science, but it appears that the majority of those none believing leaders have rolled up their sleeve for a vaccine, I wonder why? It’s because they didn’t want to suffer through the virus or die from it. So they don’t believe in science, but they trust this experimental vaccine to protect them, kind of an oxymoron don’t you think.

So over the holiday weekend the most hated scientist of them all Dr. Fauci stated that close to 99% of the new infections were preventable if the vaccine had been administered, but obviously 45% of Americans would rather take a chance, on suffering or death before protecting themselves. I’m sure that must make sense to some one, some how, it’s just way too complex for me to understand.

Here is the simple math “Arkansas, for example, where the vaccination rate is 34%, has 17 new daily cases per 100,000 people, versus Vermont, the nation’s most vaccinated state at 66% vaccinated, which has only 0.4 cases per 100,000.” And obviously there is a political influence as most of the states with the lowest rates are red states with some of the most outspoken political people. But I’m sure those politicians are vaccinated, so help me understand when you live in a county that a serious medical issue can bankrupt a person why would someone not get a free vaccine to protect themselves from a long stay in a expensive hospital ICU, I’m sure there must be a logical explanation, and I would love someone to explain that to me.

As you can see Canada has been picking up our vaccination rate after getting off to a slow start, with the world sitting at only 25%, I’m thinking the pandemic is not going anywhere quickly. And as Canada nears the 70% mark countries that had vaccines long before us are now falling behind, and one might wonder why? Every country will have their share of “non vaxxers”, I know we do and of course there will be a few “flat earthers” again we have some of those as well. And of course there are the special people that have been told by Dr. Facebook that it is all a government conspiracy to track our movement. Like seriously the government don’t care that much about your movements (bowel or otherwise) to inject you with a tracking device.

So if there isn’t a real good medical reason not to get your virus, I’m thinking you’re falling into that special category, that are 90+% of all new cases, which could be a real serious wake up call for the special ones … jus’saying