Lepod's Blog

We brought our GPS with us, and in Montreal I downloaded the map of the US and Canada, and also the Homer Simpson voice, just for fun. He gives the directions but also puts in extra funny bits like “we’re going on the motorway, woohoo” and “you have reached your destination and can hold your head up high, because you are a genius.” Anyway, with Homer’s help we headed out of St John’s and drove to Salmonier Nature Park, about 50 km’s south west. 

The park is for animals that are being rehabilitated, for instance they might be recovering alchoholics, or have a broken wing that needs mending, that sort of thing. Anyway, the weather, which has been excellent since we got here, reverted to what I understand is the norm ie it was absolutely bucketing down. It eased up as we arrived at the park, and we saw a Moose, a Bald Eagle, a Caribou, various Owls, and some Hares,  and a Lynx.

The friendly Otter, the Beaver, the Foxes, the Mink, Marten and Vole were snoozing in their various burrows so unfortunately we did not see them. Still, it was nice to be out in the countryside for a bit of a hike.

We then drove across to Bay Bulls on the East coast, it’s a little fishing port, one of the oldest communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, French fishermen used the habour in the 1500’s. It’s the home of various boat tours to see whales etc, and we took the O’Brien’s tour, www.obriensboattours.com
which I can highly recommend. As we got under way, the guy doing the commentary burst into a  sea shanty with all the passengers clapping in time. He was a witty character with lots of stories, as most Newfoundlanders seem to be. First stop was an island in Witless Bay where there are literally millions of sea birds, and we saw a lot of them.

The first up were the Puffins, and they are really cute. They are great swimmers and they dive down to catch their prey, eat their fill, and then have a great deal of difficulty taking off again as they are now too heavy, and also their wings are wet. So they have big long take off runs like a seaplane, and sometimes they crash into a wave and have to try again. We took a few photos:

I got a few of them in the water but they came out quite small, whereas these

ones are reasonably close. I think they are nesting here. Apparently they mate for life and always return to the exact same spot for nesting.

Here’s one in the water: I think he’s about to take off. They have really big, bright coloured beaks during mating season.

There were quite a few other seabirds on the island, and Pauline got this great shot of some seagulls with a baby.

Next up we headed further out to sea to try and find some whales. Unfortunately the fog descended to the point where even if we’d been surrounded by whales having a big party, we would not have seen them. It was slightly surreal, sailing into a foggy void playing irish sea shanties loudly on the p.a. Maybe the whales are sick of irish music! Still, it was a good crack as they say in Ireland, and eventually we headed back to port where I tried cod tongues for the first, and possibly the last time! They love them here though.

Here’s a picture of the boat we went out on, as you can see it was fairly foggy! Also a view of the port.

Tomorrow we are heading back to Montreal, we’ll be sorry to leave. We are hiring a car in Montreal and driving to Peterborough to visit a colleague of Pauline’s, then we are driving to New York state via the Niagra falls to see Helen and Cas. Should be good! I’ll keep you posted.