Travelblips

I did my best… I made sure the sun was supposed to be shining. And then I headed down to Cape St Mary Ecological Reserve in SE Newfoundland on the Avalon Peninsula. I thought it would improve my chances of seeing the reportedly amazing birdlife in this little corner in full rare sunny splendor.

Good intentions…

The reserve is located 200km away from St John’s so I set off shortly after lunch, hoping to catch some action with soft afternoon sunlight filtering through the birds, and if it was looking like a beautiful sunset, I’d hang around.

My first mistake was taking the ‘wrong’ turn off the TransCanada and headed south down Highway 90. It wasn’t until I was several kilometers along it I realised my mistake. Some quick glancing at the road map and I realised I could still get to Cape St Mary’s this way, so decided to continue. The countryside was ‘wild’ with lush green ferns and grass inbetween newly leafed alder (bane of my working life) and the stoic dark green Spruce trees. Wild… Its the new ‘in’ look I reckon. Why have a manicured garden when you can have a rustic, natural looking garden. OK, I admit here it was genuinely wild, but parks and gardens do tend to look like this in Russia and… my backyard… (cough).

Also saw what I thought was a donkey by the roadside, until I realised it had rather gangly legs and was awfully large and dark for a donkey. My first moose sighting on Newfoundland…

A few houses dotted the roadside, but for the most part, it was a deserted and narrow windy road. Low clouds quickly built up and I sighed to myself - maybe the weather wasn’t going to be sunny, but at least it wasn’t foggy. I turned off onto Highway 91 and cruised past a small village (fishing village?) with lots of nice houses. Newfoundlanders seem to have lots of Very Nice Houses as retreats outside of St John’s… Or retirees or people. Whatever - there are lots of very nice houses outside of St John’s in the middle of nowhere!

I hit an intersection and blitzed through - and found myself on a dirt road. I slowed down, pulled over and looked at my map. It was marked “Old Plancentia Highway” but I didn’t fancy driving on a dirt road. So I turned around and went back to the intersection and turned down Highway 92. Said it would loop around the peninsula and take me to Cape St Mary’s. Continue pleasant drive!

However, as I neared the southern extremities of the peninsula, the rugged peaks of the surrounding hills began to slowly disappear under fast flying fog. Well… It still wasn’t at ground level - I’d still be able to see the birds. Thank goodness digital camera’s have multiple ISO levels to manage the dwindling light levels…

However, as I turned onto Highway 100 at the bottom of the Peninsula, the fog began scraping the ground. I drove through a clean little village of Branch where the fog lifted momentarily, but by the time I passed the turn off to Point Lance, it was getting seriously low.

Finally I got to the turn off to St Mary’s Ecological Reserve and the fog crashed to the ground. The narrow, gently undulating road was now invisible beyond about 50m. Was I even going to see the birds?!

10 minutes later and 30 minutes earlier than driving estimates from St John’s (sometimes, it pays to take the wrong turn), I pulled into the parking lot for the Reserve. There were cars and a white boardwalk leading into the mist and another leading into a driveway. Otherwise, the area was empty apart from one other person furiously pulling on clothes and the mournful sound of a foghorn going off regularly.

I decided to copy the man, thankful I had loaded up my car with sneakers, the zip on bottoms to my cargo pants and a rain jacket before I left St John’s. It had seemed like madness then - it was a sweltering muggy 25C in St John’s, but I was glad to have the additional clothing now!

Once warmly clad, I dithered as to whether to go to the white boardwalk or the driveway. I chose the boardwalk. I walked along it for about 20m and suddenly could make out a large dim outline of a house. I hesitantly kept going forward, unsure if I was heading to the lighthouse keepers house. As I approached, I could see signs that this place was welcoming of people and 10m from it, I saw the sign stating it was the Interpretive centre. Phew!

Given it was 4pm, I wasn’t sure if it would be open, but when I went in, there were two park rangers sitting at a desk as well as a large museum display and a tourist souvenir shop. I went up to them and asked which way was it to see the birds. The guy lazily pulled out a brochure and began explaining to me if I walked out the fire exit behind me, I had a 1.4k easy walk. Please keep the pegs to my right so I wouldn’t go over a cliff. Then he pointed out to me I’d see nothing at Bird Rock Cove but would see birds at the aptly named, Bird Rock, a towering stack about 10m offshore.

