Day 86 – Nipigon to Kenora, Ontario
September 22, 2008
Luckily the rain stopped overnight so we again were spared the nuisance of having to pack up our trailer in the rain. Once more we got up on time as the day would be a long one with about 550 km to drive through Ontario again. This province is just endless. It is the largest province in Canada of course, but travelling through it is made worse by the fact that its longest dimension lies east to west. This is our 4th or 5th day driving through it and we still are have not reached the Manitoba border. I think Leo told me before that just the north end of the Lake Superior is something like 864 km long. All I know is that it is a very long drive from one end to the other end.
We gained another hour shortly after we left Nipigon as we entered the Central Time Zone which gave us lots of time to get to our campsite. We found a really nice RV park on highway 17 just east of Kenora along Long Bow Lake which is in the Lake of the Woods area. We got here early enough that after we set up the trailer Leo went out to take some pictures of the surrounding area and perhaps of some trains in Kenora. I had hoped he would get some pictures taken before it started to rain again as it looked like we were in for another thunderstorm.
Out of all the things he could have photographed, he wound up taking pictures of the mineralizations in the granite of the Canadian Shield (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Shield) as shown in the many rock cuts which have been blasted out to make paths for the highways in this province. He really loves this granite rock here, and is always impressed by the fact that it is 3.5 billion years old, being amongst the oldest rocks in the world. In a map of the Lake of the Woods which he saw he claims he can see various arcs in the shorelines hereabouts which represent ancient meteorite strikes from the early millennia after the formation of the Solar System when large meteorites did still frequently strike the earth. As the Canadian Shield has been little altered since that time, he likes to imagine it retaining better evidence of these strikes than most other places on earth. I have no idea whether there is any scientific support for these ideas, but he believes them nevertheless.
But I think he is really getting a bit desperate with these photos of rocks, and you are free to agree with me if you wish. If you do find them interesting, then please don’t say so or it will just encourage him to take more in future. Take a look at these pictures and decide for yourself.
Tomorrow we will go to Winnipeg and visit with our old neighbours before we move on again closer to Calgary.
Pictures for today can be found here.
Day 87 – Kenora, Ontario to Brandon, Manitoba September 23, 2008
We had a late start today as we again were hit by a thunderstorm and rain during the night. It was a pleasure to listen to the thunder rolling through the sky but it did keep us from sleeping for a few hours. The thunder seems different in Eastern Canada than in Alberta. Back home many of the lightning strikes seem to go nicely down from the clouds to the ground. But in the East, at least from what we have experienced, the lighting is more often intracloud rather than directed at the ground. If you count seconds after a flash of nearby lightning you can consequently often hear a peal of thunder rolling along the sky further and further away for a full 25 seconds until the next nearby lightning flash commences. Listening to all of this was a delight in its own right, although it did interfere with our sleep for a while, as did the strong rain which followed.
Once we were on the road the weather slowly cleared up and by the time we got to Winnipeg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg) the sun was shining again and it looked like it would stay dry for a while.
We visited our old neighbours Shirl and Jim Kress in their new home in Winnipeg and had a really nice visit with them. We got caught up on what they had done the last few months and talked about their plans for renovations to their new home. It looked like they were starting to settle down in their new surroundings.
We were back on the road again by 4 p.m. and wanted to get as far as we could towards the Saskatchewan border as Manitoba is mosquito country, and as I still have fresh memories of the plagues of mosquitoes we endured when we came through on our way East originally. We made it as far as Brandon, and yes, there still were a couple of mosquitoes, but they were nothing to worry about. We did not even have to go on a mosquito hunt in the trailer before we went to bed.
It was late by the time we set up our trailer so after uploading another couple of blogs with pictures we went to bed.
Day 88 – Brandon, Manitoba to Moose Jaw, SaskatchewanSeptember 24, 2008
Our plans for today are to get to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_Jaw,_Saskatchewan) for our last stretch home. We also choose Moose Jaw as it has a big train yard with a working turntable, if Google Earth is to be believed, so Leo would be able to take some pictures. The sun was shining and it was a real nice fall day with the smell of the leaves, the ripe grain still left in some of the fields, and the yellow colours of the trees presenting a very enjoyable view.
We got to the Moose Jaw campground around 3 p.m. and Leo was in his glory with all he had seen in trains so far already. After we set up the trailer he took off to ‘explore’ and I got to sit outside and do some reading.
After Leo`s dubious experiment with rock photos I have decided not to publish any of his pictures from today as they were just shots of various locomotives of CP Rail and other companies from which they had leased machines and I feared losing more blog readers if I did include them! No pictures were taken again during our drive itself today, but then we have travelled this road on our way out so we have seen it all before.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Day 83, 84 & 85 - Sault Ste. Marie to Nipigon, Ontario
Day 83 – Sudbury to Sault Ste. Marie
September 19, 2008
It was another beautiful morning to wake up to. A person could get used to this sunshine. We are now really on our way back home as for the first time we will be travelling again the very same roads we travelled going East. The only difference is that we will not be staying at the same campgrounds we stayed at when we drove through at the beginning of our vacation except the one in Sault Ste. Marie.
We got to Sault Ste. Marie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sault_Ste._Marie,_Ontario) early enough for us to do some sight-seeing around the town itself. We had a look at the old Canadian side lock here, a national historic site. It was built after the Americans, on whose soil the lock of the day had been built, refused to allow a ship of Canadian troops through on their way to suppress the Riel rebellion. The Canadian government then resolved to build a lock on fully Canadian territory so such an incident could not happen again. We also did some walking along the shore of the St. Mary River here. But before we went for our walk we noticed a train station downtown which advertised train tours to the Agawa Canyon on the Algoma Central Railway.
According to Leo this is a very famous train ride in Canadian railfanning which dates back pretty well continuously to the 1920s when well-to-do families would take this train to the Canyon from Sault Ste. Marie to have a picnic there, particularly during the show of wonderful fall colours which the maple trees in this section of Ontario provide. We checked on space for the trip set for the next day, and found that 16 of 600 seats were still available. We then and there booked two seats for the next day. Leo did kind of hesitate as he did not know what the weather would be like and if it was the right enough time of the year for good fall colours and such, so I went ahead and booked the seats on my own initiative. I can tell you already we were not sorry we did.
Then back to our campsite we went to upload some of our blog pictures and write more blogs as we are way behind schedule because of lack of internet access at the last few campgrounds at which we have stayed. As well, we had get to bed early as we had to be at the train station by 7:30 am.
Pictures for today are combined with tomorrow’s pictures.
Day 84 - Sault Ste. Marie
September 20, 2008
We were hit by a thunderstorm during the night and somewhat worried as to what our day on the train would be like. But we only had clouds when we woke up and they cleared up by late morning. We got to the Algoma Train Station by 7:30 am and the train left as advertised at 8 am. (http://www.algomacentralrailway.com/content/gallery/index.html?id=52)
The train ride was spectacular in that the maple trees were just starting to turn or had fully turned depending on the altitude of the location we were at. Leo did not take a lot of pictures during the train ride as the car windows were not clean enough. The train took until 12:30 to make the 114 mile trip to the Agawa Canyon where it was scheduled for a 90 minute stop to allow passengers to detrain, have lunch and hike if they wished to one of four waterfalls in the immediate vicinity or else to a lookout point over the canyon. Leo did walk up to the lookout point and took pictures of the Canyon from there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agawa_Canyon )
All in all it was a very pleasant train ride and we got back around 6:30 pm so it turned out to be quite a long day. We had some supper on the way back to our campsite, uploaded another 2 days of blogs and pictures and went to bed to rise early next day to bring ourselves ever closer to Calgary again.
Pictures for today can be found here.
Day 85 – Sault Ste. Marie to Nipigon, Ontario
September 21, 2008
It is already the 21st of September, so the first official day of autumn. There are only a few days left of our vacation as a result. Looking back at it all it sure has been a fantastic holiday, and we hope to repeat this trip in the near future to see everything again, and more.
After we had to set the alarm clock yesterday for our train trip we woke up early on our own this morning. The sun decided to cooperate again and show her face for most of the day. Today our end destination was Nipigon, Ontario (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipigon,_Ontario ) or somewhere close to it. We have set a goal of travelling 500 km a day for the way back home. Today was a really nice scenic drive around the top of Lake Superior with wonderful views of the lake shore but also a very pleasant road to drive. The boring part of the road will come tomorrow after Thunder Bay when we climb out of the Lake Superior basin to the Arctic watershed where water no longer flows into the Great Lakes and hence to the Atlantic Ocean but instead ultimately into the Arctic Ocean via Hudson`s Bay.
With our early start we were sure to make it to today’s destination point. We stopped for lunch at White River (yes this is where the other stabbing on the Greyhound bus took place) and got to our campsite around 6 p.m. As we got closer to the campsite clouds started to appear and it really looked like rain. We just got the trailer set up before the rain started and we were then treated to a few thunderstorms throughout the evening as well, but we were nice and dry, and ….. we had internet again so that we could upload another couple of blog days and pictures! Tomorrow we will be moving on to Kenora or somewhere around there.
Leo did take a few pictures today of the fall colours which can be found here.
September 19, 2008
It was another beautiful morning to wake up to. A person could get used to this sunshine. We are now really on our way back home as for the first time we will be travelling again the very same roads we travelled going East. The only difference is that we will not be staying at the same campgrounds we stayed at when we drove through at the beginning of our vacation except the one in Sault Ste. Marie.
We got to Sault Ste. Marie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sault_Ste._Marie,_Ontario) early enough for us to do some sight-seeing around the town itself. We had a look at the old Canadian side lock here, a national historic site. It was built after the Americans, on whose soil the lock of the day had been built, refused to allow a ship of Canadian troops through on their way to suppress the Riel rebellion. The Canadian government then resolved to build a lock on fully Canadian territory so such an incident could not happen again. We also did some walking along the shore of the St. Mary River here. But before we went for our walk we noticed a train station downtown which advertised train tours to the Agawa Canyon on the Algoma Central Railway.
According to Leo this is a very famous train ride in Canadian railfanning which dates back pretty well continuously to the 1920s when well-to-do families would take this train to the Canyon from Sault Ste. Marie to have a picnic there, particularly during the show of wonderful fall colours which the maple trees in this section of Ontario provide. We checked on space for the trip set for the next day, and found that 16 of 600 seats were still available. We then and there booked two seats for the next day. Leo did kind of hesitate as he did not know what the weather would be like and if it was the right enough time of the year for good fall colours and such, so I went ahead and booked the seats on my own initiative. I can tell you already we were not sorry we did.
Then back to our campsite we went to upload some of our blog pictures and write more blogs as we are way behind schedule because of lack of internet access at the last few campgrounds at which we have stayed. As well, we had get to bed early as we had to be at the train station by 7:30 am.
Pictures for today are combined with tomorrow’s pictures.
Day 84 - Sault Ste. Marie
September 20, 2008
We were hit by a thunderstorm during the night and somewhat worried as to what our day on the train would be like. But we only had clouds when we woke up and they cleared up by late morning. We got to the Algoma Train Station by 7:30 am and the train left as advertised at 8 am. (http://www.algomacentralrailway.com/content/gallery/index.html?id=52)
The train ride was spectacular in that the maple trees were just starting to turn or had fully turned depending on the altitude of the location we were at. Leo did not take a lot of pictures during the train ride as the car windows were not clean enough. The train took until 12:30 to make the 114 mile trip to the Agawa Canyon where it was scheduled for a 90 minute stop to allow passengers to detrain, have lunch and hike if they wished to one of four waterfalls in the immediate vicinity or else to a lookout point over the canyon. Leo did walk up to the lookout point and took pictures of the Canyon from there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agawa_Canyon )
All in all it was a very pleasant train ride and we got back around 6:30 pm so it turned out to be quite a long day. We had some supper on the way back to our campsite, uploaded another 2 days of blogs and pictures and went to bed to rise early next day to bring ourselves ever closer to Calgary again.
Pictures for today can be found here.
Day 85 – Sault Ste. Marie to Nipigon, Ontario
September 21, 2008
It is already the 21st of September, so the first official day of autumn. There are only a few days left of our vacation as a result. Looking back at it all it sure has been a fantastic holiday, and we hope to repeat this trip in the near future to see everything again, and more.
After we had to set the alarm clock yesterday for our train trip we woke up early on our own this morning. The sun decided to cooperate again and show her face for most of the day. Today our end destination was Nipigon, Ontario (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nipigon,_Ontario ) or somewhere close to it. We have set a goal of travelling 500 km a day for the way back home. Today was a really nice scenic drive around the top of Lake Superior with wonderful views of the lake shore but also a very pleasant road to drive. The boring part of the road will come tomorrow after Thunder Bay when we climb out of the Lake Superior basin to the Arctic watershed where water no longer flows into the Great Lakes and hence to the Atlantic Ocean but instead ultimately into the Arctic Ocean via Hudson`s Bay.
With our early start we were sure to make it to today’s destination point. We stopped for lunch at White River (yes this is where the other stabbing on the Greyhound bus took place) and got to our campsite around 6 p.m. As we got closer to the campsite clouds started to appear and it really looked like rain. We just got the trailer set up before the rain started and we were then treated to a few thunderstorms throughout the evening as well, but we were nice and dry, and ….. we had internet again so that we could upload another couple of blog days and pictures! Tomorrow we will be moving on to Kenora or somewhere around there.
Leo did take a few pictures today of the fall colours which can be found here.
Day 81 & 82 - Niagara Falls & drive to Sudbury, Ontario
Day 81 - Niagara on the Lake, Niagara Falls and Welland Canal, OntarioSeptember 17, 2008
We woke up to a sunny day again this morning so this is the second day of sunshine and no rain. How lucky can we get.
Today is the day that Leo will be filming locks 4, 5 and 6 of the Welland Canal. There are a total of 8 locks between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie which raise the ships a total of 91 meters. Three of them are located one immediately after the other, and to make it all better, they can be viewed in line from Lift Bridge 5 so that you can see a stair step effect as the ships move through each successive lock. This is Leo`s Welland Canal nirvana, and where he had been drooling about taking pictures and video. I have decided to go with him and just sit in a lawn chair and read my book. But first we went to the Canal Visitor’s Centre (http://www.stcatharineslock3museum.ca/ & http://www.thoroldtourism.ca/) which is located at Lock 3 and where they post the times, lengths and direction of the ships which will be coming through the locks that day. Yesterday was a really good day for ships coming through but unfortunately today is not that good, with just 1 ship being projected to arrive at Lock 3 but not until around 4:30 pm.
So we decided to go to Niagara on the Lake as we had to do some ‘souvenir’ shopping at one particular store and then on to Niagara Falls before we went back again to the locks. But this must be our bad luck day as the store we wanted to shop at in Niagara on the Lake had closed down about 3 years ago. So we walked up and down the main street viewing all the shops to use up our parking time and then went on to Niagara Falls.
The falls are certainly spectacular but not the man-made structures around them. Despite this Leo braved the tourists and the rank commercialism to take some pictures for all of us to enjoy. From the falls we went to the locks and there our luck turned for the better. The Visitor Centre now showed another ship arriving in the opposite direction at around the same time as the earlier scheduled ship. We arrived before the latter was due to appear, but were pleasantly surprised to see another unscheduled one was already about to pass up the canal below the lift bridge 5 to head towards Lock 4. Soon it was in the lock and the scheduled ship appeared behind her headed in the same direction. Then after some time the ship from the other side came into the locks and as she descended an unexpected fourth ship appeared going down the canal as well. At one point there were actually 4 ships in the locks before us, although by this time the first could only be seen by her masts. Well you can imagine the excitement Leo was feeling at all this. Unfortunately it got too dark to film the very end of it all so we left to go back to the campground to get ready to leave again in the morning for Sudbury. But the pictures will allow you to share in this spectacle, and if you ask Leo some time down the road he can show you the time lapse movie he will be making from the video tape he took of all this action.
Today’s pictures can be found here.
Day 82 – Drive from Queenston to Sudbury
September 18, 2008
We are in luck again today as we woke up to sunshine again for our trip north. Summer may finally be arriving for us although it took until September and Ontario to do so. There is only one quick way to get to Sudbury and that is by taking the expressway 401 all the way past Toronto and then highways 427 and 69 up to Sudbury (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Sudbury). We had asked our navigator about a route which would avoid freeways, but this wound up taking 8 hours instead of around 4, so we buttoned down the hatches and hit the traffic around Toronto again. We made pretty good time but it did mean of course there was no chance to stop anywhere to take any pictures. However, the scenery was very nice at times after we left the build up area of Greater Toronto and headed into the countryside to the north.
