Saturday June 5, 2010
It rained over night, but stopped by morning and we were off for the bird sanctuary at Cape St. Mary Ecological Reserve. We arrived in the area about 2:00 and got a camp site right outside the sanctuary at the Gannet?s Nest RV Park. It?s a small all gravel lot, rather primitive, but serves our needs. We had to pay extra because we want showers in the morning.
Then it was time for the birds. We spent about 2 ? hours hiking the 1.4 km trail and watching the thousands of birds. It was awesome!! Incredible! We saw Northern Gannets, Common Murres, and Kittiwakes. It wasn?t just seeing them that was so awesome (and that was exciting itself), it was the huge numbers of them that we saw. The Gannets were nesting all over the rocks and their nests were only inches apart. The Murres were right next to each other too. Kittiwakes seemed to want a little more space between them, but their nest were on little tiny shelves of rock all up and down the about 300 foot high cliff. It was just so amazing! And we were so lucky to have this window of sun today. It was a gorgeous day, perfect for bird watching. And to think we almost didn?t go there at all! But some young men we met at another site said that it was really neat, so we decided to have a look. We?re so glad we did. Even for non bird enthusiasts it is a great place to visit.
The campground we are staying at also has a restaurant and the crab legs were highly recommended by someone at the bird sanctuary visitor center so we had to try them. They were very good, but that?s all we got. No salad, vegetable or anything else. We enjoyed our meal and the conversation with another customer who is a musician and in charge of planning summer concerts across the island. He knows Pete Seager and Arlo Guthrie.
There?s a storm brewing this evening and it started getting windy, and I mean very windy, before we went to bed. Let?s hope it doesn?t blow us over.
Sunday June 6, 2010
The storm last night was pretty horrific as far as I was concerned. I couldn?t sleep up on the bed of our penthouse pop-up so I went down to try to sleep on the bench. Len came down later to see how I was and eventually brought the top down and we made the bed up down below. It blew so hard the whole van was shaking like crazy. And the rain came down hard too. I got very little sleep and most of that was finally this morning from around 6:00 to 8:30. I was glad when daytime came so we could get up and out of there. We didn?t even take the showers we paid for. Oh well, Se la vie and hold your nose.
It was very foggy and still windy and misty rainy this morning, however not nearly as bad as it was overnight. We went back to the Cape St. Mary Ecological Reserve visitor center because I wanted a sweatshirt from there, or Len wanted to get me one. On the way in I saw a bird I never thought I?d see because their habitat is so far north, but they are here too. A Willow Ptarmigan. It took me a while to be sure of its identification, but after looking in several books, I?m quite certain that is what it was. Neat!
As we got on our way and drove north, the weather seemed to improve somewhat. The fog lifted and rain stopped. The clouds even broke up a little at times. We passed through some more beautiful country as we came to the northern arm of the Avalon Peninsula to begin the Baccalieu Trail. We had to go inland from the southern peninsula to the northern one and this area was mountainous. They are nothing like our western mountains or even the Appalachians, but beautiful all the same. It is still very spring-like here and the trees are just beginning to leaf out. The colors of the dark pines and the lighter deciduous new leaves are very pretty.
Soon we came back to the hilly coastal roads and more fishing towns on the Baccalieu Trail. We got half way up the peninsula and must say that this road is a must see! Already it is a wonderful area ? even in the rain. Our first sight was the white rocks in the bay at Whiteway called Skag Rock. It?s just a large outcropping of jagged rocks in the bay, but interesting. In New Perlican we saw more of the saltbox houses that we have seen in some of the other fishing villages. These two story houses have almost flat roofs and the second floor looks like it can?t have very high ceilings. I think they are called saltbox houses because they look like the saltboxes of olden days.
Hearts Content is one of the most picturesque villages on the Trail with a heart shaped harbor that is the deepest harbor on Trinity Bay. We stayed there quite a while visiting the Hearts Content Cable Station Provincial Historic Site. It was here back in 1866 that the first transatlantic cable landed giving global communications a quantum leap forward. What had been a sleepy little fishing town became a very busy communications depot for transferring messages between Europe and North America. In its heyday there were about 300 people working at the station and it was in operation until the early 1960s when it had only about a dozen workers. Some of the original equipment was still in the building and it was all very interesting to see.
