June 26th-28th - Brigus and Whale Watching

We arrived at the Old Mill RV Park in Avondale early on the 26th. We are staying at this park for five days and daytripping around until we catch the ferry on July 1st. There are no hookups at this park and no shower house. We can run our generator as needed during the daylight hours. When we got here the rules said inverter type generators only with a maximum decibel level of 56 dB. When we made reservations nothing was said about that. Our RV generator is quieter than construction generators by far but it is not a quiet inverter generator. I cranked it up and it is 60 dB. Close enough I think.

When we registered back in May she said she would put us in a big site down by the river. Did she ever do us a favor. We have the largest, nicest site in the entire park.  We are next to the river with only a row of picnic tables for those using the river between us and the river. Here are a couple of pictures.

The place was pretty empty when we arrived but she expected it to fill up because this is a holiday weekend with Monday, July 1st, being "Canada Day", their 4th of July. I'm glad we made a reservation.

After setting up we took a ride through the town of Avalon. While driving I spotted an iceberg and we headed down the road hoping to get closer to it. On the drive we saw the sign for the town of Brigus, which had been recommended to us by a friend. Brigus is a little historical fishing village with a beautiful harbor. From the harbor we could see the iceberg but it was quite a distance off. Here is a picture. Unfortunately the camera makes everything look farther way. But you can see the iceberg out in the middle.

One of the places to see in town was the tunnel. It was cut through the rock by the locals by hand to make it easier for the ship captains to get to their boats. Here is picture of us in it.

The views from the harbor are beautiful. Here are a couple of more pictures

Kellen was interested in the picnic tables they made out of large stones overlooking the water.

On the 27th we scheduled a whale watching and puffin watching tour in Bay Bull. This day appeared to be the best for weather conditions. The ride out there was on the worst road we have encountered yet. Here is a picture. I was glad I wasn't hauling Marge.

The weather was clear but on the way out fog set in. We saw a Minke whale and followed him around. He came up and down in the water so quickly I couldn't get a picture of him. Kellen was thrilled to get to see one. The humpbacks are just now starting to migrate through here so we didn't see any. Our final destination was an island where the Puffins and various Seagulls nest. They estimate 500,000 birds nest here every year. The Puffins mate for life and come back to the exact same place every year to mate and nest. They told us they only need four square inches to mate and nest. They can identify their own egg by the color, which is like a bar code. Pretty amazing.  Here are a couple of pictures of the birds even though it was a little foggy.

The brown mass on the following picture are birds.

Several times the birds would all take off by the thousands and fly out over the water. This meant a predator was flying around. When the Puffins abandoned their nests temporarily like this the Seagulls would get their eggs. We actually saw one do that. They only lay one egg per year. As we were leaving we saw an immature eagle sitting on the cliff.  Really cool.

On the way back to the harbor we had some spectacular views. Here is one which I might make my screen saver.

We had a wonderful seafood lunch at the restaurant across from the tour boat and headed back. On the way back we decided to go to opening day of the new Costco in St. John's. We knew it would be a mad house and boy was it ever. There were cops at all the intersections and roundabouts directing traffic. We were barely able to find a parking spot on the huge lot. Inside there were so many people we couldn't get through most of the isles. It was crazy. We got the items we came for and got out of there!  I was checking out and it rejected by Visa card. I put in a second Visa card. It rejected it. I put in my Discover card and it rejected it. I was then told by the checker that they only took Mastercard. My bank debit card is a Mastercard. I tried it and it was rejected. I was about to apologize and abandon our basket of food when I realized that I had enough Canadian cash to pay for what we purchased. I was glad I had been conservative on the use of the Canadian money I got before we left home. For traveling I guess we need to get rid of one Visa card and get a Mastercard. 

Friday we scheduled ziplining for Kellen and me. The forecast changed and it was to be cloudy and rainy so we rescheduled for today (Saturday). Instead we drove into St. John's yesterday and saw the movie "Toy Story 4". It was a nice movie.

We got back to the campground and there was a marshmellow roast at the community campfire by the river next to our campsite. Kellen and I had a few with the multitude of kids there. We talked to several of the kids who had just gotten out of school the day before. They go back to school in September.