Sorry but there are thus no pictures for today.
We woke up to a sunny day again this morning so this is the second day of sunshine and no rain. How lucky can we get.
Today is the day that Leo will be filming locks 4, 5 and 6 of the Welland Canal. There are a total of 8 locks between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie which raise the ships a total of 91 meters. Three of them are located one immediately after the other, and to make it all better, they can be viewed in line from Lift Bridge 5 so that you can see a stair step effect as the ships move through each successive lock. This is Leo`s Welland Canal nirvana, and where he had been drooling about taking pictures and video. I have decided to go with him and just sit in a lawn chair and read my book. But first we went to the Canal Visitor’s Centre (http://www.stcatharineslock3museum.ca/ & http://www.thoroldtourism.ca/) which is located at Lock 3 and where they post the times, lengths and direction of the ships which will be coming through the locks that day. Yesterday was a really good day for ships coming through but unfortunately today is not that good, with just 1 ship being projected to arrive at Lock 3 but not until around 4:30 pm.
So we decided to go to Niagara on the Lake as we had to do some ‘souvenir’ shopping at one particular store and then on to Niagara Falls before we went back again to the locks. But this must be our bad luck day as the store we wanted to shop at in Niagara on the Lake had closed down about 3 years ago. So we walked up and down the main street viewing all the shops to use up our parking time and then went on to Niagara Falls.
The falls are certainly spectacular but not the man-made structures around them. Despite this Leo braved the tourists and the rank commercialism to take some pictures for all of us to enjoy. From the falls we went to the locks and there our luck turned for the better. The Visitor Centre now showed another ship arriving in the opposite direction at around the same time as the earlier scheduled ship. We arrived before the latter was due to appear, but were pleasantly surprised to see another unscheduled one was already about to pass up the canal below the lift bridge 5 to head towards Lock 4. Soon it was in the lock and the scheduled ship appeared behind her headed in the same direction. Then after some time the ship from the other side came into the locks and as she descended an unexpected fourth ship appeared going down the canal as well. At one point there were actually 4 ships in the locks before us, although by this time the first could only be seen by her masts. Well you can imagine the excitement Leo was feeling at all this. Unfortunately it got too dark to film the very end of it all so we left to go back to the campground to get ready to leave again in the morning for Sudbury. But the pictures will allow you to share in this spectacle, and if you ask Leo some time down the road he can show you the time lapse movie he will be making from the video tape he took of all this action.
Today’s pictures can be found here.
Day 82 – Drive from Queenston to Sudbury
September 18, 2008
We are in luck again today as we woke up to sunshine again for our trip north. Summer may finally be arriving for us although it took until September and Ontario to do so. There is only one quick way to get to Sudbury and that is by taking the expressway 401 all the way past Toronto and then highways 427 and 69 up to Sudbury (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Sudbury). We had asked our navigator about a route which would avoid freeways, but this wound up taking 8 hours instead of around 4, so we buttoned down the hatches and hit the traffic around Toronto again. We made pretty good time but it did mean of course there was no chance to stop anywhere to take any pictures. However, the scenery was very nice at times after we left the build up area of Greater Toronto and headed into the countryside to the north.
Sorry but there are thus no pictures for today.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Day 79 & 80 - Kingston to Queenston (Niagara Peninsula), Ontario
Day 79 – Shannonville & Kingston, Ontario
September 15, 2008
We woke up to a quiet morning with clouds but no wind or rain. Today we were going to visit a card-making supply store in Shannonville and visit Prince Edward County, Ontario. When we first got to this store we did not expect much as it did not look bigger than a long 3 car garage but once we were inside we were pleasantly surprised by all that was displayed. 2 hours later we finally left the store having maxed out our credit cards and planned to come back the next morning to pick up our order as we did not want to wait for the ladies to get our merchandize tallied up since they had to type in every item number manually.
By this time the weather started to get better and we even got to see the sun off and on. We drove past Belleville to Picton, took a side road to Lake on the Mountain and from there went to Glenora to take another ferry across to mainland Ontario. This ferry was a decent size and we had no problems getting on. It also sailed every 15 minutes and because it is part of the road system here there was no charge for it either. Actually, we wound up taking the same ferry 3 times. Part of the reason for us taking this route was to go to Traverse Point, but we crossed over on the ferry before we realized that this route required us to be back on the other side, so back we went to make that trip and then later to take the ferry across one final time.
From there we drove along Lake Ontario on the Bath Road back to Kingston and back to our campsite. We had supper and Leo worked on his pictures while I got to enjoy sitting outside for a while reading a book. Luckily the temperatures were much cooler this evening and we could go to sleep on time to catch up again on the sleep we seem to be missing a lot of.
Pictures for today can be found here.
Day 80, Drive from Kingston to Queenston (Niagara Peninsula), OntarioSeptember 16, 2008 - Happy Birthday Alex!
Today we planned on taking express Highway 401 through Toronto on our way to the Welland Canal where Leo wants to take some time-lapse film of the big ships going through the locks. But first we had a quick stop at the card-making supply store to pick up yesterday’s purchases.
The drive through greater Toronto and Hamilton areas went really smoothly thanks to Lucille our competent GPS navigator who steered us quite precisely along the 12 lane road which the 401 is, and we arrived at our campground around 2 pm. Unfortunately, they did not have internet and we wanted to stay at a campground with internet this time so that we could upload some of our blogs of the last week. On we went then to Queenston where a second campground was supposed to have Wifi internet access even though it could not be achieved at our campsite but instead required us to go close to the office building to get it. The latter meant sitting outside at a picnic table or in your car. This was not the best but it at least it would give us the chance to upload some blogs again.
Leo went to explore the Welland Canal locks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welland_Canal) for tomorrow and I stayed behind to perform some of our blogging work.
There are not too many pictures for today but they can be found here.
September 15, 2008
We woke up to a quiet morning with clouds but no wind or rain. Today we were going to visit a card-making supply store in Shannonville and visit Prince Edward County, Ontario. When we first got to this store we did not expect much as it did not look bigger than a long 3 car garage but once we were inside we were pleasantly surprised by all that was displayed. 2 hours later we finally left the store having maxed out our credit cards and planned to come back the next morning to pick up our order as we did not want to wait for the ladies to get our merchandize tallied up since they had to type in every item number manually.
By this time the weather started to get better and we even got to see the sun off and on. We drove past Belleville to Picton, took a side road to Lake on the Mountain and from there went to Glenora to take another ferry across to mainland Ontario. This ferry was a decent size and we had no problems getting on. It also sailed every 15 minutes and because it is part of the road system here there was no charge for it either. Actually, we wound up taking the same ferry 3 times. Part of the reason for us taking this route was to go to Traverse Point, but we crossed over on the ferry before we realized that this route required us to be back on the other side, so back we went to make that trip and then later to take the ferry across one final time.
From there we drove along Lake Ontario on the Bath Road back to Kingston and back to our campsite. We had supper and Leo worked on his pictures while I got to enjoy sitting outside for a while reading a book. Luckily the temperatures were much cooler this evening and we could go to sleep on time to catch up again on the sleep we seem to be missing a lot of.
Pictures for today can be found here.
Day 80, Drive from Kingston to Queenston (Niagara Peninsula), OntarioSeptember 16, 2008 - Happy Birthday Alex!
Today we planned on taking express Highway 401 through Toronto on our way to the Welland Canal where Leo wants to take some time-lapse film of the big ships going through the locks. But first we had a quick stop at the card-making supply store to pick up yesterday’s purchases.
The drive through greater Toronto and Hamilton areas went really smoothly thanks to Lucille our competent GPS navigator who steered us quite precisely along the 12 lane road which the 401 is, and we arrived at our campground around 2 pm. Unfortunately, they did not have internet and we wanted to stay at a campground with internet this time so that we could upload some of our blogs of the last week. On we went then to Queenston where a second campground was supposed to have Wifi internet access even though it could not be achieved at our campsite but instead required us to go close to the office building to get it. The latter meant sitting outside at a picnic table or in your car. This was not the best but it at least it would give us the chance to upload some blogs again.
Leo went to explore the Welland Canal locks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welland_Canal) for tomorrow and I stayed behind to perform some of our blogging work.
There are not too many pictures for today but they can be found here.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Day 77 & 78 - Leaving Keeseville, New York, arriving in Kingston, Ontario
Day 77 – Drive from Keeseville to Kingston, Ontario
Saturday, September 13, 200
This is our last day in the U.S. and unfortunately not a very nice morning again. But it is dry and that is worth a lot to us these days.
The route we have planned out is Highway #3 which will take us west through the Adirondack Mountains, and also through Lake Placid where the 1932 and the 1980 Winter Olympic Games were held. This road is marked as a scenic route on the map and scenic it is. It is also an official bike route so we met lots of bike riders going either way. The shoulders on this road were very wide to accommodate those many bike riders using this road.
Lake Placid is a real ‘winter’ town like you see in the movies, much along the flavour of Banff, although Leo thought our Banff is a nicer looking ski town. I am sure that in the winter with snow on the roads this is a very nice place to be. It was not too busy at the time we drove through but busy enough for the businesses to make a living I am sure.
The rest of the drive was very scenic as well and Leo did take some pictures for you to enjoy. As we had set our TomTom GPS navigator to take no major highways we were led through quiet roads to Watertown, New York and then on to Cape Vincent where we took a ferry across a channel of the St. Lawrence River to Wolfe Island where we set foot on Canadian soil again.
Interestingly enough, we had taken our passports along on this trip as we thought we might be asked for them at the border going into the United States. But the customs man there was quite content with the Alberta driver’s licenses which we offered him initially. When we returned to Canada we thought the same identification would suffice and again offered out driver’s licenses. However, the Canadian Customs official was not pleased and indicated she needed some evidence of citizenship as these licenses only showed we were permitted to drive in the province. We then dug out our passports and she was fortunately thereafter mollified by them. We did drive off, however, wondering how they treat the many Canadians who try to return to Canada after a trip “stateside” having not brought any passports as they believed these were not yet required by American customs. But then, one rule in life is that Customs officials are a separate subspecies different from the rest of the human race.
We did not know anything about the ferry we were to take to Wolfe Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfe_Island_(Ontario): not about how long the ride across would take, or how much it would cost, or what type of ship she would use but we always had the option of changing our minds and driving north a bit to take the freeway and a giant bridge instead across the river to Ontario. Our ferry was to leave Cape Vincent at 4 p.m. and once we had cleared Canadian customs we would have to drive 11 km. across Wolfe Island to take another ferry which would in turn take us across to the city of Kingston in Ontario. We were told the 2 ferries were synchronized with each other so we would not have to wait to take the second ferry.
Well, when the first ferry arrived she turned out to be a ‘small’ ferry with room for may be likely only 9 cars depending on the size of those cars. It was also a side-loading ferry so the cars would have to make a 90 degree turn on the ferry deck and either back up or drive forward to find their place on the deck. We were told to go on last as we were too big and would have to sit sideways on the ferry from ramp opening to ramp opening. We drove on in this way, scraping our trailer hitch on the loading ramp, and then were asked to back off again, scraping our trailer hitch, as two new cars had arrived in the meantime and these could just be fit on deck after a truck was asked to trade positions with a car as well. Then we drove back on again, scraping our trailer hitch, easing right up against the erect loading ramp on the opposite side which would be lowered in Wolfe Island to let the cars off. But I did not realize until after I saw the pictures just how long our unit was. The loading ramp behind us could not really be raised and was only lifted part way up as high as it could be. This was because our combined length exceeded the width of the ferry`s deck and the rear end of our trailer was actually hanging overboard as you can see in the photos.
The cost for this ferry was $15 for a car and 2 occupants but when it came to our turn to pay the attendant looked at us and our trailer and said ``Ah, give me $20`` so I guess they do not get units like us very often. Actually I don’t think they can take any units longer than maybe the 10 meters total which our car and trailer represent. But we made it across and, as we were the first ones to get off, scraping our trailer hitch on the loading ramp, we would for sure be able to make the next ferry. However, our TomTom navigator (we are now using a French voice so Lucille is her name) gave us the wrong instructions on the last turn to the ferry terminal which allowed some cars behind us to get ahead and once we got to the second ferry, yes … there was no room for us anymore even though this was a much larger ferry which accommodated 30 cars at least. So here we were stranded for an hour until the next sailing. There was nothing to do but to walk through the village of Wolfetown, eat an ice cream cone, and wait.
We were the first ones on the next ferry so we made it to Kingston, Ontario (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston,_Ontario) around 6 p.m., found our campsite near the Rideau Canal and took the evening off. This campsite was supposed to have internet but we just could not connect so alas there was no internet for the next 3 days as we were planning on staying in Kingston until at least Tuesday morning.
Pictures for this day can be found here.
Day 78 – Kingston, OntarioSeptember 14, 2008
We had a fairly nice evening and the day promised to be good as well. Today we were out to explore Kingston and visit Fort Henry as well.
On our way to Kingston from our campground we saw a sign for the Kingston Mills Locks on the Rideau waterway (http://rideau-info.com/canal/history/locks/h46-49-kingstonmills.html) so we took a quick, 2 km. side tour to these locks. They were a very nice surprise for us as there are actually 4 locks, with three being in stairstep one behind the other, and the fourth very nearby. We spent most of our morning watching a couple of pleasure boats come through them, including one which seemed to be a small antique tugboat which had been beautifully restored and had a full cabin built upon her. We even had the delight of finding that the main tracks of the CN railway pass right over the canal at this point on a long bridge, and the railway obliged by sending a long intermodal train over while the boats were still in the locks. As all of this was happening Leo had to film and photograph these events of course.
After this we went to the Visitors Centre in downtown Kingston and from there we went for breakfast (finally) at Morrison’s Restaurant in Kingston`s centre as was recommended by the girl on duty at the Visitor’s Centre. We spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon walking through Kingston, enjoying the old buildings and the waterfront of this city. It is a very nice city with a wonderfully ample history and I think it would be a very nice place to live. As part of our walkabout we cruised through a section of Queen`s University where our daughter-in-law Joanne studied. It was indeed a wonderful sight-seeing stroll through the city and the only disappointing part was the garbage on the streets around where the university students live. Neither the students nor the landlords in this part of town seem to take much interest in cleaning this up.
We stopped for a coffee at one of three coffee houses which were all in business facing each other on the corners of one single intersection. Here we experienced the Klunge incident. As a prelude to this story we should tell you that we have often listened to CBC radio on our drives and have greatly enjoyed the many programs on CBC 1 in particular. While driving through P.E.I. there was a show about the disadvantages of summer on which two guests made a number of very witty comments about the drawbacks to this season, such as the fact that one needs to lather up on sunscreen and insect repellant before going outside, and then wash it all off at the end of the day. As well they pointed out that way too many people go about in bikinis or other short swimwear who really should be sparing the rest of us the need to look at their bodies. In particular too many people in their skimpy swimwear expose us to the cleavage between their buttocks, which the radio guests indicated should be called their ``Klunge``.
Well, while we were sitting at this coffee shop in the student quarter in Kingston a couple of student-type girls were sitting chatting at a table only 5 feet away from us. Suddenly, one of the girls jumped up, turned around, lowered her pants into a half-moon position pointed fully at her friend and at us in the process, thereby showing a major part of her Klunge. She then pointed to this body part and said to her friend ``What`s this?” Leo, having been educated by CBC, he was just on the point of helpfully saying “I learned on CBC radio that it is officially called a Klunge”, but before he could do so the other girl had examined the indicated anatomical part from up close and said to its owner “It looks like an insect byte: you’ll survive it.” and the klunger pulled up her pants again, turned around and sat down. She showed no embarrassment (pun intended) at performing this act in front of two total strangers, and it left Leo and I feeling that we are from a different time zone. You must also know that Leo had his Nikon D300 at the ready during all this and it must have been an almost irresistible urge to capture this scene in 12 Megabyte glory, but I can tell you that he did resist the urge.
This event seemed an untoppable highlight for the day, but we did go on from here and went to Fort Henry to enjoy again the history of the battles for control of this area. Fort Henry was another major military fortification meant to prevent American forces from exerting control over Canadian territory in Ontario during the 19th century and served this function very well for many years. From here we went back to our trailer to try the internet again and Leo went back to the locks to do a little more picture taking.
