As soon as we heard Hurricane Earl was about to hit Halifax, Nova Scotia tracking its movement toward Newfoundland has been a high priority for us. The decision was to head inland and position ourselves out of the eye of the storm. We caught some morning sunrise cloud cover from the hurricane in the central part of the island along with rain.
A day’s side excursion adventure northward in the Toad with Yukon up the Bonavista Peninsula that jets out into the Atlantic Ocean gave us decent sunny weather. Rugged coastal landscape of sea cliffs, harbor inlets, and enchanting small village coves are seen along the Discovery Trail.
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| Morning rainbow as Hurricane Earl winds approach at Gander |
Trinity was a quaint and charming old fishing village set in a cove with two grand churches and about fifteen colorful 19th century historic buildings . A theater group in costume does a walk about in town for the tourists.
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| Trinity and its colorful builfings |
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| Trinity Cove morning reflections |
At Ellison we were on a mission to discover puffins nesting out on the mounds atop a small island visible to the eye. Most of them were hiding in their burrows to protect their young from the sea gulls as predators. JR caught a few puffins in flight bringing small capien fish to their young in the burrows. A puffin lays only one egg per year.
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| Puffins hide in nesting burrows to avoid sea gull predators |
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| Puffin in flight with fish for its offspring |
Had we been there three weeks earlier hundreds of puffins would have been visible we are told.
Next a bull moose was spotted grazing off the roadside. It posed without the least bit of concern and thankfully wasn’t on the move crossing the road. The count so far for the year is twenty-five damaged vehicle accidents in Newfoundland due to moose crossing the road. We actually saw the side of a car smashed in by a moose. On several other places moose blood has been spotted marking the road as we pass.
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| Just another Newfoundland moose |
Bonavista is one of the oldest cod fishing villages in Newfoundland in the early days. Today the cod season is only open for three weeks a year to any Newfoundler. The fishing industry as a whole has become a dwindling way of making a livelihood due to overharvesting. We caught the monument of Italian explorer John Cabot who first stepped ashore in the New World at Cape Bonaventure in 1497.
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| Cape Bonavista Lighthouse |
One cannot help but miss the red and white lighthouse built in 1843 at the tip of the windy cape Ryan Premises National Historical Site had several buildings with displays about the early cod fishing. He owned the busy fishing merchant’s processing facility in 1899. It was a fun day, but driving three hundred miles was worth the adventure. Off to bed really tired, we found the remains of Hurricane Earl descending 40 mph winds rocking the Chateau all night long. Sailors would say it is time to batten down the hatches. We have made it safely to the capitol at St. John. The winds are gusty as you can imagine.
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| Evening approaches at Cape Bonavista. |
