Exploring the Avalon Peninsula

This is our last day in St. John's. It was time to do some exploring outside of the city. The weather had improved a bit but it was still a bit cool and windy but not as bad as yesterday. We started venturing south of the city and found a good look off of the harbour and city.

From here we continued on to Cape Spear, the eastern most point of North America.

There are a couple of lighthouses here. The current one....

And the restored original....

This was also a strategic defence site during WWII with hiding guns.

Also some nice sea shore views of the rugged coast.

Next up we drove to Maddox Cove. A nice little fishing harbour.

We sighted another iceberg!

They had a small aquarium display with a bunch of tanks containing species from the local area and some very informative docents.

Next up was a boat tour to an offshore seabird preserve. We thought this might be a bit dicey given the strong winds that had been blowing yesterday and still a bit today.

We decided to go ahead and are glad we did. No problem although it was a bit rocky. The commentator was really funny.

First up on the critter count was a bald eagle that flew by the boat.

Whe we arrived at the seabird preserve, there were tens of thousands of birds including Puffins, Murre, Razorbill Mauk, Black Guillemot, Kittiwake and Gannet.

Then the whales showed up! Several Minke whales kept surfacing near the boat. It was difficult to get a photo as you never knew where they would surface.

There were some nice views of the coast during the trip.

After the boat tour, we returned to Signal Hill in St John's to do a bit of trail walking. Some really nice views.

The Signal Hill building contained a good description of Marconi's first wireless transmission from Europe to here.

We walked around the battery and got an appreciation of how strategic it was to defending the harbour.

For our last night in town, we ventured downhill to Duckworth and a nice Japanese restaurant. Our friend Pam had recommended the "Scallops Three Ways" and they did not disappoint.

When we left the restaurant, it was raining and we did a quick scamper up the hill to our suites and an early night to bed.