By the time we finished touring the museum, it was time to find a campsite. Just 15 minutes down the road, after passing through Turks Cove, so named because of the Barbary Pirates that came here in the 1700s, we came to Outside Pond Community Campground in Winterton. It was an excellent find: very clean, neat, and well laid out. It even had boardwalks all around the park through the woods and to a lake and even to the town. Great place! However, although the Traveller?s Guide said it had 100 sites, all but 30 were filled with seasonal folks. I can certainly see why!
After claiming our spot, we asked the very friendly campground caretaker where a good place for fish and chips was. He suggested Legge?s Motel and Restaurant back in Hearts Content. So back we went for a delicious meal of cod. I think it was the best I?ve ever had!
Monday June 7, 2010
We had lovely showers this morning at the campground. It has been difficult to find nice ones for the last few days and this one was nice and clean and it felt sooo good.
There was a lot to see today on the Baccalieu Trail and we saw as much as we could in the sometimes foggy, much of the time rainy weather. Our first stop was Hant?s Harbour where the first crab plant was established. We sat and watched as fishermen offloaded their catch of the day and a dump truck hauled away empty crab shells. We drove around this picturesque town trying to get to the lighthouse, but it required a walk down a trail. Too wet for that. We did, however, see a leather and craft shop which was a fun stop. The owner has worked with leather for 25 years and was happy to have us come in to see his wares. Len bought a really nice belt from him. It?s such fun talking to the locals as they have lots of interesting things to tell us. Everyone is so nice here too.
Every village was as pretty as the last one we saw with houses nestled in amongst the hills on the smallest plots of land. Every town had its Anglican and United churches. We had to take some pictures of St. Lukes Anglican in Hants Harbour because it was such a pretty scene. And although the homes were small and on small lots, they were very well kept. We found a place to pull over in New Melbourne for a late lunch while we watched the waves roll in. We didn?t get out of the van because the rain came down in sheets as squall after squall rolled by.
The road from Old Perlican to Grates Cove was so beautiful I couldn?t stop talking about it. There weren?t many trees to speak of and, those there were short and stubby. But the colors of the bushes and ground cover of this boggy area were stunning. Cranberry, mauve, yellows, oranges. The land was dotted with ponds. Then we?d come to areas covered with rocks all fractured with the bushes growing all around them. One might think that the land is barren, but it is full of live with a stark beauty to it. I wonder if this is what the moors of Northern England look like?
Grates Cove was interesting too. This is the closest point in North America to Europe (1600 air miles to Ireland), and there is a monument to Henry Cabot there saying that he came there in the 1600s. This is also a very rocky land and ever since the first settlers came the town folk have built rock walls as they cleared the land to raise their crops. There are about 60 hectares divided up into small plots of farmland by these rock walls. We walked around the historic site a little, but it was raining too much to stay out long.
The fog was pretty thick as we drove to Bay de Verde so we couldn?t really see much. We went to the Blunden house which is the oldest non remodeled house in the area and peeked in the windows. This museum doesn?t open until June 25.
The coastal road on the north eastern side of this peninsula was amazing: rugged and wild. We saw the Mouse Hole, the big hole in the rock at Burnt Point from the car as we drove by. The rain was pouring down by then and we were hoping we might drive out of it. As we approached Victoria and Carbonear, it became more built up with modern stores and small strip malls. There was more traffic too. We were getting tired and anxious to stop. It took a couple tries, but we finally found the Riverside RV Park in Brigus, a small but adequate campground with a very friendly, talkative owner. He came in and talked for an hour. What an exciting life he?s had as an oil rig worker all over the world. Another fun conversation!
He gave us some information about Brigus and Cupids so if the wind and rain stop tomorrow we?ll go investigate before heading for Signal Hill and Cape Spear in St. Johns. Come on, Sun!