On his way back he almost drove over a good-sized turtle which was crossing the road in twilight. He stopped to pick it up and carry it the rest of the way, being careful to hold it far enough back on the shell that it could not bite. And that is exactly what the ungrateful amphibian tried to do. It could lunge out with its neck fully extended and curved in lightning fashion to bite any finger which was not at least halfway from the front of the shell. But Leo was able to foil it and deposit in the ditch on the other side. The thing must have been 40 cm. long all told and was moving so slowly that is was sure to have been reduced to 2 dimensions by some car or other had not its saviour come along.
We did not get to bed that early as the temperature was around 26 degrees in the evening and even seemed to be rising, and it was just too hot to go to bed. After 11 o’clock the wind came up and still the temperature stayed the same. Shortly after this it was fully storming and it started to rain strongly. I guessed we were now being hit with the edge of Hurricane Ike and in the morning the locals indicated I was right. This storm went on for most of the night and by early morning it quieted down and we finally got some sleep. This storm had stronger winds than the remnants of Hanna in Saint John, but much less rain than that event.
Hopefully we captured some of what we have seen today with Leo’s pictures which can be found here.
Saturday, September 13, 200
This is our last day in the U.S. and unfortunately not a very nice morning again. But it is dry and that is worth a lot to us these days.
The route we have planned out is Highway #3 which will take us west through the Adirondack Mountains, and also through Lake Placid where the 1932 and the 1980 Winter Olympic Games were held. This road is marked as a scenic route on the map and scenic it is. It is also an official bike route so we met lots of bike riders going either way. The shoulders on this road were very wide to accommodate those many bike riders using this road.
Lake Placid is a real ‘winter’ town like you see in the movies, much along the flavour of Banff, although Leo thought our Banff is a nicer looking ski town. I am sure that in the winter with snow on the roads this is a very nice place to be. It was not too busy at the time we drove through but busy enough for the businesses to make a living I am sure.
The rest of the drive was very scenic as well and Leo did take some pictures for you to enjoy. As we had set our TomTom GPS navigator to take no major highways we were led through quiet roads to Watertown, New York and then on to Cape Vincent where we took a ferry across a channel of the St. Lawrence River to Wolfe Island where we set foot on Canadian soil again.
Interestingly enough, we had taken our passports along on this trip as we thought we might be asked for them at the border going into the United States. But the customs man there was quite content with the Alberta driver’s licenses which we offered him initially. When we returned to Canada we thought the same identification would suffice and again offered out driver’s licenses. However, the Canadian Customs official was not pleased and indicated she needed some evidence of citizenship as these licenses only showed we were permitted to drive in the province. We then dug out our passports and she was fortunately thereafter mollified by them. We did drive off, however, wondering how they treat the many Canadians who try to return to Canada after a trip “stateside” having not brought any passports as they believed these were not yet required by American customs. But then, one rule in life is that Customs officials are a separate subspecies different from the rest of the human race.
We did not know anything about the ferry we were to take to Wolfe Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfe_Island_(Ontario): not about how long the ride across would take, or how much it would cost, or what type of ship she would use but we always had the option of changing our minds and driving north a bit to take the freeway and a giant bridge instead across the river to Ontario. Our ferry was to leave Cape Vincent at 4 p.m. and once we had cleared Canadian customs we would have to drive 11 km. across Wolfe Island to take another ferry which would in turn take us across to the city of Kingston in Ontario. We were told the 2 ferries were synchronized with each other so we would not have to wait to take the second ferry.
Well, when the first ferry arrived she turned out to be a ‘small’ ferry with room for may be likely only 9 cars depending on the size of those cars. It was also a side-loading ferry so the cars would have to make a 90 degree turn on the ferry deck and either back up or drive forward to find their place on the deck. We were told to go on last as we were too big and would have to sit sideways on the ferry from ramp opening to ramp opening. We drove on in this way, scraping our trailer hitch on the loading ramp, and then were asked to back off again, scraping our trailer hitch, as two new cars had arrived in the meantime and these could just be fit on deck after a truck was asked to trade positions with a car as well. Then we drove back on again, scraping our trailer hitch, easing right up against the erect loading ramp on the opposite side which would be lowered in Wolfe Island to let the cars off. But I did not realize until after I saw the pictures just how long our unit was. The loading ramp behind us could not really be raised and was only lifted part way up as high as it could be. This was because our combined length exceeded the width of the ferry`s deck and the rear end of our trailer was actually hanging overboard as you can see in the photos.
The cost for this ferry was $15 for a car and 2 occupants but when it came to our turn to pay the attendant looked at us and our trailer and said ``Ah, give me $20`` so I guess they do not get units like us very often. Actually I don’t think they can take any units longer than maybe the 10 meters total which our car and trailer represent. But we made it across and, as we were the first ones to get off, scraping our trailer hitch on the loading ramp, we would for sure be able to make the next ferry. However, our TomTom navigator (we are now using a French voice so Lucille is her name) gave us the wrong instructions on the last turn to the ferry terminal which allowed some cars behind us to get ahead and once we got to the second ferry, yes … there was no room for us anymore even though this was a much larger ferry which accommodated 30 cars at least. So here we were stranded for an hour until the next sailing. There was nothing to do but to walk through the village of Wolfetown, eat an ice cream cone, and wait.
We were the first ones on the next ferry so we made it to Kingston, Ontario (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston,_Ontario) around 6 p.m., found our campsite near the Rideau Canal and took the evening off. This campsite was supposed to have internet but we just could not connect so alas there was no internet for the next 3 days as we were planning on staying in Kingston until at least Tuesday morning.
Pictures for this day can be found here.
Day 78 – Kingston, OntarioSeptember 14, 2008
We had a fairly nice evening and the day promised to be good as well. Today we were out to explore Kingston and visit Fort Henry as well.
On our way to Kingston from our campground we saw a sign for the Kingston Mills Locks on the Rideau waterway (http://rideau-info.com/canal/history/locks/h46-49-kingstonmills.html) so we took a quick, 2 km. side tour to these locks. They were a very nice surprise for us as there are actually 4 locks, with three being in stairstep one behind the other, and the fourth very nearby. We spent most of our morning watching a couple of pleasure boats come through them, including one which seemed to be a small antique tugboat which had been beautifully restored and had a full cabin built upon her. We even had the delight of finding that the main tracks of the CN railway pass right over the canal at this point on a long bridge, and the railway obliged by sending a long intermodal train over while the boats were still in the locks. As all of this was happening Leo had to film and photograph these events of course.
After this we went to the Visitors Centre in downtown Kingston and from there we went for breakfast (finally) at Morrison’s Restaurant in Kingston`s centre as was recommended by the girl on duty at the Visitor’s Centre. We spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon walking through Kingston, enjoying the old buildings and the waterfront of this city. It is a very nice city with a wonderfully ample history and I think it would be a very nice place to live. As part of our walkabout we cruised through a section of Queen`s University where our daughter-in-law Joanne studied. It was indeed a wonderful sight-seeing stroll through the city and the only disappointing part was the garbage on the streets around where the university students live. Neither the students nor the landlords in this part of town seem to take much interest in cleaning this up.
We stopped for a coffee at one of three coffee houses which were all in business facing each other on the corners of one single intersection. Here we experienced the Klunge incident. As a prelude to this story we should tell you that we have often listened to CBC radio on our drives and have greatly enjoyed the many programs on CBC 1 in particular. While driving through P.E.I. there was a show about the disadvantages of summer on which two guests made a number of very witty comments about the drawbacks to this season, such as the fact that one needs to lather up on sunscreen and insect repellant before going outside, and then wash it all off at the end of the day. As well they pointed out that way too many people go about in bikinis or other short swimwear who really should be sparing the rest of us the need to look at their bodies. In particular too many people in their skimpy swimwear expose us to the cleavage between their buttocks, which the radio guests indicated should be called their ``Klunge``.
Well, while we were sitting at this coffee shop in the student quarter in Kingston a couple of student-type girls were sitting chatting at a table only 5 feet away from us. Suddenly, one of the girls jumped up, turned around, lowered her pants into a half-moon position pointed fully at her friend and at us in the process, thereby showing a major part of her Klunge. She then pointed to this body part and said to her friend ``What`s this?” Leo, having been educated by CBC, he was just on the point of helpfully saying “I learned on CBC radio that it is officially called a Klunge”, but before he could do so the other girl had examined the indicated anatomical part from up close and said to its owner “It looks like an insect byte: you’ll survive it.” and the klunger pulled up her pants again, turned around and sat down. She showed no embarrassment (pun intended) at performing this act in front of two total strangers, and it left Leo and I feeling that we are from a different time zone. You must also know that Leo had his Nikon D300 at the ready during all this and it must have been an almost irresistible urge to capture this scene in 12 Megabyte glory, but I can tell you that he did resist the urge.
This event seemed an untoppable highlight for the day, but we did go on from here and went to Fort Henry to enjoy again the history of the battles for control of this area. Fort Henry was another major military fortification meant to prevent American forces from exerting control over Canadian territory in Ontario during the 19th century and served this function very well for many years. From here we went back to our trailer to try the internet again and Leo went back to the locks to do a little more picture taking.
On his way back he almost drove over a good-sized turtle which was crossing the road in twilight. He stopped to pick it up and carry it the rest of the way, being careful to hold it far enough back on the shell that it could not bite. And that is exactly what the ungrateful amphibian tried to do. It could lunge out with its neck fully extended and curved in lightning fashion to bite any finger which was not at least halfway from the front of the shell. But Leo was able to foil it and deposit in the ditch on the other side. The thing must have been 40 cm. long all told and was moving so slowly that is was sure to have been reduced to 2 dimensions by some car or other had not its saviour come along.
We did not get to bed that early as the temperature was around 26 degrees in the evening and even seemed to be rising, and it was just too hot to go to bed. After 11 o’clock the wind came up and still the temperature stayed the same. Shortly after this it was fully storming and it started to rain strongly. I guessed we were now being hit with the edge of Hurricane Ike and in the morning the locals indicated I was right. This storm went on for most of the night and by early morning it quieted down and we finally got some sleep. This storm had stronger winds than the remnants of Hanna in Saint John, but much less rain than that event.
Hopefully we captured some of what we have seen today with Leo’s pictures which can be found here.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Day 75 & 76 - Keeseville, New York
Day 75 – Drive fromTwin Mountain, New Hampshire to Keeseville, New York
September 11, 2008
We now have had a night, a day and another night without rain, and the sun welcomed us again when we woke up, but the temperature had dropped to 3 degrees Celsius during the night so it was pretty cold. This is something we were not used to any longer as the advantage to being on the coast is that the night temperatures are not much different from the day temperatures. So out came the long pants and our sweaters to keep us warm. We would have liked to linger a bit at this site but we were going to move on so we would get closer to home (or was it because Leo wanted to take some train pictures at Willsboro in New York State?). Whatever the reason we packed up and left to travel west. We were going through the mountains and guess what . . . we ended up in low clouds and it was like being back in the fog. But these clouds were moving up and down and at times just gave us beautiful views of the mountains and the landscape around it. This was on some superhighways we took where you are not allowed to stop unless it is an emergency, so we did not capture this in the pictures, but later we switched to normal road and then out came the camera to capture some of this for all to enjoy.
Around 2 o’clock we came to Lake Champlain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Champlain) around Burlington, Vermont (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington,_Vermont) and from there we took a ferry across the lake to Willsboro, New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willsboro,_New_York) . This lake is a large, very popular recreation area with lots of things to do, like biking, hiking, boating, swimming, fishing, skiing and much more. It also has many historical venues to visit so a person could stay here for a couple of weeks and still not have taken it all in. Unfortunately we are only here for 2 nights so that Leo can take these `fabulous` train pictures and then we will be moving on again, as yes . . . our holiday is coming to an end.
We had a bit of a hard time finding a campground as the visitor centre we stopped at did not have a campground booklet for us and the only campground the lady at the centre knew was just west of the town of Keeseville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeseville,_New_York) . When we got to this campground we were pleasantly surprised as it is located next to the Ausable Chasm, a 2 mile long chasm of the Ausable River sitting on 1000 acres of natural history. There is a hike along this chasm but it takes about 2 hours to do, so we were too late for it today but hope to do it tomorrow afternoon after Leo comes back from his picture-taking in the morning. That is, if the weather cooperates, as clouds and showers have been forecast again for the next 3 days. I know I can hear you say do the walk first and then the pictures, but Leo needs the morning light for this spot if it sunny and he did drive 18,000km to get here just to take these shots!
After we set up our trailer Leo went to ‘explore’ this fabulous train photographing spot and I stayed behind to play on the computer by myself, finally. Unfortunately there was no Internet at this campground which limited me to what I could do on the PC.
Pictures from today are combined with Day 76 – Keeseville.
Day 76 – Keeseville, New York
September 12, 2008
Yes the weather forecasters here know what they are talking about. It was cloudy this morning and rained somewhat later on in the morning. But still we did have 3 nights and 2 days without rain, something we have not had for a long time.
Leo still left to take his pictures but as I mentioned yesterday, driving 18,000km and not taking these pictures would not go over with his train buddies (Alex, Samantha and Jayla) very well.
This gives me some time to give you a little more information about this area. Here at the Ausable Chasm (http://www.ausablechasm.com/) we are just on the northeastern tip of the Adirondack Mountains, which houses Lake Placid in the middle of it. To the west is Lake Champlain (http://www.lakechamplainregion.com/), a very long water highway which used to connect the Saint Lawrence River to the north with the Hudson River to the south. Indian and French traders traveled these waters. French and British soldiers enlisted Indian allies to join their battles for control of the land, harvest the timber and mine the mountains’ rich deposits of iron. A generation later, rebel Americans fought again to control the resources and their destiny, or so the marketers for the area tell us. Now it is a large recreation destination with lots of history to see and explore.
We will not be here that long but it certainly is worth another visit and longer stay.
As you have figured by now we did not take the walk along the Ausable Chasm but went for a drive around the ‘neighbourhood’ instead. We checked out the towns of Keeseville and Willsboro, had afternoon tea at the ferry terminal at Port Kent and waited for the Amtrak train to come by and hopefully stop at the modern and imposing train station there. We were in luck: after we waited for about an hour the train came finally, stopped, let off 2 passengers and moved on again some 90 minutes late. The passengers walked to the ferry terminal and we went back to our trailer to have supper.
The evening was spent reading for me and photo editing for Leo so that when we have Internet again we can post, amongst others, the wonderful train picture which can be found here.
September 11, 2008
We now have had a night, a day and another night without rain, and the sun welcomed us again when we woke up, but the temperature had dropped to 3 degrees Celsius during the night so it was pretty cold. This is something we were not used to any longer as the advantage to being on the coast is that the night temperatures are not much different from the day temperatures. So out came the long pants and our sweaters to keep us warm. We would have liked to linger a bit at this site but we were going to move on so we would get closer to home (or was it because Leo wanted to take some train pictures at Willsboro in New York State?). Whatever the reason we packed up and left to travel west. We were going through the mountains and guess what . . . we ended up in low clouds and it was like being back in the fog. But these clouds were moving up and down and at times just gave us beautiful views of the mountains and the landscape around it. This was on some superhighways we took where you are not allowed to stop unless it is an emergency, so we did not capture this in the pictures, but later we switched to normal road and then out came the camera to capture some of this for all to enjoy.
Around 2 o’clock we came to Lake Champlain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Champlain) around Burlington, Vermont (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burlington,_Vermont) and from there we took a ferry across the lake to Willsboro, New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willsboro,_New_York) . This lake is a large, very popular recreation area with lots of things to do, like biking, hiking, boating, swimming, fishing, skiing and much more. It also has many historical venues to visit so a person could stay here for a couple of weeks and still not have taken it all in. Unfortunately we are only here for 2 nights so that Leo can take these `fabulous` train pictures and then we will be moving on again, as yes . . . our holiday is coming to an end.
We had a bit of a hard time finding a campground as the visitor centre we stopped at did not have a campground booklet for us and the only campground the lady at the centre knew was just west of the town of Keeseville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeseville,_New_York) . When we got to this campground we were pleasantly surprised as it is located next to the Ausable Chasm, a 2 mile long chasm of the Ausable River sitting on 1000 acres of natural history. There is a hike along this chasm but it takes about 2 hours to do, so we were too late for it today but hope to do it tomorrow afternoon after Leo comes back from his picture-taking in the morning. That is, if the weather cooperates, as clouds and showers have been forecast again for the next 3 days. I know I can hear you say do the walk first and then the pictures, but Leo needs the morning light for this spot if it sunny and he did drive 18,000km to get here just to take these shots!
After we set up our trailer Leo went to ‘explore’ this fabulous train photographing spot and I stayed behind to play on the computer by myself, finally. Unfortunately there was no Internet at this campground which limited me to what I could do on the PC.
