Water's Edge Gros Morne Campground Review: Exploring Newfoundland with Kids and Teens

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travel dates: June, 2023

Back in 2018 we went on a wretched, miserable whale watch on a boat that left from Provincetown, MA. I blogged about it here. You might think, in exchange for the terror and seasickness, we would at least have had some amazing whale sightings. But, in fact, we had better views of whales from our $40/night (Canadian!) campsite at Water’s Edge, just outside Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, than in the hellish North Atlantic waters off Cape Cod that day.

At least once a day during our stay at Water’s Edge, someone would spot a whale and immediately announce its presence to the whole campground. Okay, it might have been all the same whale, wandering back and forth in the fjord. And it wasn’t a BIG whale; it was a minke whale (we know what a minke whale is because of our trip to Newfoundland, and we recently got a question right at our local brewery’s trivia night because of this). But this is the kind of disclaimer one only makes because so many things in Newfoundland are so amazing: “well, I mean, it’s just a little whale.” That we got to watch without leaving our campsite. Just hanging out at the picnic table with a cup of coffee, whale watching.

As I’m sure I’ll keep mentioning, Newfoundland campgrounds are very inexpensive by American standards (and by other parts of Canada standards, for that matter). One reason for this is, no doubt, that the sites and amenities are often a bit bare bones. Here our site was a narrow strip of gravel right on the highway, with other campers packed in close on either side. But if you don’t think that view of Bonne Bay Fjord right out your door doesn’t make up for that….well, then I’m not sure what would make you happy.

Location and Local Area

Water’s Edge is right next to the southern side of Gros Morne National Park, very close to the little town of Woody Point. Bonne Bay slices the park down the middle. While it’s possible to pick a campground on one side or the other and do day trips around the bay, it’s a long, hilly drive and we were very glad that we picked a base camp on each side.

Water’s Edge is about 200 miles from the ferry at Port Aux Basques, so we opted to spend our first night closer to the port and be fresh for the drive.

The campground is just a five minute drive from the town of Woody Point, with a limited selection of restaurants and shopping or from the National Park Discovery Centre. We had a cold but lovely meal overlooking the water at The Merchant Warehouse, where Dave had this interesting drink:

The heavy hitters in Gros Morne National Park on this side of things are the Tablelands and the Green Gardens trail; of these, we did the Tablelands, so I’ll talk about that in a later post. The road past these two hikes will take you through amazing scenery and finally to the little town of Trout River, where we LOVED the Eastern Point Trail. It’s less than a 20 minute drive from Water’s Edge, and there’s a bit more shopping and restaurants there (a store in Trout River is where we finally managed to find a can opener, after checking several other places).

Booking and Arrival:

We like to book everything as soon as possible for our big summer trips; I’m a planner, and there are so many moving parts that I like to make sure we have things settled and always have somewhere to go. But in Newfoundland, we found it that making reservations way in advance was generally unnecessary and often impossible…as in there was simply no one around to make a reservation with until late spring in some cases. The Gros Morne area, however, seems to fill up faster than most places, and Water’s Edge stayed pretty full while we were there even though it was still June and not the prime tourist season (they do have an overflow section with no hookups, so you’re unlikely to be completely shut out). We booked in early January and paid around $40/night CAD for a 30 amp W/E site. You can book online here (not always the case in Newfoundland, we found).

I had made a note to myself to watch for grades off the Trans-Canada on the way to this campground, and it was indeed quite hilly. Nothing we couldn’t handle, but good to be aware of and be ready to downshift and all that. Other than that the drive is very straightforward, and Water’s Edge is directly on the main road that takes you to the national park. The adorable lighthouse makes it hard to miss:

The main office/store wasn’t open when we arrived (like at all that day, or indeed for our entire stay). There was a sign on the door with a number to call, which we did, and eventually someone came over from the house across the street (it’s a family-run campground, and they live on site) to check us in.

Campsites and other Accommodations

For the most part, an RV site here just means backing in to a spot in the gravel parking lot sandwiched between the highway and the bay. There are 30 or 15 amp W/E sites and some sites with just water in this area. There’s also a large area without hookups (for $20/night) across the road, but even if you don’t need hook-ups it’s definitely worth it to try to get one of the waterfront sites.

Backing in our 32 foot long trailer was surprisingly tricky; there’s a good bit of space in front of the sites for maneuvering, but not quite was much as we would have liked. At any rate, it was certainly doable and we weren’t the biggest rig there (although definitely one of the bigger ones…as we were most places we went in Newfoundland, especially in the west), but be aware that you’ll need to bring your best backing-in skills with you here if your set up is on the longer side. The photo above shows our site before most of our neighbors arrived for the night, but you can see that small wooden divider next to us (and the photo above that one) to get an idea of how crowded the sites are (i.e. quite). But, again, totally worth it for the views and location.

There are a few other ways to stay here: the lighthouse and the adjacent building have rooms for rent, and there are also a couple of tiny home “saltbox pods” down at the end of the row of RV sites.

Amenities

I was nervous from reading the website and squinting at photos that there would be no bathrooms here, but there were, in fact, very nice ones: several separate self-contained bathrooms that they were actually in process of redoing and adding to while we were there. I did have a minor quibble that the only hook in the bathroom was a tiny decorative one on the other side of the room from the shower. There also wasn’t a bench or shelf, so I had to balance my pile of clothes and stuff precariously on the edge of the sink. But I managed!

There’s supposed to be shop selling coffee and baked goods, but it was not yet open for the season when we were there in mid June.

One thing to note is that there no sewer hook-ups here and no dump station. This is why I was nervous about the bathhouse situation. However, there is a public dump station about 20 minutes back down the road (i.e. you’ll pass it when you leave and head back toward the TCH) at Gros Morne’s Lomond Campground. We stopped and used this on our way out, and it was fine.

You can launch kayaks, SUPs, etc. directly from the campground. Additionally, the owners also operate Wild Gros Morne, with offers all kinds of boat tours and rentals, guided hikes, etc.

This isn’t really an amenity, but an anecdote about how great Newfoundlanders are: we were having trouble while we were here with our city water connection leaking. There just happened to be a plumber doing work on the new bathrooms while we were here, so Dave walked over to see if he had time to take a look for us. He ended up spending way longer than he expected with out annoying city water connection and then refusing to take any money (Dave finally got him to take $20, which he told us he would accept just to pay for the wear on his shoes walking over to our site).

Overall, we loved our stay here and rank it up there with our favorite campgrounds of all time. Next up: stuff we did on the south side of Gros Morne!