Thursday, June 20, 2013

After breakfast at Philip’s Café, we decided to go back to Cape St, Mary’s reserve since the weather forecast called for a glorious sunny day (well, “glorious” might be an enthusiastic addition…).

Chris, the park naturalist and Anna.

Chris, the park naturalist, recognized us immediately and was genuinely pleased we had decided to come back. Fog is common 200 days a year on this part of the island but apparently, yesterday was particularly bad. No harm was done: we will be able to show some “before” and “after” pictures.

As an additional perk, we almost had the whole park to ourselves. According to Chris, the park is usually well attended on sunny days but for some strange reason, today was quite the opposite! He spent a lot of time with us, providing plenty of insights on the birds’ habitat and behaviour. With thousands of birds still perched on the rocks and the sheep still close by, it was a perfect visit!

Before leaving the area, we took a little detour to Point Lance, known for its 2-mile long sandy beach (something unusual around here as most beaches are covered with gravel and rocks).

Point Lance sandy beach.

The scenery between Cape St. Mary and Placentia is constantly changing and absolutely breathtaking. Here is the best way to describe it: Blink. California coast, big waves, deep blue water. Blink. Swiss alpine meadows with scattered little houses. Blink. Algonquin Park bogs. Blink. Rugged beaches. Blink. Pine forests. Blink. Wasn’t that amazing?

Leaving Placentia, we drove to Dildo, our next stop and the George House Heritage B&B (www.georgehousebnb.com), built in 1885. What property!

George House Heritage B&B, Dildo, NFLD.

The house had 5 lovely bedrooms. In ours, the walls were covered with fabric rather than wallpaper. The ambience was definitely “turn of the century” with the luxury of internet access! Plenty of little extravagant details made this place memorable, like two robes nicely laid on the bed and a jar of berries jam with other munchies as an “after dinner” snack… A gourmet breakfast is scheduled for tomorrow morning, between 8:30 and 9:30…

We had dinner at the marina, in a local restaurant. We both had cod
and the Dildo chowder (a delicious spicy tomato broth chowder loaded with pieces of fish and seafood). Delicious!

Until tomorrow,
Anna

Ray’s Perspective…
An incredible day at Cape St Mary’s with our private naturalist Chris. Lots of sunshine to take great pictures.

So let’s start with a before and after from the same viewpoint, the deck of the interpretive centre. Chris had suggested I take these 2 pictures for fun (He knew we were going to come back). So glad he suggested it.

“After” picture, without fog

“Before” picture, with fog

At the end of the trail, there is a large and tall rock where thousands of birds are nesting. We were standing about 40 ft away and had a great view. The fog was gone and it was like the curtain was raised and the show started. It was very hard to leave this place.

Raymond took a video to capture the activity on top of the birds’ “condo unit”, with us and Chris (our private naturalist of the day) carrying a conversation in the background on places we should visit next…

There is also a young chick (grey feathers) still living at home (!). The rock is overcrowded and there is constant bickering.

The ones that seem to duel with their beaks are actually expressing love.

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