Pictures from today are combined with Day 76 – Keeseville.
Day 76 – Keeseville, New York
September 12, 2008
Yes the weather forecasters here know what they are talking about. It was cloudy this morning and rained somewhat later on in the morning. But still we did have 3 nights and 2 days without rain, something we have not had for a long time.
Leo still left to take his pictures but as I mentioned yesterday, driving 18,000km and not taking these pictures would not go over with his train buddies (Alex, Samantha and Jayla) very well.
This gives me some time to give you a little more information about this area. Here at the Ausable Chasm (http://www.ausablechasm.com/) we are just on the northeastern tip of the Adirondack Mountains, which houses Lake Placid in the middle of it. To the west is Lake Champlain (http://www.lakechamplainregion.com/), a very long water highway which used to connect the Saint Lawrence River to the north with the Hudson River to the south. Indian and French traders traveled these waters. French and British soldiers enlisted Indian allies to join their battles for control of the land, harvest the timber and mine the mountains’ rich deposits of iron. A generation later, rebel Americans fought again to control the resources and their destiny, or so the marketers for the area tell us. Now it is a large recreation destination with lots of history to see and explore.
We will not be here that long but it certainly is worth another visit and longer stay.
As you have figured by now we did not take the walk along the Ausable Chasm but went for a drive around the ‘neighbourhood’ instead. We checked out the towns of Keeseville and Willsboro, had afternoon tea at the ferry terminal at Port Kent and waited for the Amtrak train to come by and hopefully stop at the modern and imposing train station there. We were in luck: after we waited for about an hour the train came finally, stopped, let off 2 passengers and moved on again some 90 minutes late. The passengers walked to the ferry terminal and we went back to our trailer to have supper.
The evening was spent reading for me and photo editing for Leo so that when we have Internet again we can post, amongst others, the wonderful train picture which can be found here.
Day 73 & 74 - Acadia National Park, Maine &Drive from Ellsworth, Maine to Twin Mountain, New Hampshire
Day 73 – Acadia National Park, Maine (http://www.acadia.net/anp/)
September 09, 2008
After we had a rainless night the sun came up shining again as we woke up so we decided to make an early start on the day as the forecast called for clouds and 70% chance of showers for the afternoon. The owners of the campground told us to drive up Cadillac Mountain (http://www.acadiamagic.com/CadillacMountain.html) first before the clouds moved in. This mountain is 1530 feet high and the road is nicely paved without potholes or bumps. On top of the mountain is a fair size parking lot which was 75% full by the time we got there. But the view was beautiful as the pictures will show. However, it was But also very windy and unless you had yourself roped to your car you could have been picked up by the wind and been deposited along the coast below in Bar Harbour, the local Banff of Acadia Park.
We were also told to take the one-way loop around the island as it is a most scenic drive. It took us 3 tries to find ‘the loop’. We are now quite familiar with the road to the visitor centre and to Cadillac Mountain, having passed it that many times. By the time we had found ‘the loop’ it had started to rain but we took it anyway. It was indeed a very nice drive with at times a nice view of the coast and the ocean on the left and the beautiful forests on the right. A very few of the trees had begun to turn colour but overall we are here just to soon to see the fall colours for which New England is famous. At the end we drove to the town of Bar Harbour to have a gawk at the boats and such in the harbour. And boats they are: some of them are pretty pricey and that is true not just for this harbour but also for the other small harbours around here. The vessels today were nothing like we have been seeing in Nova Scotia where the harbours are ‘working’ harbours with primarily fishing boats. Only fancy-dancy recreational boats need apply here.
I do not know much about the coast of Maine but it seems that there is a lot of money here and there are lots and lots of tourists in this resort section of the state. I think that on the Tuesday after the Labour Day weekend all the seniors (62 years is considered a senior here) go on holidays. It was pretty busy in Acadia National Park and the roads leading to them and we were the youngest couple here it felt like. But any way we enjoyed our day, in the rain, at Acadia National Park.
Pictures for today can be found here.
Day 74 – Drive from Ellsworth, Maine to Twin Mountain, New Hampshire
September 10, 2008
We had decided the previous evening to move inland to get away from the rainy coast. I guess the mist, fog and rain was getting to us after 2 months of it. This also means we will not be moving to the coast after all even if there is one of those old, charming big houses for sale within our price range. (As if there was much chance of that!)
But before we went west Leo wanted to go up Cadillac Mountain again (and use our $20 pass one more day, which was only good for this one state park) to take a few more pictures but this time with sunshine instead of clouds. While he did so I worked on catching up on some writing of our blogs. Hence we had a bit of a slow start to our day.
Going west and inland took us through some really nice scenery again and the sun stayed with us all day. Again we were treated to these big, big old houses from the turn of the 19th century or earlier. They look so romantic and I can picture life around them. Some of them are really well kept while others are, unfortunately, left unattended. These are houses you find in the small towns and cities. The big, big houses you find outside the cities and towns are new and do not have the romantic look to them. I mentioned to Leo that in the olden days the rich people lived in town and now the rich live just outside town. Times have changed.
We drove out of Maine and into New Hampshire. By 4 o’clock it was time to look for a campsite and we ended up in the White Mountains Region (http://www.visitwhitemountains.com/) of New Hampshire. We found a really nice campground close to Twin Mountain called Ammonoosuc Campground (www.ucampnh.com/ammonoosuc) and besides 2 other campers and 2 seasonal campers we were the only ones there. We were told to just pick a spot we liked and so we did: close to the wash and laundry room so I could do a wash while we ate supper. I have to say I am feeling ‘at home’ again with this campground as it is laid out like the campgrounds in our parks with a large area to set up your tent or trailer and trees all around you to give some privacy (which we did not really need as we were the only ones in this part of the campground). Another thing that made us feel at home was the bear warning signs posted in the bathroom and at the shelters for the tenting spots. I could have used the bathroom 7 times before I had to use a toilet twice or taken 4 showers and not used the same one twice. And all this luxury was just for the two of us. But we were only to camp here for the one night so there was not much time to really enjoy it all.
Sorry, but there are no pictures for today as the roads were again narrow. The ones from Cadillac Mountain Leo took in the morning were included in yesterday’s pictures.
September 09, 2008
After we had a rainless night the sun came up shining again as we woke up so we decided to make an early start on the day as the forecast called for clouds and 70% chance of showers for the afternoon. The owners of the campground told us to drive up Cadillac Mountain (http://www.acadiamagic.com/CadillacMountain.html) first before the clouds moved in. This mountain is 1530 feet high and the road is nicely paved without potholes or bumps. On top of the mountain is a fair size parking lot which was 75% full by the time we got there. But the view was beautiful as the pictures will show. However, it was But also very windy and unless you had yourself roped to your car you could have been picked up by the wind and been deposited along the coast below in Bar Harbour, the local Banff of Acadia Park.
We were also told to take the one-way loop around the island as it is a most scenic drive. It took us 3 tries to find ‘the loop’. We are now quite familiar with the road to the visitor centre and to Cadillac Mountain, having passed it that many times. By the time we had found ‘the loop’ it had started to rain but we took it anyway. It was indeed a very nice drive with at times a nice view of the coast and the ocean on the left and the beautiful forests on the right. A very few of the trees had begun to turn colour but overall we are here just to soon to see the fall colours for which New England is famous. At the end we drove to the town of Bar Harbour to have a gawk at the boats and such in the harbour. And boats they are: some of them are pretty pricey and that is true not just for this harbour but also for the other small harbours around here. The vessels today were nothing like we have been seeing in Nova Scotia where the harbours are ‘working’ harbours with primarily fishing boats. Only fancy-dancy recreational boats need apply here.
I do not know much about the coast of Maine but it seems that there is a lot of money here and there are lots and lots of tourists in this resort section of the state. I think that on the Tuesday after the Labour Day weekend all the seniors (62 years is considered a senior here) go on holidays. It was pretty busy in Acadia National Park and the roads leading to them and we were the youngest couple here it felt like. But any way we enjoyed our day, in the rain, at Acadia National Park.
Pictures for today can be found here.
Day 74 – Drive from Ellsworth, Maine to Twin Mountain, New Hampshire
September 10, 2008
We had decided the previous evening to move inland to get away from the rainy coast. I guess the mist, fog and rain was getting to us after 2 months of it. This also means we will not be moving to the coast after all even if there is one of those old, charming big houses for sale within our price range. (As if there was much chance of that!)
But before we went west Leo wanted to go up Cadillac Mountain again (and use our $20 pass one more day, which was only good for this one state park) to take a few more pictures but this time with sunshine instead of clouds. While he did so I worked on catching up on some writing of our blogs. Hence we had a bit of a slow start to our day.
Going west and inland took us through some really nice scenery again and the sun stayed with us all day. Again we were treated to these big, big old houses from the turn of the 19th century or earlier. They look so romantic and I can picture life around them. Some of them are really well kept while others are, unfortunately, left unattended. These are houses you find in the small towns and cities. The big, big houses you find outside the cities and towns are new and do not have the romantic look to them. I mentioned to Leo that in the olden days the rich people lived in town and now the rich live just outside town. Times have changed.
We drove out of Maine and into New Hampshire. By 4 o’clock it was time to look for a campsite and we ended up in the White Mountains Region (http://www.visitwhitemountains.com/) of New Hampshire. We found a really nice campground close to Twin Mountain called Ammonoosuc Campground (www.ucampnh.com/ammonoosuc) and besides 2 other campers and 2 seasonal campers we were the only ones there. We were told to just pick a spot we liked and so we did: close to the wash and laundry room so I could do a wash while we ate supper. I have to say I am feeling ‘at home’ again with this campground as it is laid out like the campgrounds in our parks with a large area to set up your tent or trailer and trees all around you to give some privacy (which we did not really need as we were the only ones in this part of the campground). Another thing that made us feel at home was the bear warning signs posted in the bathroom and at the shelters for the tenting spots. I could have used the bathroom 7 times before I had to use a toilet twice or taken 4 showers and not used the same one twice. And all this luxury was just for the two of us. But we were only to camp here for the one night so there was not much time to really enjoy it all.
Sorry, but there are no pictures for today as the roads were again narrow. The ones from Cadillac Mountain Leo took in the morning were included in yesterday’s pictures.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Day 70, 71, 72 - Saint John, New Brunswick & Ellsworth, Maine
Finally some blogs again about where we have been and what we have seen. Sorry but we were staying at campgrounds with no internet for the past week or so.
Day 70 – Drive from Amherst to Saint John, New Brunswick
We again had a night without rain and wind, and sunshine again greeted us when we opened our eyes. After we posted our latest blog we packed up and left for Saint John, New Brunswick.
It was only about 2 1/2 hours driving so we got there around 2 o’clock and we were just in time setting up the trailer in the typical Saint John mist before the rain started again. According to the weather forecast tropical storm Hanna was not supposed to hit this area until Sunday afternoon (tomorrow) so we took the risk and went for a drive north of Saint John. We were going to visit a quilt store (http://www.rivergallery.ca/) which a lady had recommended to us on the ferry back from Newfoundland. This was not your normal kind of store: it was set up in a garage along highway 102 in a rural area kind of out of the way from ‘non local’ traffic. The location is along the beautiful and wide Saint John River which penetrates far into New Brunswick in what seems to be more a set of interconnected lakes. The lady who owns this quilt shop seems nevertheless to have a good business despite the location because she has an online store as well. Besides quilting she also specializes in rug hooking and she is one of the few suppliers for rug hooking materials for this area and for Eastern Canada as a whole. I caught the bug and bought a rug-hooking kit to get myself started in a new hobby (as if I needed a new hobby!).
As we drove away from the coast into the interior the fog cleared into sunshine and we really enjoyed our drive along the Saint John River. So we went further and then stopped in Gagetown, where we had supper outside on the patio of a little restaurant which you would pass by if you were not looking for it. We were the only guests and the food was superb. I would recommend going there if you are in the neighbourhood.
We turned again then for Saint John by further quiet back roads and by the time we got back to our trailer we were back in the fog again and it was time to go to bed, albeit with no pictures for the day apparently.
Day 71 – Saint John, New Brunswick
September 07, 2008
Saint John, New Brunswick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John,_New_Brunswick)
Tropical storm Hanna decided to come a little earlier than was predicted and she showed us what the after-life of a Hurricane can be: rain, rain and rain, and some wind. All through the night and morning it came down in buckets, I can’t remember ever having seen and heard this much rain. The whole campground was a swimming pool as the water just did not have enough time to soak into the ground partly because it was pretty saturated already with the previous rains of the last few days and also because this new rain just came down so hard. But one thing was nice: it was not cold. During the night the temperature never seemed to have dropped below 18 degrees Centigrade. Some areas in Saint John flooded and some cars became stuck in water up to their hoods as a result of which some roads were blocked off to traffic. I am sure this storm flooded many basements. All in all the storm exceeded expectations. The forecast had been for from 5 to 8 cm of rain to fall in the Saint John area, but in reality the weather office at the Airport recorded no less than 13.9 cm. That is almost 6 inches in the old imperial measure. When you consider that this represents ¼ of the total annual precipitation for the City of Calgary coming down in an 8 hour period you might get an idea of what an event this was for us.
Luckily the winds had largely subsided in Hanna before she hit Canada and we were only forecast to experience gusts in the range of 60 km per hour (although I am sure we had stronger ones than that at times). This low wind strength was much appreciated as our tent trailer can be buffeted in strong winds and our campsite was relatively open, even though we had chosen to strike down between two large RVs which offered some wind protection from the sides. The north offered some trees not far away, and the south faced to the open parking lot. But Hanna was nice and sent her eye to the east of us, which both lessened the strength of the winds (did I get that right Erik?) and also sent them at us from the north side where those trees offered us the best protection. And fortunately, our tent trailer was superb and did not show any water leakage at all during this storm.
But later in the morning it stopped and we ventured out to do some sight-seeing around the city in the afternoon when we even received some sunshine. We drove around the harbours for a while, visited downtown Saint John and ended up at the Carleton Martello Tower. This is a National Historic Site (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nb/carleton/index_E.asp) as we could tell by the signs around the city pointing to how to find it, but we had no inkling of an idea about what the heck it represented. It turned out this was a fortified observation tower built in 1815 on a height above the town as a way to protect Saint John from potential future overland attacks by Americans. I found it a very interesting building as to how it was constructed and how the soldiers’ quarters were set up.
The main floor was one big round room with a massive central pillar, 2 fireplaces and 12 beds set up around the perimeter of this round room. The beds were folding ones so they were folded up in half during the day to give more ‘living’ space and unfolded when they slept. Below this was a lower floor with gunpowder storage and peep holes through which the defenders could fire guns at approaching enemy. The roof originally supported two cannons which could be pointed in any direction, but these were subsequently removed and a new ‘lookout tower’ structure built during the Second World War to offer a high view of the Bay of Fundy, and thus to help defend Saint John harbour.
We had a most knowledgeable staff member explaining the history and workings of the building. Apparently the British were very fond of this type of fortification and built several hundred of them throughout the empire. A few others are to be found in Canada including two in the old city of Quebec. These towers were very strong with their circular construction of walls up to 8 feet thick, a massively thick roof and that central pillar to support it. They were very proof against artillery fire from the old smooth-bore cannons, but the invention of rifled-bore cannons instantly made them obsolete. Fortunately, the Saint John tower was never attacked and hence is superbly well preserved.
From here we went to look for a road which would lead us to a causeway to an island with a lighthouse on it but we got lost as we were trying to find a road that was not there. Instead we ended up on a very nice rocky beach where the tide was just coming in so we got to enjoy surf breaking on rocks again.
I think Leo’s pictures will tell you a bit more and they can be found here.
Day 72 – Drive from Saint John, New Brunswick to Ellsworth, MaineSeptember 08, 2008
Today we will be leaving New Brunswick behind us, a true sign that we are nearing the end of our holiday, as this will bring us closer to home again. We decided to cut across the northeastern United States to get back to Ontario as it is shorter than going the Quebec way. And that is exactly what we were asked at the border going into the States. Other than that they let us in, surprisingly, without any waits or inspection so were nicely surprised as we had heard the stories of the long waits at the border crossings elsewhere.
We stopped at the visitor’s information centre to pick up a map and campground booklet for the State of Maine and off we went on a new adventures. We had not quite decided as to where we wanted to camp the first night so during a picnic lunch we studied the map and picked Ellsworth as our destination. It had 2 campgrounds so we thought we should be able to find a spot in one of them. But our first concern was to find an ATM machine as we had no US money on us and we could not even buy a coffee or ice cream anywhere. Do you know that is cost $2 to use such a machine and then you also have a bank fee on top of that! Serves us right not to stop at a bank to pick up some US money before we crossed the border.