The Park Ranger then went on to say I would see Black Guillemots a the top of the stack and along the cliff, and then if I looked down I’d see Black-legged Kittiwake’s, maybe some Common Murre and if I was really lucky, I might see one of the two nesting Razorbills. I just shoo my head and said if there was only two, the odds were pretty darn good I wouldn’t see it and if I did, not being a birder, I wouldn’ recognise them… He seemed a bit taken aback someone would be down here to see the birds but not be a birder AND cheerfully admit they weren’t bothered if they didn’t see it. Its the months working on cruise ships…

I went out the fire exit and quickly found myself on a tidy little gravel trail with pegs spaced about every 10m - just about the limit of visibility! I passed a few people returning from Bird Rock, but didn’t have the nerve to ask them if they saw anything in this dense fog, so settled for cheerful exchanges of ‘Hello!”

Soon a sweet but rank odour permeated the fog and inbetween foghorn wails, I could hear the racuous cawing of 100s of birds. I assumed I was passing Bird Rock Cove. I couldn’t see very far past the pickets and didn’t feel like testing the cliffs here - the pictures in the Interpretive Centre suggested very steep drops!

The sounds of the unseen birds never disappeared, but gradually the odour faded as the trail sloped gently downhill. Then the smell suddenly came back hard and sharp and the bird noise increased in volume again. I could make out 2 silhouettes in the fog ahead - I must be arriving at Bird Rock!

Sure enough, the trail quickly peetered out in a jumble of rocks and just beyond me, was the stack with some hazy bird shaped on it (don’t be fooled by the first picture above - Photoshop stripped the fog on that image…). The air was filled with guillemots and kittiwakes swooping and gliding around.

I edged up to a rocky ledge and cautiously peered over, nearly getting vertigo in the process. I could just make out some very faint white waves a long way down. I decided to sit down and just take pictures of the guillemots from where I was… From this vantage point, I could also see the nearby cliff and could see the Kittiwakes on it. Maybe there were some Murre, but I couldn’t be sure. And as things turned out, I doubt I would have been able to see the Razorbill’s in the dense fog below…

After taking some photos of the birds, I wandered over to the cliff side. I tried to edge closer to the visible Guillemots, but they all flew off with a vexed look at me. Not being able to see a whole lot further, I sat down a safe distance from where the slope abruptly disappeared and spent some time trying to capture the many Guillemots flying overhead (yes… lucky I didn’t get pooped on!).

When my hair was soaking wet from the cold and I was starting to get chilled, I wandered back for one last look at the stack, now with no bottom in the deep fog, then set off back to the Interpretive Centre.

IN the centre, I wandered through the museum part of it and learnt about the various ocean currents and thus why it was so foggy here… Apparently the famous “Grand Banks” lie between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and just south of the Grand Banks, lies the warm Gulf Stream, which abruptly turns east, parallel to the Grand Banks and heads off to Europe. With Cape St Mary just north of this Grand Banks, it had some cold tendrils of the Labrador Current wrapping around Newfoundland and where it intersected the Gulf Stream, voila! Fog…

After learning more about the birds (and realising, I was beginning to miss the cruise work) I exited the building and followed the boardwalk back to my car. As I stepped off the boardwalk into the car park, a young couple came up to me, clearly a bit disorientated by the fog.

“Excuse me…” said the guy politely, “Can you please tell us which way is it to the Interpretive Centre?”

I smiled and pointed back behind me. “Believe it or not, its just backthere along that boardwalk,” I said. They looked at me in disbelief, but I guess they had already tried the driveway so set off along it.

About 20m past me, I guess they began to see the outline of the building, because I heard the girl say, “Oh look! There IS a building here!” I turned but couldn’t see them - the fog had already swallowed them. Who would have believed a large building sat 50m away from the car park and was completely invisible?!

I decied to try the approved route home - which did take 30 minutes longer. And the fog began to clear and lift about 30km north of Cape St Mary. By the time I drove through Placentia (nice looking town - what is its function????), there was no more fog. As I neared the TransCanada, the fog completely disappeared and I was back into a nice sunny day!

Morel of the story - just because its fine and sunny in St John’s doesn’t mean its fine and sunny over the peninsula! Be prepared for ANY weather condition when travelling in Newfoundland!

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