Day 47 – Cape St. Mary’s, Newfoundland

After having a fairly restless night because the wind was blowing so hard we thought it was taking the top off our trailer, we woke up to sunshine at last. Because of the strong winds Leo decided that we would pack up and pull the trailer along while going on our next sight-seeing tour and find a camping spot at the end of our day trip.

We had decided earlier in the week to keep this day for our trip to Cape St. Mary’s because the weather forecast was to be somewhat sunny.

Cape St. Mary’s is a provincial Ecological Reserve where you can experience the whirling clamour of 70.000 seabirds every year. There are 7 species of birds nesting here and we got to see most of them. The most prominent bird was the Northern Gannet (Jan-van-Gent in Dutch). We could see literally thousands of birds just a stone throw away from us. It is totally amazing how these birds fly in and know where their young one is situated among the thousands of birds sitting on the large rock tower called a seamount. It really is like what you some times see in one of those National Geographic Society nature shows.

Some details from the handout we got telling us which birds we could see out there:
Northern Gannet (Jan-van-Gent) - 11,000 nesting pairs
Common Mure (Zeekoet) – 10,000 nesting pairs
Black Legged Kittiwake (Drieteenmeeuw) – 10,000 nesting pairs
Razorbill – 150+ nesting pairs
Black Guillemot (Zwarte Guillemot) – 60-plus nesting pairs
Cormorants (Geoorde Aalscholver) – common visitors/breeders
Thick-Billed Mure (Dikbekzeekoet) – 1,000 nesting pairs

And then if you are really lucky you could also see Humpback Whales but we were not that lucky this day.

After sitting on the rocks and watching the birds for a couple of hours we had to move on. When we got back to the visitor centre we had a most enjoyable chat with the park-ranger for the site about the birds but also about the village of Port Lance. He told us this place was the Beverly Hills of Newfoundland but we doubt this is really true as we have seen much nicer and bigger houses in other areas of Newfoundland.
On we went to find ourselves a camping spot in Argentia, but again the campground was located in such a way that with any kind of wind it would pick up our trailer and most likely dump us in the ocean. We finally ended up in a campground in Bellevue and not long after we went to bed the rain started, and it rained and rained.

Photos of our wonderful day at Cape St. Mary’s can be found here.