We had chosen a so-called scenic drive but we must have missed it somehow as we really did not see a lot of nice scenery. We saw lots of road construction though as tropical storm Hanna had done her damage here as well and washed out some of the roads in this area, and in particular many sections of road shoulders. We finally arrived at our campground and got a nice, dry spot to set up our trailer. It was 5:30 p.m. local time already and when we tried to pull out one of the sides of our trailer it jammed. A bolt in one of the rollers had come loose and was stuck in the track which prevented it from moving past the end stop as it normally should do. But after much patient fiddling my mechanic, Leo, got it fixed and working again but for a while we were thinking that we would have to use the bed in the car and pull the trailer to a RV repair shop again to have it fixed. This would have been a problem because it is a long drive back to our favourite shop, Hilltop Trailers, in Cape Breton!
We had a simple supper and decided to catch up on our sleep, again. Tomorrow we hope to do some sight-seeing around Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island: that is, if the weather cooperates. Otherwise we will move on closer to home. Sorry, but the roads again did not allow stopping very much so there are no pictures for today.
Day 70 – Drive from Amherst to Saint John, New Brunswick
We again had a night without rain and wind, and sunshine again greeted us when we opened our eyes. After we posted our latest blog we packed up and left for Saint John, New Brunswick.
It was only about 2 1/2 hours driving so we got there around 2 o’clock and we were just in time setting up the trailer in the typical Saint John mist before the rain started again. According to the weather forecast tropical storm Hanna was not supposed to hit this area until Sunday afternoon (tomorrow) so we took the risk and went for a drive north of Saint John. We were going to visit a quilt store (http://www.rivergallery.ca/) which a lady had recommended to us on the ferry back from Newfoundland. This was not your normal kind of store: it was set up in a garage along highway 102 in a rural area kind of out of the way from ‘non local’ traffic. The location is along the beautiful and wide Saint John River which penetrates far into New Brunswick in what seems to be more a set of interconnected lakes. The lady who owns this quilt shop seems nevertheless to have a good business despite the location because she has an online store as well. Besides quilting she also specializes in rug hooking and she is one of the few suppliers for rug hooking materials for this area and for Eastern Canada as a whole. I caught the bug and bought a rug-hooking kit to get myself started in a new hobby (as if I needed a new hobby!).
As we drove away from the coast into the interior the fog cleared into sunshine and we really enjoyed our drive along the Saint John River. So we went further and then stopped in Gagetown, where we had supper outside on the patio of a little restaurant which you would pass by if you were not looking for it. We were the only guests and the food was superb. I would recommend going there if you are in the neighbourhood.
We turned again then for Saint John by further quiet back roads and by the time we got back to our trailer we were back in the fog again and it was time to go to bed, albeit with no pictures for the day apparently.
Day 71 – Saint John, New Brunswick
September 07, 2008
Saint John, New Brunswick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John,_New_Brunswick)
Tropical storm Hanna decided to come a little earlier than was predicted and she showed us what the after-life of a Hurricane can be: rain, rain and rain, and some wind. All through the night and morning it came down in buckets, I can’t remember ever having seen and heard this much rain. The whole campground was a swimming pool as the water just did not have enough time to soak into the ground partly because it was pretty saturated already with the previous rains of the last few days and also because this new rain just came down so hard. But one thing was nice: it was not cold. During the night the temperature never seemed to have dropped below 18 degrees Centigrade. Some areas in Saint John flooded and some cars became stuck in water up to their hoods as a result of which some roads were blocked off to traffic. I am sure this storm flooded many basements. All in all the storm exceeded expectations. The forecast had been for from 5 to 8 cm of rain to fall in the Saint John area, but in reality the weather office at the Airport recorded no less than 13.9 cm. That is almost 6 inches in the old imperial measure. When you consider that this represents ¼ of the total annual precipitation for the City of Calgary coming down in an 8 hour period you might get an idea of what an event this was for us.
Luckily the winds had largely subsided in Hanna before she hit Canada and we were only forecast to experience gusts in the range of 60 km per hour (although I am sure we had stronger ones than that at times). This low wind strength was much appreciated as our tent trailer can be buffeted in strong winds and our campsite was relatively open, even though we had chosen to strike down between two large RVs which offered some wind protection from the sides. The north offered some trees not far away, and the south faced to the open parking lot. But Hanna was nice and sent her eye to the east of us, which both lessened the strength of the winds (did I get that right Erik?) and also sent them at us from the north side where those trees offered us the best protection. And fortunately, our tent trailer was superb and did not show any water leakage at all during this storm.
But later in the morning it stopped and we ventured out to do some sight-seeing around the city in the afternoon when we even received some sunshine. We drove around the harbours for a while, visited downtown Saint John and ended up at the Carleton Martello Tower. This is a National Historic Site (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nb/carleton/index_E.asp) as we could tell by the signs around the city pointing to how to find it, but we had no inkling of an idea about what the heck it represented. It turned out this was a fortified observation tower built in 1815 on a height above the town as a way to protect Saint John from potential future overland attacks by Americans. I found it a very interesting building as to how it was constructed and how the soldiers’ quarters were set up.
The main floor was one big round room with a massive central pillar, 2 fireplaces and 12 beds set up around the perimeter of this round room. The beds were folding ones so they were folded up in half during the day to give more ‘living’ space and unfolded when they slept. Below this was a lower floor with gunpowder storage and peep holes through which the defenders could fire guns at approaching enemy. The roof originally supported two cannons which could be pointed in any direction, but these were subsequently removed and a new ‘lookout tower’ structure built during the Second World War to offer a high view of the Bay of Fundy, and thus to help defend Saint John harbour.
We had a most knowledgeable staff member explaining the history and workings of the building. Apparently the British were very fond of this type of fortification and built several hundred of them throughout the empire. A few others are to be found in Canada including two in the old city of Quebec. These towers were very strong with their circular construction of walls up to 8 feet thick, a massively thick roof and that central pillar to support it. They were very proof against artillery fire from the old smooth-bore cannons, but the invention of rifled-bore cannons instantly made them obsolete. Fortunately, the Saint John tower was never attacked and hence is superbly well preserved.
From here we went to look for a road which would lead us to a causeway to an island with a lighthouse on it but we got lost as we were trying to find a road that was not there. Instead we ended up on a very nice rocky beach where the tide was just coming in so we got to enjoy surf breaking on rocks again.
I think Leo’s pictures will tell you a bit more and they can be found here.
Day 72 – Drive from Saint John, New Brunswick to Ellsworth, MaineSeptember 08, 2008
Today we will be leaving New Brunswick behind us, a true sign that we are nearing the end of our holiday, as this will bring us closer to home again. We decided to cut across the northeastern United States to get back to Ontario as it is shorter than going the Quebec way. And that is exactly what we were asked at the border going into the States. Other than that they let us in, surprisingly, without any waits or inspection so were nicely surprised as we had heard the stories of the long waits at the border crossings elsewhere.
We stopped at the visitor’s information centre to pick up a map and campground booklet for the State of Maine and off we went on a new adventures. We had not quite decided as to where we wanted to camp the first night so during a picnic lunch we studied the map and picked Ellsworth as our destination. It had 2 campgrounds so we thought we should be able to find a spot in one of them. But our first concern was to find an ATM machine as we had no US money on us and we could not even buy a coffee or ice cream anywhere. Do you know that is cost $2 to use such a machine and then you also have a bank fee on top of that! Serves us right not to stop at a bank to pick up some US money before we crossed the border.
We had chosen a so-called scenic drive but we must have missed it somehow as we really did not see a lot of nice scenery. We saw lots of road construction though as tropical storm Hanna had done her damage here as well and washed out some of the roads in this area, and in particular many sections of road shoulders. We finally arrived at our campground and got a nice, dry spot to set up our trailer. It was 5:30 p.m. local time already and when we tried to pull out one of the sides of our trailer it jammed. A bolt in one of the rollers had come loose and was stuck in the track which prevented it from moving past the end stop as it normally should do. But after much patient fiddling my mechanic, Leo, got it fixed and working again but for a while we were thinking that we would have to use the bed in the car and pull the trailer to a RV repair shop again to have it fixed. This would have been a problem because it is a long drive back to our favourite shop, Hilltop Trailers, in Cape Breton!
We had a simple supper and decided to catch up on our sleep, again. Tomorrow we hope to do some sight-seeing around Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island: that is, if the weather cooperates. Otherwise we will move on closer to home. Sorry, but the roads again did not allow stopping very much so there are no pictures for today.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Day 67, 68 and 70 - The last days in Nova Scotia
Day 67 – Drive from Digby to New Minas, Nova Scotia
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
After yesterday, and being in the wind and sun all afternoon, we had a most delightful sleep. It did not rain to wake us up and the wind did not blow overnight either.
We woke up to a dry morning so we first packed up and got ready to go to our next destination – the area around Kentville in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. We took the major highway as when we pulled out of the campground in Digby the rain started to come down in buckets so it was no use taking any scenic routes this time as there would be nothing to see beyond the margins of the highway. For pretty well all the way it poured and poured. Leo had to put the windshield wipers on high and curtail his speed to 80 km/hr for much of the trip as the rain came down so heavily.
We arrived at our new campsite around 1 pm. It then stopped raining briefly so we quickly popped-up the tent-trailer, had some lunch and went off to do some sight-seeing to check out the area. First we went to a tourist information centre in the town of Wolfville. This is the site of Acadian University and has some fantastically large and beautiful homes belonging to the librarians at the University. (Just kidding Joanne! They likely belong to the administrators.)
From Wolfville we went to the National Historic Site of Grand Pre and the Acadian Historic Museum (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/grandpre/index_e.asp). This is a very interesting museum chronicling how the Acadians arrived here largely from France, developed very fertile agricultural lands by dyking saltwater marshes, only to be forcibly deported by the English military in the mid 18th century. However, they always maintained strong emotional ties to their homeland and many came back to this area years later from the many locations to which they were deported. Most had been sent to the American colonies, but some wound up in what would later become Louisiana, with yet others being sent back to France. More information on their history can be found here (http://www.grand-pre.com/indexportalen.html).
As I mentioned we drove through Wolfville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfville,_Nova_Scotia or http://www.town.wolfville.ns.ca/) and if there is a house for sale here which we can afford we will buy it and move here. Wolfville is such a beautiful, pleasantly located town with those beautiful old houses and gardens. With the presence of the University lots of young people come to live in the town, something not noticeable in some of the other surrounding towns. I was told that Wolfville is also kept “non-commercial’ as much as possible in order to focus on its academic character so you will not find any of the big shopping malls or chain stores here. These malls and stores are all located at New Minas (http://www.newminas.com/Web/history.asp), just east of Wolfville, where you can find all of the big chains like Walmart, Superstore, Canadian Tire, Home Depot and more. There is quite a difference between these two towns and yet they are so close together.
We then did some driving around the area for Leo to find a spot where he could film the coming and the going of the huge tidewaters in the Bay of Fundy again. We found a good place at the small harbour known as Hall’s Harbour, so-called because it was originally the base of operations of an American pirate named Samuel Hall. Here we had some supper at a small Lobster restaurant contemplating a lobster feast at last, but we decided to just order fish and chips as we could not see ourselves picking out a live lobster and then having to eat the poor creature after it was boiled. So, sorry Joanne and Lynn but there was no lobster meal for us this holiday (although Leo did have a lobster subway sandwich in Charlottetown!). On our way back to our trailer it started to rain again and we got kind of lost as to where we had to go. Luckily Linda our GPS navigator guided us back to where our campsite was, otherwise we would still be driving around in circles trying to figure out where we were and where we had to go.
Pictures for today, not that many, can be found here.
Day 68 – New Minas, Nova Scotia
It rained during the night again and when we woke up it was still raining off and on. Today was Leo’s day to go to Halls Harbour to film the tides coming in and going out. I stayed around the campground to catch up on my wash and clean out the trailer a bit so it would last us the final 3 weeks of our holiday. The time sure has gone by fast but we have seen and experienced a lot. It has been a trip we will not forget for a long time.
The sun came out early in the morning and stayed with us for the rest of the day. It was a break from the rain which we desperately needed. There has simply been too much rain these last few weeks. But with tropical storm Hanna reportedly on her way to Nova Scotia I don’t know if we will keep having this wonderful sunshine for long. But we will take what we can get.
Leo had a successful day photographing and filming the tide change. He began filming at low tide, carried on to high tide, and then completed the cycle by filming until low tide again. After he set up his cameras a German film crew working on a travel film about Nova Scotia walked over and asked if he was indeed going to be making a time lapse movie of the tide change. When he replied that he was, they said they thought that was a great idea and decided they would do the same for the TV production on which they were working. But they could not get their camera to take a new picture every few seconds as they wanted to so they gave up the idea. However, Leo offered to send them a copy of his time lapse video and they indicated they would be very interested in seeing this and might well want to include it in their TV show. He will work on this as soon as he is home and then arrange for them to see a copy of it . We will see if it amounts to anything before I let Leo have his wish of selling the house and starting a new career making time lapse movies for German VOX television in all kinds of exotic locations around the world.
Tomorrow we move on again to Amherst, our last stop in Nova Scotia, and then on to New Brunswick.
Some of the picture’s Leo took as he was filming the tides can be found here. There are some general shots of Hall’s Harbour to begin. Then a series of images are presented which show the progression of the flood and ebb of the Fundy tide in this harbour. They show the same scene at half hour intervals with the image title indicating the hour of the day on which each was taken. The water level changes most rapidly at the midpoint between high and low tide. At this time it will change by 2.5 cm each minute along the coast here. You will notice this in the more dramatic changes which occur in the half hour images taken around this midpoint of the tidal cycle. It is to be noted as well that the most dramatic tides, known as spring tides, occur when the moon is full or new, with the least dramatic tides, known as neep tides, occurring when the moon is in the first or last quarter. These images were taken midway between a spring and neep tide. Had they been taken with a spring tide the contrast between high and low tides, already many meters on this day, would have been even more dramatic.
Day 69 – Drive from New Minas to Amherst, Nova Scotia
September 5, 2008
It was a night with no rain and sunshine awaiting us when we woke up. Something we have not had for a while.
Today we are moving on again closer to home and closer to leaving Nova Scotia behind us. We took a secondary highway today now that the weather was cooperating with us and we could finally see something of our surroundings again instead of rain and mist.
Our route took us along the Bay of Fundy on the Nova Scotia side, around the southern and northern shores of Cobequid Bay and on to almost the New Brunswick border. And our surroundings were just fabulous again: the beautiful old big houses, the gardens the people keep around these houses, the lay of the land, the rolling hills with trees and farm fields intermingled. The winding roads are such a pleasure to drive, they give you a new view around each corner to enjoy. All in all it is a most pleasurable drive to Amherst.
In Amherst we found ourselves a very nice camping just outside the city proper. We set up our trailer, had supper and decided to go to bed early to catch up on some of our lost sleep of the last few days.
The roads today were narrow and allowed little chance to pull off with our trailer in order to take a photograph, but Leo did take a few which can be found here.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
After yesterday, and being in the wind and sun all afternoon, we had a most delightful sleep. It did not rain to wake us up and the wind did not blow overnight either.
We woke up to a dry morning so we first packed up and got ready to go to our next destination – the area around Kentville in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. We took the major highway as when we pulled out of the campground in Digby the rain started to come down in buckets so it was no use taking any scenic routes this time as there would be nothing to see beyond the margins of the highway. For pretty well all the way it poured and poured. Leo had to put the windshield wipers on high and curtail his speed to 80 km/hr for much of the trip as the rain came down so heavily.
We arrived at our new campsite around 1 pm. It then stopped raining briefly so we quickly popped-up the tent-trailer, had some lunch and went off to do some sight-seeing to check out the area. First we went to a tourist information centre in the town of Wolfville. This is the site of Acadian University and has some fantastically large and beautiful homes belonging to the librarians at the University. (Just kidding Joanne! They likely belong to the administrators.)
From Wolfville we went to the National Historic Site of Grand Pre and the Acadian Historic Museum (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/grandpre/index_e.asp). This is a very interesting museum chronicling how the Acadians arrived here largely from France, developed very fertile agricultural lands by dyking saltwater marshes, only to be forcibly deported by the English military in the mid 18th century. However, they always maintained strong emotional ties to their homeland and many came back to this area years later from the many locations to which they were deported. Most had been sent to the American colonies, but some wound up in what would later become Louisiana, with yet others being sent back to France. More information on their history can be found here (http://www.grand-pre.com/indexportalen.html).
