Cape St. Mary's Lighthouse

In September 2008 we drove down to Cape St. Mary’s, which sits on the opposite corner of the Avalon Peninsula from Pouch Cove. I wanted to check out the lighthouse, but most people visit for the birds. Cape St. Mary's Ecological Reserve holds a major seabird colony.

It was a glorious late summer day. We first drove about 2.5 hours to a charming little town called Point Lance. There were sheep grazing in the middle of a flood plain. We visited a real sandy beach (most beaches in Newfoundland are rock). There were two Labs running free on the beach, jumping into the surf. They saw us and came over to say hello. I took a photo of some men cutting grass in a field and was intrigued by the use of old and new technology.

It took about 30 minutes to get to Cape St. Mary’s. It was still sunny. We were lucky since there are 200 days of fog each year at the cape. The cape is home to a wide variety of birds, but that day we were most impressed with the northern gannets. This was before I had a camera that could take videos, otherwise I would have some videos of the gannets diving into the sea. The reserve is popular both due to the abundance of birdlife but also due to its accessibility. It is an easy walk to a cliff where you can look over to “Bird Rock”, a 100-metre stack that is only a few metres away. It is the southernmost colony of northern gannets in North America.

The lighthouse’s opening was delayed due to difficulties in getting the lighting apparatus to the site, not surprising considering the steep cliffs. It was lit for the first time on September 20, 1860.

There were sheep grazing next to the lighthouse.

We took a slightly different route going home, going up the western side of the peninsula to Placentia. Shortly after leaving St. Mary’s, we passed a restaurant with a sign offering crab. We stopped and had a nice meal of snow crab. We have since found that fish & chips outlets might be common in Newfoundland, but little roadside restaurants serving crab are not. It was good that we stopped when we did.