10 September 2019, Tuesday

The winds have calmed and the sun is shining, but rain is forecast for the afternoon. We finish our cardamom coffee cake and then strike the tent while it’s dry. O also does a re-pack on Vincent to get better organized in the back and to tuck away Newfoundland jams and sauces for the journey home. (He’s already making plans for a new, broader shelf under the sleeping platform for extra storage space next year.)

When these chores are finished we drive south on Highway 1 to Ochre Hill
Road. The park map shows this as a gravel road, but it is actually paved. We take the trail that begins part way up the road. There is a side trail that traverses a bog and has interpretive panels discussing the life cycle of the black spruce bog forest. Then we continue towards the lookouts, walking a sometimes board-walked path along the pond and through more bog. There are warblers and sparrows in the bush and the sky remains blue.

Part way through the bog I hear voices approaching and laughter. Once again we meet the German couple whom we have met twice before. They were laughing because when they saw us in the distance they were joking about whether it is us again. It is indeed! They ask if we are headed to the Bona Vista Peninsula to see the puffins. I answer yes, but not until next week. They will be returning home by then. Perhaps we’ll meet again next year!

O and I climb up and over rocky hills to a beautiful vista overlooking much of Terra Nova National Park and extending out to Clode Sound and Goose Bay. Just as we reach the summit of the last rocky hill a bald eagle soars overhead. We enjoy a lunch break on the bench at the lookout and then head back to the road. On the way down we do some more birdwatching and identify a palm warbler.

Once back at Vincent we drive further up the road to Ochre Hill. Here there is an old fire lookout and more interpretive panels about the environment and efforts to protect endangered species in the park. This hill top is also a dark sky preserve. With its 360 degree view it would be a wonderful place to hang out and watch the stars. We learn from one of the panels that the rocks which form this hill are the glacier-scoured remains of an ancient volcano, approximately 550 million years old. From the sunny summit of Ochre Hill we can see distant showers in almost every direction. There is a particularly long line of showers in the direction of Malady Head Campground.

We drive back to camp, spotting a rainbow along the way. It’s raining pretty hard at Malady Head so we wait in Vincent for the rain to abate. After eating our supper under the soggy tarp we pack that up as well. Breakfast will be on the road tomorrow as we head to St. John’s.