As I mentioned we drove through Wolfville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfville,_Nova_Scotia or http://www.town.wolfville.ns.ca/) and if there is a house for sale here which we can afford we will buy it and move here. Wolfville is such a beautiful, pleasantly located town with those beautiful old houses and gardens. With the presence of the University lots of young people come to live in the town, something not noticeable in some of the other surrounding towns. I was told that Wolfville is also kept “non-commercial’ as much as possible in order to focus on its academic character so you will not find any of the big shopping malls or chain stores here. These malls and stores are all located at New Minas (http://www.newminas.com/Web/history.asp), just east of Wolfville, where you can find all of the big chains like Walmart, Superstore, Canadian Tire, Home Depot and more. There is quite a difference between these two towns and yet they are so close together.
We then did some driving around the area for Leo to find a spot where he could film the coming and the going of the huge tidewaters in the Bay of Fundy again. We found a good place at the small harbour known as Hall’s Harbour, so-called because it was originally the base of operations of an American pirate named Samuel Hall. Here we had some supper at a small Lobster restaurant contemplating a lobster feast at last, but we decided to just order fish and chips as we could not see ourselves picking out a live lobster and then having to eat the poor creature after it was boiled. So, sorry Joanne and Lynn but there was no lobster meal for us this holiday (although Leo did have a lobster subway sandwich in Charlottetown!). On our way back to our trailer it started to rain again and we got kind of lost as to where we had to go. Luckily Linda our GPS navigator guided us back to where our campsite was, otherwise we would still be driving around in circles trying to figure out where we were and where we had to go.
Pictures for today, not that many, can be found here.
Day 68 – New Minas, Nova Scotia
It rained during the night again and when we woke up it was still raining off and on. Today was Leo’s day to go to Halls Harbour to film the tides coming in and going out. I stayed around the campground to catch up on my wash and clean out the trailer a bit so it would last us the final 3 weeks of our holiday. The time sure has gone by fast but we have seen and experienced a lot. It has been a trip we will not forget for a long time.
The sun came out early in the morning and stayed with us for the rest of the day. It was a break from the rain which we desperately needed. There has simply been too much rain these last few weeks. But with tropical storm Hanna reportedly on her way to Nova Scotia I don’t know if we will keep having this wonderful sunshine for long. But we will take what we can get.
Leo had a successful day photographing and filming the tide change. He began filming at low tide, carried on to high tide, and then completed the cycle by filming until low tide again. After he set up his cameras a German film crew working on a travel film about Nova Scotia walked over and asked if he was indeed going to be making a time lapse movie of the tide change. When he replied that he was, they said they thought that was a great idea and decided they would do the same for the TV production on which they were working. But they could not get their camera to take a new picture every few seconds as they wanted to so they gave up the idea. However, Leo offered to send them a copy of his time lapse video and they indicated they would be very interested in seeing this and might well want to include it in their TV show. He will work on this as soon as he is home and then arrange for them to see a copy of it . We will see if it amounts to anything before I let Leo have his wish of selling the house and starting a new career making time lapse movies for German VOX television in all kinds of exotic locations around the world.
Tomorrow we move on again to Amherst, our last stop in Nova Scotia, and then on to New Brunswick.
Some of the picture’s Leo took as he was filming the tides can be found here. There are some general shots of Hall’s Harbour to begin. Then a series of images are presented which show the progression of the flood and ebb of the Fundy tide in this harbour. They show the same scene at half hour intervals with the image title indicating the hour of the day on which each was taken. The water level changes most rapidly at the midpoint between high and low tide. At this time it will change by 2.5 cm each minute along the coast here. You will notice this in the more dramatic changes which occur in the half hour images taken around this midpoint of the tidal cycle. It is to be noted as well that the most dramatic tides, known as spring tides, occur when the moon is full or new, with the least dramatic tides, known as neep tides, occurring when the moon is in the first or last quarter. These images were taken midway between a spring and neep tide. Had they been taken with a spring tide the contrast between high and low tides, already many meters on this day, would have been even more dramatic.
Day 69 – Drive from New Minas to Amherst, Nova Scotia
September 5, 2008
It was a night with no rain and sunshine awaiting us when we woke up. Something we have not had for a while.
Today we are moving on again closer to home and closer to leaving Nova Scotia behind us. We took a secondary highway today now that the weather was cooperating with us and we could finally see something of our surroundings again instead of rain and mist.
Our route took us along the Bay of Fundy on the Nova Scotia side, around the southern and northern shores of Cobequid Bay and on to almost the New Brunswick border. And our surroundings were just fabulous again: the beautiful old big houses, the gardens the people keep around these houses, the lay of the land, the rolling hills with trees and farm fields intermingled. The winding roads are such a pleasure to drive, they give you a new view around each corner to enjoy. All in all it is a most pleasurable drive to Amherst.
In Amherst we found ourselves a very nice camping just outside the city proper. We set up our trailer, had supper and decided to go to bed early to catch up on some of our lost sleep of the last few days.
The roads today were narrow and allowed little chance to pull off with our trailer in order to take a photograph, but Leo did take a few which can be found here.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Day 66 – Brier Island, Nova Scotia - Whale Watching Tour
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
We woke up to dry weather but very windy. I don’t think it even rained during the night; it was just very windy.
Today is the day we hoped to take our whale-watching tour. That is, if the boats are going out today because the ocean is pretty rough and the wind is still blowing very strongly. (I think Leo stood outside all night and was making a lot of wind so he would not have to go on a small boat). We drove down the Digby Neck to our first ferry. Here the ocean was really rough and the water was flowing really, really fast between the two shores as the tides move in and out at different rates in the Bay of Fundy and the narrow bay of Digby Neck. As a result currents of up to 9 knots flow through this channel when the tide change is at its most active. The water was flowing so fast that the ferry went almost completely sideways through some of it to get to the other side.
Once we got to the other side we had to drive to a second ferry which connected Long and Brier islands and which was nicely waiting for us to go across. I guess the ferries are synchronized with each other so people do not have to wait too long for each crossing.
When we got to Brier Island we went to look for a Tour company which would take us out to see the whales. We had decided that going on a zodiac boat would be out of the question with the waves being up to 2 meters high and white-capped. The first one we stopped at was not going as they needed at least 10 people to fill a trip and we were the only ones. The lady did send us on to the next company, Brier Island Whale and Seabird Cruises (http://www.brierislandwhalewatch.com/sitings.htm). Here we were in luck, as they had 36 people wanting to go and the boat could hold 50 so we bought our tickets and went across to the general store to buy Gravol to prevent motion sickness, as we were advised to do by the ticket sales lady since the bay was so rough today. Leo already started to look a little green around the gills when he heard this cheery news. We had actually bought motion sickness pills for the ferry crossings to Newfoundland but not needed them. We got these out now only to read that you had to begin using them 12 hours before your trip, while we only had an hour to go before ours. So Gravol it became. We got out all the warm clothes we had with us and started to put them on. WE WERE READY TO SEE THE WHALES and we hoped the whales were ready to see us!
I have to say the experience lived up to our expectations and beyond. The boat ride out was exciting in itself, going over the 2-meter plus waves was like being in a roller coaster. We even had some of the ‘screaming’ happening by a group of people on board. Up and down we went till the first whales were seen and we slowed down to get a better look at them. It was a mother humpback whale and her calf. What a spectacular sight it was as they came really close to the boat and we could see them come up right in front of us. We went around in circles it seemed, and every time a new set of whales decided to entertain us. Some of them gave us their high five with their flipper and near the end a few of them started to show off by jumping out of the water in what is called breeching and showing us how high they could jump.
Overall it was a once in a lifetime experience, although we hope that having had this experience does not mean it is the end of our lifetime! We plan on doing this again next time we are visiting the Maritimes. We also got to see some puffins, other sea birds like shearwaters and phalaropes and yet others I do not know the name of. There was a pod of dolphins as well jumping through the waves and moving off at great speed. The whale boat crew does not usually go after these as they concentrate on showing people the whales. But the crew was in the mood so we did try to take off after the dolphins. However, it was to no avail as these mammals are just too speedy in their movements and they quickly left the boat behind even though we were at full throttle. Overall we stayed out on the water for an hour more than scheduled as there was so much to see that the crew themselves did not seem in a hurry to return. They indicated that they see whales breech perhaps 2 or 3 times a week in all the trips they take, but to see so many breeches today and to see some of them do this so close to the boat was special to them as well. While the whales will show their flipper waves and tail displays close to the boat, they never breech unless they are far off. All in all it was too bad the trip had to come to an end but there is always next time.
(And by the way, Leo did just fine. He did not get sea sick despite looking through the viewfinder of his camera for much of the trip, something which would normally increase the chances of motion sickness. Unfortunately, one lady passenger was not so lucky, however. She spent part of the last hour on the boat leaning over the railing to “feed the fish”.)
It was not easy for Leo to photograph the whales because of the rough sea and consequently bobbing boat but he did his best and the results can be viewed here.
We woke up to dry weather but very windy. I don’t think it even rained during the night; it was just very windy.
Today is the day we hoped to take our whale-watching tour. That is, if the boats are going out today because the ocean is pretty rough and the wind is still blowing very strongly. (I think Leo stood outside all night and was making a lot of wind so he would not have to go on a small boat). We drove down the Digby Neck to our first ferry. Here the ocean was really rough and the water was flowing really, really fast between the two shores as the tides move in and out at different rates in the Bay of Fundy and the narrow bay of Digby Neck. As a result currents of up to 9 knots flow through this channel when the tide change is at its most active. The water was flowing so fast that the ferry went almost completely sideways through some of it to get to the other side.
Once we got to the other side we had to drive to a second ferry which connected Long and Brier islands and which was nicely waiting for us to go across. I guess the ferries are synchronized with each other so people do not have to wait too long for each crossing.
When we got to Brier Island we went to look for a Tour company which would take us out to see the whales. We had decided that going on a zodiac boat would be out of the question with the waves being up to 2 meters high and white-capped. The first one we stopped at was not going as they needed at least 10 people to fill a trip and we were the only ones. The lady did send us on to the next company, Brier Island Whale and Seabird Cruises (http://www.brierislandwhalewatch.com/sitings.htm). Here we were in luck, as they had 36 people wanting to go and the boat could hold 50 so we bought our tickets and went across to the general store to buy Gravol to prevent motion sickness, as we were advised to do by the ticket sales lady since the bay was so rough today. Leo already started to look a little green around the gills when he heard this cheery news. We had actually bought motion sickness pills for the ferry crossings to Newfoundland but not needed them. We got these out now only to read that you had to begin using them 12 hours before your trip, while we only had an hour to go before ours. So Gravol it became. We got out all the warm clothes we had with us and started to put them on. WE WERE READY TO SEE THE WHALES and we hoped the whales were ready to see us!
I have to say the experience lived up to our expectations and beyond. The boat ride out was exciting in itself, going over the 2-meter plus waves was like being in a roller coaster. We even had some of the ‘screaming’ happening by a group of people on board. Up and down we went till the first whales were seen and we slowed down to get a better look at them. It was a mother humpback whale and her calf. What a spectacular sight it was as they came really close to the boat and we could see them come up right in front of us. We went around in circles it seemed, and every time a new set of whales decided to entertain us. Some of them gave us their high five with their flipper and near the end a few of them started to show off by jumping out of the water in what is called breeching and showing us how high they could jump.
Overall it was a once in a lifetime experience, although we hope that having had this experience does not mean it is the end of our lifetime! We plan on doing this again next time we are visiting the Maritimes. We also got to see some puffins, other sea birds like shearwaters and phalaropes and yet others I do not know the name of. There was a pod of dolphins as well jumping through the waves and moving off at great speed. The whale boat crew does not usually go after these as they concentrate on showing people the whales. But the crew was in the mood so we did try to take off after the dolphins. However, it was to no avail as these mammals are just too speedy in their movements and they quickly left the boat behind even though we were at full throttle. Overall we stayed out on the water for an hour more than scheduled as there was so much to see that the crew themselves did not seem in a hurry to return. They indicated that they see whales breech perhaps 2 or 3 times a week in all the trips they take, but to see so many breeches today and to see some of them do this so close to the boat was special to them as well. While the whales will show their flipper waves and tail displays close to the boat, they never breech unless they are far off. All in all it was too bad the trip had to come to an end but there is always next time.
(And by the way, Leo did just fine. He did not get sea sick despite looking through the viewfinder of his camera for much of the trip, something which would normally increase the chances of motion sickness. Unfortunately, one lady passenger was not so lucky, however. She spent part of the last hour on the boat leaning over the railing to “feed the fish”.)
It was not easy for Leo to photograph the whales because of the rough sea and consequently bobbing boat but he did his best and the results can be viewed here.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Day 65 – Digby
Monday, September 01, 2008
Today is the Monday of the long weekend and the last day of the Digby Wharf Rat Rally. Nothing much was happening other than an all you can eat breakfast at the local restaurant so we decided to take it in. We had hoped to be in the midst of the hordes of bikers to see how much in the way of bacon and bangers they could put away, but I think after the late evening activities it took these bikers a bit longer to get in gear this morning. That plus the fact that it was raining again, and many seemed to want to get an early start on what promised to be an unpleasant ride home. The waitress told us they had about 300 bikers taking in breakfast the day before.
But they did not show for us: the breakfast was set to run from 8:00 to 11:00 and we thought we would do well to show up at 9:30, but when we did we had the place to ourselves. While we ate our bacon and bangers (to make the staff think we were bikers) a few of them did show up but by then we had decided to leave and find some free Internet in town as our campground did not have internet available. The campground owner had told us about a couple of places to try to get wireless access but none of them worked out. We did drive around town in general to see what sorts of signals we could pick up. This was very interesting as we could see various signals appear and then disappear sometimes within a space of a few meters along a section of street. We saw various private wireless signals coming from homes and business signals from motels, restaurants and even from the fire department. Some were unsecured so I tried to log on, but in all cases except one no connection could be established. The single exception was a private home which we could apparently connect to, but which I felt uncomfortable doing, so we drove on. We ultimately gave up and went to view the ferry terminal for the Digby to Saint John ferry. Lo and behold, the ferry was just appearing in the channel to Digby from New Brunswick, and lo-er and behold-er a bunch of Wharf Rat Rally bikers showed up to take it back to that province.
To our delight we discovered we could get a strong Internet signal at the terminal so we quickly downloaded our email and after Leo took some pictures of the bikers embarking on the ferry we went back to our trailer. It seemed Leo came back to the car with misty eyes, and I thought he might have grown fond of the bikers to the point where he had become tearful at seeing them leave, but it was only raindrops on his face. We stayed at our trailer for the rest of the day since it was ….you guessed it ….raining!. Leo worked on his pictures for the blogs and in the evening we went back to the ferry terminal again to upload our blogs and download our emails
The weather was supposed to clear overnight with mostly sun forecast for Tuesday. So we decided to make tomorrow, Tuesday our whale watching day! (That is if Leo does not chicken out yet again!)
Pictures for today can be found here.
Today is the Monday of the long weekend and the last day of the Digby Wharf Rat Rally. Nothing much was happening other than an all you can eat breakfast at the local restaurant so we decided to take it in. We had hoped to be in the midst of the hordes of bikers to see how much in the way of bacon and bangers they could put away, but I think after the late evening activities it took these bikers a bit longer to get in gear this morning. That plus the fact that it was raining again, and many seemed to want to get an early start on what promised to be an unpleasant ride home. The waitress told us they had about 300 bikers taking in breakfast the day before.
But they did not show for us: the breakfast was set to run from 8:00 to 11:00 and we thought we would do well to show up at 9:30, but when we did we had the place to ourselves. While we ate our bacon and bangers (to make the staff think we were bikers) a few of them did show up but by then we had decided to leave and find some free Internet in town as our campground did not have internet available. The campground owner had told us about a couple of places to try to get wireless access but none of them worked out. We did drive around town in general to see what sorts of signals we could pick up. This was very interesting as we could see various signals appear and then disappear sometimes within a space of a few meters along a section of street. We saw various private wireless signals coming from homes and business signals from motels, restaurants and even from the fire department. Some were unsecured so I tried to log on, but in all cases except one no connection could be established. The single exception was a private home which we could apparently connect to, but which I felt uncomfortable doing, so we drove on. We ultimately gave up and went to view the ferry terminal for the Digby to Saint John ferry. Lo and behold, the ferry was just appearing in the channel to Digby from New Brunswick, and lo-er and behold-er a bunch of Wharf Rat Rally bikers showed up to take it back to that province.
