Where Wind, Water, Land and Sea Meet

One of the kids described today as a drive to the end of the earth...and immediately we all knew exactly what he was trying to say. This morning we piled into the school bus for a 2.5 hour drive to Cape St. Mary Ecological Reserve. We drove through fog into sunshine, from the hills of St. John's through the flatland of southern Newfoundland to arrive at a cliff, overlooking the ocean.
This cliff is where thousands of birds, mostly gannets, come each year to nest and now is nesting time.
A guide walked us across this cliff which has remained relatively unchanged over hundreds of years. At Cape St. Mary's there are no boardwalk pathways, no restaurants or gift shops. This is a nature preserve and we are only tolerated if we respect the importance of this tiny piece of land.
Tony, our guide, made it clear to the students that there are secret places in the world and only real travelers will take the time and work to discover them.
Today we saw thousands of gannets during their nesting phase on a rock that jutted out into the ocean only metres away from us. When we looked up we saw countless birds in the sky diving into the ocean to catch their supper in the fish laden water along the beach. When we looked down we saw caribou lichen, coyote droppings, moss, alpine irises and prairie grasses.
A picture says a thousand words and so I will let our pictures say what remains to be said about this day.
Tomorrow we will be up and on the road by 7:00am (4:30am Winnipeg time). We are going to Woody Island and for 48 hours our cellphones/internet will not work. As soon as we regain service, our kids will get in touch with you.
For all the mothers reading this blog - Happy Mother's Day!!!