Cape St. Mary's, southeastern Newfoundland; June 17, 2017

Saturday:  Woke up around 7:30 and we were cruising along the coast of Newfoundland.  Got some coffee, had a nice shower (with unlimited water) and packed our stuff.  We docked around 10 and

Our first glimpses of Newfoundland - "The Rock"

were told to go to our vehicles shortly afterward and we were one of the first few vehicles off the ship.  Welcome to Newfoundland!!!

We stopped for fuel and the service station attendant explained that the proper pronunciation is newfinLAND - we keep practicing, but it still comes out NEWfoundland most of the time.  We have the rest of the summer to perfect our Newfie language skills.

French, Basque, Spanish and Portuguese all fished this area

We drove a few miles to the Castle Hill National Historic Site where the remnants of an old French fort could be seen and we toured a small exhibit about the forts and the importance of fishing in the area.  Europeans would come here throughout the 1500's and 1600's in the summer to fish for cod which were superabundant.  They would clean, debone and butterfly the fish, salt them and dry them and ship them to Europe.

Some of the roads here are the worse we have seen - many, many major potholes that have not yet been filled and we had to drive way below the speed limit so we had enough time to dodge the potholes, but often pretty scenery as we are never far from the coast.

When you cannot dig through solid rock, you find a way.....

We drove south about an hour along a bay to Cape St. Mary's Ecological Preserve. This at the tip of one of the several fingers of land that jut down into the Atlantic along the southeastern coast of Newfoundland. There is, of course, the all-important lighthouse on the cape, and next door is an Interpretive Center (Visitor center in America) with information about the summertime nesting of more than 60,000 birds on the nearby cliffs.

I walked about a mile out to the end of the trail where you are 50' from "bird rock."  From a distance, the rocky ledges look like white cliffs, but as I got closer, the white were the birds and their guano.  The smell was "pungent" but not unbearable and the noise was deafening!  Not just the screeching that sound like seagulls, but a low, throaty constant din.  The Northern Gannets are beautiful golden headed large seabirds with black wingtips.  On an adjoining cliff, lower down were the Kittiwakes (look like a seagull) and then black Murres that looked a little like mini penguins.

Northern Gannets

Bringing nesting material

Fighting over nesting site

They call this "Honey, I'm Home" bill clicking.  They do this everytime one of the couple returns to the nest

Kittiwakes

Murres

Gannet with black tipped wings soar around the cliffs

I spent a long time watching and taking photos - one of the best travel experiences ever.  I did not want to leave!  We were so lucky to have had good weather - they usually have RDF = rain, drizzle, fog.

We overnighted right in the parking lot as there are no campgrounds in the area.  We turned the RV so it faced into the wind so we would not get buffeted from the side that causes rocking and rolling.  Good thing, because the breeze strengthened during the night and there were some huge windgusts.