To our delight we discovered we could get a strong Internet signal at the terminal so we quickly downloaded our email and after Leo took some pictures of the bikers embarking on the ferry we went back to our trailer. It seemed Leo came back to the car with misty eyes, and I thought he might have grown fond of the bikers to the point where he had become tearful at seeing them leave, but it was only raindrops on his face. We stayed at our trailer for the rest of the day since it was ….you guessed it ….raining!. Leo worked on his pictures for the blogs and in the evening we went back to the ferry terminal again to upload our blogs and download our emails
The weather was supposed to clear overnight with mostly sun forecast for Tuesday. So we decided to make tomorrow, Tuesday our whale watching day! (That is if Leo does not chicken out yet again!)
Pictures for today can be found here.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Day 64 – Drive to Digby.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
After a night of rain we were lucky to get to pack up the trailer when it stopped for a while. Our next stop was the town of Digby. This is a town with a large fishing harbour, reputed locally to be the largest working harbour in Atlantic Canada. It supports the region`s largest scallop fishing fleet. The harbour lies on the Digby inlet, to the northeast of which the famous fruit-growing region of the Annapolis Valley begins. To the southwest there is a long and narrow peninsula known as the Digby Neck, which culminates in two islands in a chain, both of which can be reached by ferries. The last of the two is known as Brier Island and is famous for its whale tours because of the rich feeding ground the Bay of Fundy offers to the whales here. The tides produce a lot of upwelling over the stairstep bay bottom and this brings up great quantities of plankton which supports a food chain at the top of which feed the whales. It is here we plan to finally take our whale sight-seeing boat tour, if Leo does not chicken out again because “the winds are too strong”.
We had heard from other people a few days ago that the Digby Wharf Rat Rally for motorcycles was happening this weekend and that the town would be overflowing with bikers so we did not know how lucky we would be to find a camp spot, but there was room for us in the town campsite.
The drive from Yarmouth to Digby, part of the Evangeline Trail, is a very nice scenic tour and highly recommended. The area is Acadian with lots of nice scenery and small villages. One such village, known as Churchpoint in English and Pointe de L’Eglise in French, housed another beautiful church of which Leo took some pictures. It has a fantastic steeple which could have been the design for a Walt Disney church. The building is the largest and tallest wooden church in all the Americas apparently. We also took some other pictures along this route.
Once we had set up our trailer we walked downtown to experience the Wharf Rat Rally. And experience it we did. This was the 4th Annual Rally and is the largest gathering of bikers in Atlantic Canada. There were at least 1400 officially registered bikers and they estimated that about 2300 bikers in total had actually come to the town of Digby. It was quite an event with all these motorbikes everywhere and with the excessive noise they made!!! Our campground as well had many bikers staying in it and we were treated on several occasions with bikers showing off to their buddies how noisy their bikes could be. My sometimes friend Leo just can not understand why these bikers have to make so much noise, but fortunately he kept his mouth shut when he was around them. Perhaps that duct tape I used on his mouth made a difference.
In the evening we went to see the fireworks which closed off this event. I had a feeling that every one from Digby and surrounding area came to watch these as well. It was a very nice display but did not last very long (Leo would say this is because bikers have a short attention span). During the whole weekend all of the main street downtown was blocked for normal traffic and only motorbikes and pedestrians were allowed. (This street is called Water Street: in every Nova Scotia town the main street is called Water Street as this is a legal requirement as strongly enforced as hanging moose antlers on Newfoundland sheds.) I am sure there were at least 1500 bikes parked on this street when we first walked downtown. So you can imagine our surprise at this. Naturally there were lots of vendor stands with all kind of motorbike accessories for people to buy and with the latest in customized motorbikes to be seen as well.
Leo has tried to capture the Wharf Rat Rally and the fireworks for you which was quite a different experience for us. Pictures of these can be found here.
After a night of rain we were lucky to get to pack up the trailer when it stopped for a while. Our next stop was the town of Digby. This is a town with a large fishing harbour, reputed locally to be the largest working harbour in Atlantic Canada. It supports the region`s largest scallop fishing fleet. The harbour lies on the Digby inlet, to the northeast of which the famous fruit-growing region of the Annapolis Valley begins. To the southwest there is a long and narrow peninsula known as the Digby Neck, which culminates in two islands in a chain, both of which can be reached by ferries. The last of the two is known as Brier Island and is famous for its whale tours because of the rich feeding ground the Bay of Fundy offers to the whales here. The tides produce a lot of upwelling over the stairstep bay bottom and this brings up great quantities of plankton which supports a food chain at the top of which feed the whales. It is here we plan to finally take our whale sight-seeing boat tour, if Leo does not chicken out again because “the winds are too strong”.
We had heard from other people a few days ago that the Digby Wharf Rat Rally for motorcycles was happening this weekend and that the town would be overflowing with bikers so we did not know how lucky we would be to find a camp spot, but there was room for us in the town campsite.
The drive from Yarmouth to Digby, part of the Evangeline Trail, is a very nice scenic tour and highly recommended. The area is Acadian with lots of nice scenery and small villages. One such village, known as Churchpoint in English and Pointe de L’Eglise in French, housed another beautiful church of which Leo took some pictures. It has a fantastic steeple which could have been the design for a Walt Disney church. The building is the largest and tallest wooden church in all the Americas apparently. We also took some other pictures along this route.
Once we had set up our trailer we walked downtown to experience the Wharf Rat Rally. And experience it we did. This was the 4th Annual Rally and is the largest gathering of bikers in Atlantic Canada. There were at least 1400 officially registered bikers and they estimated that about 2300 bikers in total had actually come to the town of Digby. It was quite an event with all these motorbikes everywhere and with the excessive noise they made!!! Our campground as well had many bikers staying in it and we were treated on several occasions with bikers showing off to their buddies how noisy their bikes could be. My sometimes friend Leo just can not understand why these bikers have to make so much noise, but fortunately he kept his mouth shut when he was around them. Perhaps that duct tape I used on his mouth made a difference.
In the evening we went to see the fireworks which closed off this event. I had a feeling that every one from Digby and surrounding area came to watch these as well. It was a very nice display but did not last very long (Leo would say this is because bikers have a short attention span). During the whole weekend all of the main street downtown was blocked for normal traffic and only motorbikes and pedestrians were allowed. (This street is called Water Street: in every Nova Scotia town the main street is called Water Street as this is a legal requirement as strongly enforced as hanging moose antlers on Newfoundland sheds.) I am sure there were at least 1500 bikes parked on this street when we first walked downtown. So you can imagine our surprise at this. Naturally there were lots of vendor stands with all kind of motorbike accessories for people to buy and with the latest in customized motorbikes to be seen as well.
Leo has tried to capture the Wharf Rat Rally and the fireworks for you which was quite a different experience for us. Pictures of these can be found here.
Day 63 – Drive to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia
Saturday, August 30, 2008
It is time to leave Lunenburg and go on to our next stop – Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Yarmouth is only 200 km away from Lunenburg so it should not take us that long to get there. Well not really! It still took us many hours before we finally arrived at our camp site.
We had to make a few stops along the way of course and take some side roads in order for Leo to take some pictures and to find some further nice Maritimes scenery. One of the side roads was to Sable Island. This is the most southerly point in Nova Scotia. As we had been to the most northerly point in Meat Cove on Cape Breton, we only thought it proper to round out our list with Sable Island. The island itself is reached via a causeway, which was a relief because we did not see this road shown on MapQuest on the internet when we checked out this possible route. There it looked like Sable Island was not connected to Nova Scotia proper. But with the causeway in place, getting to the island was a breeze. However, as soon as we started upon this causeway we entered fog and it stayed for the full time we were on the island. At the most southerly point there is again a lighthouse (surprise, surprise), but you can not get directly to this as it is build on a small island separate from Sable Island itself. When we got there, we could not see anything of the lighthouse at all in the mist but we did hear its fog horn blowing so we know there was a lighthouse there.
We decided to stay at a campground just east of Yarmouth as it was supposed to have a working internet connection (not!). When we drove up we were greeted by lots of kids ‘hanging out’ around the barn and pool area. This again was a campground which also had a lot of seasonal trailers who park their units there all summer and use them as cottages essentially and as it was the last long weekend of summer every one was out to enjoy it. Every campsite was occupied and there were at least 230 of them. The campground also had ‘special’ programs planned for the weekend, and for that Saturday they had a hay ride for the kids with the wagon going around twice, both times filled with lots of kids and others riding behind it on their bikes. There were ice cream specials and an adult dance which started at 10 pm. We were told that most people don’t show up until 10:30/11:00 pm for the dance, and you guessed it: the dance went on until the early morning hours. By 3 o’clock in the morning we could still hear the people talking around the fires at their campsites. Luckily for us it then began to rain so the remaining partying was soon over. However, we still did not get much sleep as the rain then kept us awake.
In the early evening we did some sight-seeing around Yarmouth harbour and I must say that after seeing Lunenburg, Yarmouth just did not impress us that much. Nor in fact did the whole trip from Lunenburg to Yarmouth impress us. Having seen this once, we would not see a need to repeat it in future, whereas Lunenburg we would gladly revisit.
Leo did not take too many pictures but a few he did take can be found here.
It is time to leave Lunenburg and go on to our next stop – Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Yarmouth is only 200 km away from Lunenburg so it should not take us that long to get there. Well not really! It still took us many hours before we finally arrived at our camp site.
We had to make a few stops along the way of course and take some side roads in order for Leo to take some pictures and to find some further nice Maritimes scenery. One of the side roads was to Sable Island. This is the most southerly point in Nova Scotia. As we had been to the most northerly point in Meat Cove on Cape Breton, we only thought it proper to round out our list with Sable Island. The island itself is reached via a causeway, which was a relief because we did not see this road shown on MapQuest on the internet when we checked out this possible route. There it looked like Sable Island was not connected to Nova Scotia proper. But with the causeway in place, getting to the island was a breeze. However, as soon as we started upon this causeway we entered fog and it stayed for the full time we were on the island. At the most southerly point there is again a lighthouse (surprise, surprise), but you can not get directly to this as it is build on a small island separate from Sable Island itself. When we got there, we could not see anything of the lighthouse at all in the mist but we did hear its fog horn blowing so we know there was a lighthouse there.
We decided to stay at a campground just east of Yarmouth as it was supposed to have a working internet connection (not!). When we drove up we were greeted by lots of kids ‘hanging out’ around the barn and pool area. This again was a campground which also had a lot of seasonal trailers who park their units there all summer and use them as cottages essentially and as it was the last long weekend of summer every one was out to enjoy it. Every campsite was occupied and there were at least 230 of them. The campground also had ‘special’ programs planned for the weekend, and for that Saturday they had a hay ride for the kids with the wagon going around twice, both times filled with lots of kids and others riding behind it on their bikes. There were ice cream specials and an adult dance which started at 10 pm. We were told that most people don’t show up until 10:30/11:00 pm for the dance, and you guessed it: the dance went on until the early morning hours. By 3 o’clock in the morning we could still hear the people talking around the fires at their campsites. Luckily for us it then began to rain so the remaining partying was soon over. However, we still did not get much sleep as the rain then kept us awake.
In the early evening we did some sight-seeing around Yarmouth harbour and I must say that after seeing Lunenburg, Yarmouth just did not impress us that much. Nor in fact did the whole trip from Lunenburg to Yarmouth impress us. Having seen this once, we would not see a need to repeat it in future, whereas Lunenburg we would gladly revisit.
Leo did not take too many pictures but a few he did take can be found here.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Day 62 – Lunenburg and Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
This time our camp spot was located within walking distance of a town. Although it had rained again during the night and it was still raining lightly we decided to walk to town and risk getting wet. Why else had we packed our raincoats anyway? But we did not take the bikes, and do not know whether we again leave them unused here. (Ah, well. They make a nice ornament on the tail of our trailer.)
We walked along many of the main streets of Lunenburg and enjoyed the ‘old look’ of the houses here. Even though basically all the houses followed one of only five basic structural patterns they all looked a bit different as their owners had made various customizations to them to make them unique each one from the others. The varied coloured paint coats they were given added to their individuality. Together these qualities in turn help strongly to make Lunenburg the special place that it is. If you are ever in Nova Scotia we would definitely suggest that this town is a “can’t miss”.
As we walked, the rain finally stopped and the sun started to come out. When this happens it gets hot very fast to the point that it becomes a very uncomfortable, humid heat.
On our walk we came to a most beautiful church. It was called St. John’s Church and its first version was the first church built in the town in 1753. All denominations initially used this church and then later built their own places of worship. In its present incarnation, which was completed in 1892,the church had beautiful stained glass windows which Leo tried to capture for you in his photos. The most remarkable thing about this church was that it had burned down almost completely in 2001 and had since been totally restored again by the local people. To look at it now one would never guess that it had endured this crisis. We also visited the Lutheran Church which had a beautiful pipe organ which again Leo tried to capture.
Lunenburg (http://www.lunenburgns.com/our-town-content/history-of-lunenburg.html)
is a UNESCO Heritage site and was first established by German immigrants whose influence is still present in the houses here. We had a really nice lunch at a restaurant along the wharf and then went back to our trailer. After a drink we went out again to visit Mahone Bay another small community to the east of Lunenburg. Here Leo walked around ‘naked’ (carrying no cameras) for the first time on our vacation but no one in the town seemed to notice the importance of this event. No parents pointed Leo out to their children, nor spoke in hushed tones to them about how he was wearing no imaging tools. We did some ‘shopping’. We went to the bakery to buy some bread, oatmeal cakes and a $2.20 brownie for Leo which in Calgary would cost $0.75. (He remains convinced that he was overcharged because he was walking around `naked`). However, it was late in the afternoon and the town shops closed at 5 or 5:30 pm so we did not get to visit a lot of the souvenir shops unfortunately.
Back to the trailer we went again and later that evening Leo went out to take some evening and night pictures of Lunenburg which can be seen in the pictures for today to be found here.
We walked along many of the main streets of Lunenburg and enjoyed the ‘old look’ of the houses here. Even though basically all the houses followed one of only five basic structural patterns they all looked a bit different as their owners had made various customizations to them to make them unique each one from the others. The varied coloured paint coats they were given added to their individuality. Together these qualities in turn help strongly to make Lunenburg the special place that it is. If you are ever in Nova Scotia we would definitely suggest that this town is a “can’t miss”.
As we walked, the rain finally stopped and the sun started to come out. When this happens it gets hot very fast to the point that it becomes a very uncomfortable, humid heat.
On our walk we came to a most beautiful church. It was called St. John’s Church and its first version was the first church built in the town in 1753. All denominations initially used this church and then later built their own places of worship. In its present incarnation, which was completed in 1892,the church had beautiful stained glass windows which Leo tried to capture for you in his photos. The most remarkable thing about this church was that it had burned down almost completely in 2001 and had since been totally restored again by the local people. To look at it now one would never guess that it had endured this crisis. We also visited the Lutheran Church which had a beautiful pipe organ which again Leo tried to capture.
Lunenburg (http://www.lunenburgns.com/our-town-content/history-of-lunenburg.html)
is a UNESCO Heritage site and was first established by German immigrants whose influence is still present in the houses here. We had a really nice lunch at a restaurant along the wharf and then went back to our trailer. After a drink we went out again to visit Mahone Bay another small community to the east of Lunenburg. Here Leo walked around ‘naked’ (carrying no cameras) for the first time on our vacation but no one in the town seemed to notice the importance of this event. No parents pointed Leo out to their children, nor spoke in hushed tones to them about how he was wearing no imaging tools. We did some ‘shopping’. We went to the bakery to buy some bread, oatmeal cakes and a $2.20 brownie for Leo which in Calgary would cost $0.75. (He remains convinced that he was overcharged because he was walking around `naked`). However, it was late in the afternoon and the town shops closed at 5 or 5:30 pm so we did not get to visit a lot of the souvenir shops unfortunately.
Back to the trailer we went again and later that evening Leo went out to take some evening and night pictures of Lunenburg which can be seen in the pictures for today to be found here.
Day 61 – Travel to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
Today looked like it was going to be another rainy day so it was a good day to travel. This time we drove along the South Shore from Halifax to Lunenburg. We took the so-called ‘Lighthouse Road Tour’, which winds you through all the small fishing hamlets along the coast. It is a bit slower to drive and the road surface is not always that good but the scenery certainly makes up for this.
We did not stop that often until along the way because of the rain until when we got to Mahone Bay, a lovely small town with lots of little souvenir shops. We will go and visit Mahone Bay again as it is only about 15km from where we are staying in Lunenburg.
