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.