Bonavista, Newfoundland–part 2

When I was here before I did not have time to hike the Skerwink Trail.  I really wanted to do this trail, it is very popular and has been listed in Travel and Leisure’s top 10 hikes in North America.  I don’t know about that but the people that keep the trail up do a fantastic job and it is one of my favorite trails in Newfoundland.

 

I was a bit concerned when I saw The caution sign above that says “expect cliffs, steep climbs and uneven trail beds”.  I had seen one rating of his trail that said moderate to difficult, while another said moderate.  After walking the entire trail, I would say it should be moderate, maybe even easy to moderate.  If heights bother you, then it might be higher as several times the trail is very close to the cliffs. 

It’s very hard to see, but to give some perspective to this there are people in the picture below.  See the tree that is on the point in the center of the picture.  There is a bench just to the right and down the hill a bit with 2 people on it.  Don’t forget you can click on any picture to enlarge it.

3 people are on the boardwalk headed up the hill in the picture below.  I know they are hard to see but for me it makes it easier to understand the size of the area. 

Close to the end of the trail you can see a small lighthouse and the town of Trinity.  Great trail!

Bonavista, Newfoundland–part 1

I backtracked some to go back to the Bonavista Peninsula.  Last time I stayed in Port Rexton at Lockston Path Provincial Park.  This time I stayed at Paradise Farms RV Park in Bonavista.  It is just 15 minutes or so from the Puffins and maybe 20 – 25 minutes to Cape Bonavista (the whales).

I was here July 26 – 29 and I had a fantastic time, probably the highlight of my trip in Newfoundland!  I took more than 700 pictures in these 4 days and have had a really hard time selecting the pictures for the blog.  I am going to post 2 or 3  blogs with some text and then another 2 or 3 blogs with just pictures. 

On my first day, I headed over to Elliston to see what the puffins were doing.  It was my best puffin day!  Another photographer described it best -  “Puffin Overload”.  When I was here before I thought I was lucky to see  a few puffins fly over and land in the viewing area.  This day, there was 1 – 25 puffins almost the entire time I was there (several hours).  Of course there were also 100’s of puffins on the islands just 30 – 40 feet from where we were standing 

This lady sat for a while and eventually the puffins came to the area where she sat.

One even checking out her socks!  It was so much fun watching the puffins collect materials for their nest.  Sometimes they would pull and pull to try to get something up.  Occasionally they would lose their grip and fall down.Everyone watching would laugh and at times it almost appeared that the puffins enjoyed it.  They would look at us and do it again.

After spending a couple of hours here, I wanted to leave but just couldn’t because there were so many puffins still around.

Below I sat on a rock and watched for a while.  You can just see my my feet at the bottom of the picture, with a few puffins about 5 – 8 feet from me!

I visited this area every day during my stay in Bonavista.  One day the puffins were not near as active, but we had some other visitors. Humpback Whales!! Very close to the cliffs that we were standing on.

On the next picture a puffin photobombed my whale picture --

When there were not many puffins flying over to check us out, I took some pictures of the area.

The island in the background is the second “puffin island”.  The island that is on the left side of the picture is the closest “puffin island”. You can see the puffins on that island.   It is maybe 30 – 40 feet from the viewing area. 

There were several Black Guillemots hanging around.  The one above has some type of fish or shrimp that he caught.  I watched him hold it for a while, then he hid it and joined the others.

Eastport, Newfoundland (Terra Nova National Park)

I thought about staying at one of the campgrounds in Terra Nova National park July 21 - 25, but decided to stay at the Shriners RV park in Eastport instead.  I did check out the Malady Head Campground in Terra Nova and I liked it.  Some of the sites have electricity and many sites would work well for my RV. 

My first stop while in Eastport was not to the national park, but rather the fishing village of Salvage.  I had been told by several people that this was a very neat town and they were not wrong.  They have some hiking trails, but due to weather and time in the area I did not do any of them.

Above are fishing traps of all types, I should have asked one of the locals what each are for. 

My favorite trail in Terra Nova National Park was Ochre Hill.  I liked it because it had a mixture of environments, part marsh, part woods, some flat, some hills.  I only made it about halfway up to the lookout as it started to rain. 

As soon as I saw the plant below I knew it was some type of laurel.  I later learned it is Marsh Laurel (or Bog Laurel).   

More Pitcher Plants, sorry I really like this plant so you readers have seen it several times in my blogs.Sundrops (or dewdrops??) another Carnivorous plant.  The second picture is a close-up with a bug that is caught.  These are maybe 2 inches tall, I later saw some that looked the same, but were 1 - 1/2 inch tall (due to very bad soil in Tablelands, Gros Morne).Unknown flower, but interesting --

I also walked the Sandy Pond Trail and the Coastal Trail.  The Coastal Trail is the most popular trail in the park.  I am guessing because it’s trailhead is in the visitor center parking lot!

I finally spotted a couple of Gray Jay.  I had been looking for one these last couple of months as it is one of the few Jays that are in the Sibley North America book that I have not seen.  I still need to see a Brown Jay (very rare as there are only a few pairs nesting in the US along the Rio Grande) and the Island scrub Jay (found on Santa Cruz island off southern California)

After Eastport, I changed my original plans of continuing west and headed back to an area I had visited previously.