We got a campsite in Lunenburg itself which is located within walking distance from the centre of town so we can perhaps finally leave the car behind and do some walking. We have rarely had a campsite from which one can walk to see anything in the way of sights. That is to say, we will go walking if the weather cooperates as well. Leo was an optimist: he took the bikes off the trailer and oiled them with the idea that we might even bike in town.
After we set up our trailer Leo went out exploring on his own for a while. He experienced a major disappointment on this walkabout. The thing for which Lunenburg is most famous, past and present, is of course the legendary fishing schooner Bluenose which can be found on the Canadian 10 cent coin. Its replica, the Bluenose II is based in Lunenburg and offers tourists the opportunity to go on a 2 hour cruise. This was one of the major reasons for us to go to Lunenburg, although we would have gone anyway. But Leo discovered that the boat had left the town harbour the day before after spending virtually all of August here. It was due for a schooner reunion in Gloucester, Maine and would not return until September 11, by which time we will be in other quarters of the Atlantic seaboard. Leo knew that the Bluenose might not be in Lunenburg all the time during the summer, and was prepared to miss it if need be, but it was adding insult to injury to learn it had left only the day before. It would at least have been grand to have been able to shoot some pictures of it, even if a cruise was not possible, but that was not to be either. However, this offers us a powerful inducement to visit Lunenburg again on our next trip to Atlantic Canada.
The pictures which Leo took on this day can be found here.
We did not stop that often until along the way because of the rain until when we got to Mahone Bay, a lovely small town with lots of little souvenir shops. We will go and visit Mahone Bay again as it is only about 15km from where we are staying in Lunenburg.
We got a campsite in Lunenburg itself which is located within walking distance from the centre of town so we can perhaps finally leave the car behind and do some walking. We have rarely had a campsite from which one can walk to see anything in the way of sights. That is to say, we will go walking if the weather cooperates as well. Leo was an optimist: he took the bikes off the trailer and oiled them with the idea that we might even bike in town.
After we set up our trailer Leo went out exploring on his own for a while. He experienced a major disappointment on this walkabout. The thing for which Lunenburg is most famous, past and present, is of course the legendary fishing schooner Bluenose which can be found on the Canadian 10 cent coin. Its replica, the Bluenose II is based in Lunenburg and offers tourists the opportunity to go on a 2 hour cruise. This was one of the major reasons for us to go to Lunenburg, although we would have gone anyway. But Leo discovered that the boat had left the town harbour the day before after spending virtually all of August here. It was due for a schooner reunion in Gloucester, Maine and would not return until September 11, by which time we will be in other quarters of the Atlantic seaboard. Leo knew that the Bluenose might not be in Lunenburg all the time during the summer, and was prepared to miss it if need be, but it was adding insult to injury to learn it had left only the day before. It would at least have been grand to have been able to shoot some pictures of it, even if a cruise was not possible, but that was not to be either. However, this offers us a powerful inducement to visit Lunenburg again on our next trip to Atlantic Canada.
The pictures which Leo took on this day can be found here.
Day 60 - Wednesday, August 27, 2008 – Halifax, Nova Scotia
I am sure no one will be surprised to hear that we had rain again during the night and into the morning. We decided to spend our day indoors as it was raining a bit too much for walking outside. First we went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic (http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mma/index.html ) where we spent most of the afternoon looking at model ships from days-gone-by and the more modern ships. They also had a few life size boats and ships out on the wharf for visitors to view. They had a special display on the siege of Louisbourg in 1758, but by now dear Else had had enough of this subject!
Next we moseyed up the hill to the Halifax Citadel (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/halifax/index_E.asp ), also a National Historic Site. We did not have a lot of time here as they close at 6 pm and it was already 5 pm when we entered the site. But the short time we were there we sure enjoyed.
After the Citadel we did some driving around the harbour of Halifax, including through Africville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africville), or the vestiges of what it had been. This was a community of black people who occupied this separate area of Halifax, but who were almost forcibly removed in the 1960s in what many still see as a racially-motivated decision. We even got to see a working CN train here pulling intermodal containers out of the port, but there were not very many ships to be seen unfortunately, aside from those of the Canadian Navy’s eastern installation. We also passed the Pier 21 museum which commemorates the arrival in Canada of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came from Europe by boat. It was of course closed by then, but we hope to view it on another trip as we do not anticipate staying in Halifax any longer.
Once it started to get dark we went back to our trailer to get some sleep as we were packing up again the next morning to go on to Lunenburg.
Some of the pictures Leo was able to take for today can be found here.
Next we moseyed up the hill to the Halifax Citadel (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/halifax/index_E.asp ), also a National Historic Site. We did not have a lot of time here as they close at 6 pm and it was already 5 pm when we entered the site. But the short time we were there we sure enjoyed.
After the Citadel we did some driving around the harbour of Halifax, including through Africville (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africville), or the vestiges of what it had been. This was a community of black people who occupied this separate area of Halifax, but who were almost forcibly removed in the 1960s in what many still see as a racially-motivated decision. We even got to see a working CN train here pulling intermodal containers out of the port, but there were not very many ships to be seen unfortunately, aside from those of the Canadian Navy’s eastern installation. We also passed the Pier 21 museum which commemorates the arrival in Canada of hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came from Europe by boat. It was of course closed by then, but we hope to view it on another trip as we do not anticipate staying in Halifax any longer.
Once it started to get dark we went back to our trailer to get some sleep as we were packing up again the next morning to go on to Lunenburg.
Some of the pictures Leo was able to take for today can be found here.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Day 59 – Drive to Halifax
This morning the rooster woke us up again around 7 in the morning so it was time to get up and get packing. Leo had saved some rice from our supper the evening before so first we got to feed the chickens a bit before we could leave, and of course this involved some picture-taking as well.
It took us 3 ½ hours to drive just over 200 km to get to our campsite and we did not even stop for pictures or anything. We are camped just on the west side of Halifax and after lunch we decided to go and briefly explore Peggy’s Cove and then go on to downtown Halifax so we could better plan for a full day of sight-seeing tomorrow.
We did first go to Peggy’s Cove (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggys_Cove,_Nova_Scotia), and yes you are right, we did not make it past that spot. It is where we spent the rest of the afternoon and on into the early evening.
The drive out to Peggy’s Cove was very nice to start with, through lots of small towns located along inlets of water. The private boats were quite different from what we had seen in Newfoundland where they were dories or fishing boats. Here they were modern sailing yachts of varying size or powerboats.
Once we got to Peggy’s Cove we were most delighted with the scenery of this small fishing village built amongst solid granite rocks, with its lighthouse and with its ocean shore. We were not impressed with the amount of tourism though: there were literally busloads of them. Seeing these big busses go through this small village just does not seem right, and provided a jarring contrast with our visits to similar villages in Newfoundland where we never encountered such a sight. But we most enjoyed our sunny visit here and spent lots of time walking on the beautiful solid granite shore rocks, and watching the surf clash against them with the incoming tide. For Leo it was another heaven for picture-taking.
It got too late to go to Halifax still so we went back to the trailer and had supper.
After supper we sat down and did some “planning” for our trip back. We need to get serious about allocating our remaining days so that we do not wind up ending our vacation in the middle of Ontario and then have Leo need to go to his job in Calgary the next day. Heavens, he might get fired if that happened, and then we might need to do this sort of travelling full time for the rest of our life!
Pictures of Peggy’s Cove can be found here.
It took us 3 ½ hours to drive just over 200 km to get to our campsite and we did not even stop for pictures or anything. We are camped just on the west side of Halifax and after lunch we decided to go and briefly explore Peggy’s Cove and then go on to downtown Halifax so we could better plan for a full day of sight-seeing tomorrow.
We did first go to Peggy’s Cove (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggys_Cove,_Nova_Scotia), and yes you are right, we did not make it past that spot. It is where we spent the rest of the afternoon and on into the early evening.
The drive out to Peggy’s Cove was very nice to start with, through lots of small towns located along inlets of water. The private boats were quite different from what we had seen in Newfoundland where they were dories or fishing boats. Here they were modern sailing yachts of varying size or powerboats.
Once we got to Peggy’s Cove we were most delighted with the scenery of this small fishing village built amongst solid granite rocks, with its lighthouse and with its ocean shore. We were not impressed with the amount of tourism though: there were literally busloads of them. Seeing these big busses go through this small village just does not seem right, and provided a jarring contrast with our visits to similar villages in Newfoundland where we never encountered such a sight. But we most enjoyed our sunny visit here and spent lots of time walking on the beautiful solid granite shore rocks, and watching the surf clash against them with the incoming tide. For Leo it was another heaven for picture-taking.
It got too late to go to Halifax still so we went back to the trailer and had supper.
After supper we sat down and did some “planning” for our trip back. We need to get serious about allocating our remaining days so that we do not wind up ending our vacation in the middle of Ontario and then have Leo need to go to his job in Calgary the next day. Heavens, he might get fired if that happened, and then we might need to do this sort of travelling full time for the rest of our life!
Pictures of Peggy’s Cove can be found here.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Day 58 - Sherbrooke Historic Village, Nova Scotia
The chickens and rooster get penned up at night and the door to their pen is not opened until about 7 in the morning. But as soon as the rooster is out he starts to crow, and the first time we heard him we had a laugh again as he was quite a bit hoarse and sounded like he needed some oiling or something. But it was most enjoyable to hear him and see all the chickens just walking around our campsite.
Unfortunately we again woke up to rain and fog this morning and during the night it had rained quite a bit as well. We had decided yesterday that we would stay another night here and take our time visiting the restored Historic Village of Sherbrooke (http://museum.gov.ns.ca/sv/tour.php), located on the St. Mary’s river. We waited till the afternoon as the weather was supposed to clear up and so it did: the rain stopped, although the sun never really came out.
We took our time walking through the village and visiting the various houses and shops. We got live demonstrations at the blacksmith, and the pottery and woodworking shops. I even got to try some of the tools from way back when. Also there were demonstrations in spinning, weaving, rug-hooking and knitting.
This village was established as early as 1655 and was first known as Fort Saint Marie. By 1815 the settlement became known as Sherbrooke in honour of Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, a former Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. Initially it was a lumbering community, then prospered for 20 years in the late 1800’s with a gold strike nearby, and finally did well as a ship-building community. However, the wooden ships it produced were no longer in demand in the early 20th century as steel ships became the norm and the town’s economy slipped into decline. As citizens moved to other centres, a number of the buildings were abandoned with their contents left largely intact.
A visitor from Halifax in 1969 saw all this and recognized its potential as a restored heritage village. He stimulated local interest in commencing the restoration shortly afterwards to a typical Nova Scotian village from the 19th century. They now have 36 exhibit buildings and all but 2 are on the original foundations on which they were built. A few houses are still privately occupied by original residents but as these people either leave or die their buildings will become part of the museum as well. The overall effect of the village is like that of Heritage Park in Calgary, but it is more authentic and less commercial than that park, and more interesting to visit due to the live skill demonstrations here.
It was a most enjoyable afternoon for us and we would highly recommend this spot as a tourist destination for anyone visiting Nova Scotia. We hope you enjoy the pictures Leo took, which can be found here.
Unfortunately we again woke up to rain and fog this morning and during the night it had rained quite a bit as well. We had decided yesterday that we would stay another night here and take our time visiting the restored Historic Village of Sherbrooke (http://museum.gov.ns.ca/sv/tour.php), located on the St. Mary’s river. We waited till the afternoon as the weather was supposed to clear up and so it did: the rain stopped, although the sun never really came out.
We took our time walking through the village and visiting the various houses and shops. We got live demonstrations at the blacksmith, and the pottery and woodworking shops. I even got to try some of the tools from way back when. Also there were demonstrations in spinning, weaving, rug-hooking and knitting.
This village was established as early as 1655 and was first known as Fort Saint Marie. By 1815 the settlement became known as Sherbrooke in honour of Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, a former Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. Initially it was a lumbering community, then prospered for 20 years in the late 1800’s with a gold strike nearby, and finally did well as a ship-building community. However, the wooden ships it produced were no longer in demand in the early 20th century as steel ships became the norm and the town’s economy slipped into decline. As citizens moved to other centres, a number of the buildings were abandoned with their contents left largely intact.
A visitor from Halifax in 1969 saw all this and recognized its potential as a restored heritage village. He stimulated local interest in commencing the restoration shortly afterwards to a typical Nova Scotian village from the 19th century. They now have 36 exhibit buildings and all but 2 are on the original foundations on which they were built. A few houses are still privately occupied by original residents but as these people either leave or die their buildings will become part of the museum as well. The overall effect of the village is like that of Heritage Park in Calgary, but it is more authentic and less commercial than that park, and more interesting to visit due to the live skill demonstrations here.
It was a most enjoyable afternoon for us and we would highly recommend this spot as a tourist destination for anyone visiting Nova Scotia. We hope you enjoy the pictures Leo took, which can be found here.
Day 57 - Travel to Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia
It was another beautiful day with the sun saying hello to us as we woke up on Cape Breton Island. We packed up the trailer and started on our first leg to Halifax. Normally it does not take that long to get to Halifax when you take the main highway but of course that would be boring and not take us along the southeast coastline of the province, so we took the slower and more scenic route. Our first stop was St. Peter’s Canal (http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/stpeters/index_E.asp) where boats come through the locks from the ocean to the Bras d’Or Lakes and vice versa. There is not a lot of commercial traffic at these locks any longer, with it mainly being pleasure boats now, but we were lucky enough to see a couple of boats go through just as we were about to leave.
The locks here are bi-directional. There are double sets of gates at each end of the lock. Most locks only have doors that face in a single direction because the flow of water is always in the same direction. However, the Bras d’Or Lakes stay at approximately the same level. They are huge salt lakes, but their two very narrow connections with the ocean means that the tides can only minorly affect their water level. Consequently, the ocean side of the locks at one extreme has water 4 feet lower than the lakes and at the other extreme has water 4 feet higher. Thus the doors in the locks must have two sets on each end, one set each to withstand the water level difference in each direction.
On we then went to our planned next stop – Isle Madame – but when we started to look at the map for campsites we decided to skip the Isle Madame stop and went directly on our way to Sherbrooke. The scenic Marine route, along the southeast coastline, was very slow to drive, mainly because of its very rough condition but also because it was a very winding road. It was initially not a well-travelled road either so we did not meet a lot of traffic. When we got to a place called Isaacs Harbour we had a surprise as the road ended and we had to take a ferry to get to the other side of the inlet. Our GPS navigator had not told us about that until the last second. We were in luck, however, as the ferry was waiting at our side of the inlet and we were able to drive right on. It only took us 5 minutes to get across and on we went again until we got to the town of Sherbrooke.
We had some difficulty finding our campsite but once we did we had a good laugh as we got to set up our trailer amongst a flock of chickens who cluckingly roamed around free here. This was a first for us. We were a little worried as to what time the rooster would wake us up, but that we would not find out until the next morning. It was time to set up our trailer again and get a good night’s rest.
Pictures of today’s trip can be found here.
The locks here are bi-directional. There are double sets of gates at each end of the lock. Most locks only have doors that face in a single direction because the flow of water is always in the same direction. However, the Bras d’Or Lakes stay at approximately the same level. They are huge salt lakes, but their two very narrow connections with the ocean means that the tides can only minorly affect their water level. Consequently, the ocean side of the locks at one extreme has water 4 feet lower than the lakes and at the other extreme has water 4 feet higher. Thus the doors in the locks must have two sets on each end, one set each to withstand the water level difference in each direction.
On we then went to our planned next stop – Isle Madame – but when we started to look at the map for campsites we decided to skip the Isle Madame stop and went directly on our way to Sherbrooke. The scenic Marine route, along the southeast coastline, was very slow to drive, mainly because of its very rough condition but also because it was a very winding road. It was initially not a well-travelled road either so we did not meet a lot of traffic. When we got to a place called Isaacs Harbour we had a surprise as the road ended and we had to take a ferry to get to the other side of the inlet. Our GPS navigator had not told us about that until the last second. We were in luck, however, as the ferry was waiting at our side of the inlet and we were able to drive right on. It only took us 5 minutes to get across and on we went again until we got to the town of Sherbrooke.
We had some difficulty finding our campsite but once we did we had a good laugh as we got to set up our trailer amongst a flock of chickens who cluckingly roamed around free here. This was a first for us. We were a little worried as to what time the rooster would wake us up, but that we would not find out until the next morning. It was time to set up our trailer again and get a good night’s rest.
Pictures of today’s trip can be found here.
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