20020612

June 12, 2002

Day 34

Start: Pippy Park CG & Trailer Park, St John’s, NF
End: 
Miles: 0

The high today was 56f and the low was 41 last night or early this morning. The wind was moderate out of the southwest. Cloud cover was 100% early, but turned to partly sunny in the afternoon, and wound up a nice, but cool, day.

While fixing breakfast, we spotted a rabbit outside the trailer. That sent Dolores into hysterics. The park brochure brags that it has two forms of wildlife, moose and rabbits. She finds it funny that the park would claim the island’s biggest animal, and a small one, as the two to mention.

We ate and hopped in the truck. The first stop was the Wal-Mart to drop off eight rolls of film for developing. Then we noticed the camera wasn’t in the truck, so we went back to the trailer for it. Then we headed out to the west. 

The first stop was Avondale, where there are some Newfoundland Railway engines and cars forming a small museum at the old station. They still have more than a mile of track. They make up a mini-train using former trackmen’s work cars (the little things sometimes called speeders) and run them in season.

Then we went on with the ride, going onto the loop called the “Cape Shore”. It runs south to Cape St Mary. Going south down the west side of the peninsula, we were on the shore of Placentia Bay. We passed Argentia, the site of the now-abandoned former US Naval Air Station, but didn’t bother to look. Continuing down the shore we got into the cycle of up, over the headland, down into the valley, up, etc. 
An empty tanker was also headed south out of the bay; I suppose she’s off to get more oil.

We had lunch in a little restaurant in St Bride. A little after this, we came to the side road to the Cape and the Ecological Reserve there. That road, about 12 feet wide, wound south for 15km to the lighthouse and the center of the Reserve. The outstanding feature of this place is the sheer rock wall cliffs that are used by thousands of nesting birds each year. The waters offshore provide many nutrients due to the mixing of the Labrador current and the Gulf Stream. The seasonal migration of capelin coincides with the hatching of the eggs of the birds that nest here – nature working out an arrangement.

A path about a mile long winds across the flat, grass and rock, tops of the bluffs to a small stone outcropping that overlooks a thimble-shaped rock called Bird Rock. The gannets have control of this rock; every open space has a nest. Since the eggs have been laid at this time of year, every nest has a bird. The mate goes off to bring home the food. These birds dive into the water to spear a fish.

The ledges in the rock walls of the cliff are used by the common murre. They lay their eggs directly on the rock and sit on the eggs. The murre gets its fish by landing on the water, then swimming underwater. They can dive to 600 feet to search out a fish.  Above the ledges, sheep feed on the grass.

The black-legged kitiwake looks like our seagulls, but is bigger. It also nests here. Each of the above species will have 10,000 nesting pairs here at one time. There will also be single birds not yet reproducing, but they nest away from the reproducing birds.

There are a few other birds that nest here in small numbers. The point is also a great lookout for humpback whale watching toward the end of June and into July (there were none today).

After watching the birds for a while, we returned to the center. There, we saw a video on the place. Then we did the gift shop to get a pin for Dolores. We took a couple of pictures of the lighthouse as well, then headed north up the east side of the peninsula. When we reached the Trans-Canada Highway, we turned toward St John’s and the Wal-Mart. We picked up the eight rolls (many were panorama shots) for $72CDN, not too bad. 

Then Dolores remembered the shop in the adjacent mall that had ridiculously low prices on a few things she wanted. So she bought a couple of things there. We returned to the Wal-Mart to get a few groceries, then off to the little house. We had a quiet spaghetti dinner in the little house.

Tomorrow, we’re going to sightsee around St John’s.