Back to canada

We bid good bye to France today.  Did not get a chance to visit Miquelon, an even smaller and more remote part of France:  350 permanent residents on an island that is completely inaccessible for about 3 months of the year....  We also skipped Langlade - the 3rd island of the archipelago, which is so empty it's not even mentioned in the name...  Langlade has no permanent inhabitants, but a lot of second homes for the people of St Pierre, who go there in the summer to escape the city (!!!???).
We took the ferry back to the very south of Newfoundland.  Puffins again flew along with us.  They are so cute - they look like little flying penguins:  which means that they are just not very good at it - their bodies are too chubby and their wings too short.  It is a bit alarming to see them try to take off from the waves - they look like they won't make it.  But they do!  So I guess it works for them...  (tomorrow, we are taking a boat ride to get close to them.  I'm very excited!). We also saw whales blowing along the boat, and a few porpoises too.  But that's impossible to capture on pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it.

We drove back the length of the Placentia peninsula, and then across the Avalon peninsula to St John's.  It was a pretty day for a ride, with just enough clouds to make the sky interesting.

We stopped to look at rock formations (erratic boulders- get it??)

 and at some of the thousands of ponds that dot the entire area, making it very pretty. 

You can tell the wind is very strong here a lot of the time, because trees have a definite angle to them.

 We got off the highway at the town of "Come by Chance" because I liked the name and also because on the map it looked like it was at the tip of a pretty bay.  It is - but it's also the site of a big oil refinery, so not quite as pretty as I hoped....  (still cool to see a different side of the area).

 It was complete with big sulfur piles!

 This little side loop was worth it though because a moose- our first- decided to share the road with us for a bit!

 

Also, we eventually got to the little town of Arnold's cove - which faces away from the refinery and is indeed lovely.









 

 We ended up back in St John's, where we strolled down the historic Water Street. 

St John's as a strong Irish background, so we decided to honor that by eating (and drinking) at an Irish pub.  It was very nice.
Tomorrow- hopefully- PUFFINS!