New Brunswick - Again

 Fri, Aug 7

Today we head back toward the good ole US of A.  And we're back in the land of big tides on the Bay of Fundy.

On the way back, we plan to spend a couple of days in and around Saint Andrews, New Brunswick.  We stopped there on our way East, liked what we saw and thought if we could, we'd go back.

We departed Prince Edward Island via the bridge that connects PEI and New Brunswick.  The bridge is 8 miles long and is supposedly the longest bridge in the world that goes over a body of water that freezes over in the winter.  I guess everybody is looking for some kind of niche.

We've settled into an RV park that is owned and operated by the Saint Andrews Kiwanis Club.  It is on the Bay of Fundy and is a beautiful place.  They use the profits from the operation of the park to support community projects.  That is quite a fund raiser.

Looking across the Bay of Fundy from the RV Park toward Maine

We ate out tonight, and in keeping with the spirit of being close to Maine again, I had lobster.

Praying to the lobster gods

And it rained today.  Since we've been in Canada, we've only had 2 days when it didn't rain.  It really hasn't interfered with any of our plans.  In fact, it's made some of the scenery more interesting.

Sat, Aug 3

We finally got to ride our bikes today.  We've been dragging them around on the back of the CRV and haven't ridden them but a couple times around other RV parks.  But today, we are parked close enough to downtown that we've been able to ride them quite a lot.

We've really grown to like downtown St. Andrews and it's unique architecture;

The murals on the side of the buildings are fantastic.

We've found St Andrews to be captivating, including this dollhouse that was built in 1943.

We've really enjoyed St. Andrews.  It's a small waterfront community with a very nice downtown. It reminds us somewhat of Beaufort, but with a lot more public spaces.  And lobster!

Clara bought some real neat local crafts.  As in Beaufort, you can also buy "imported from China" stuff, but Clara has a knack for uncovering genuine local products.

We also bought a couple of lobsters for dinner at a fish house on the waterfront.  I had to bike them back to the motorhome in grocery bags to get them in the refrigerator until supper.  They kept moving around in the bag all the way back.

Two live lobsters in a grocery bag

This afternoon we had a real treat.  A couple of people had mentioned "Ministers Island" as a neat place to visit.  And what makes it really unique is that you can only go to the island on low tide, when there is a drivable spit of land uncovered between the mainland and the island.

Driving on the ocean floor.  "Where's the water?"

In the late 1800's, Sir William Van Horne, the driving force behind the Canadian Pacific Railway (Canada's first coast to coast rail system), built his summer "cottage" on the island.  Today the island is owned by the Province of New Brunwick.

The Bath House/Artist's Hideaway.  There are steps down to a basement and changing rooms and then a walkway out to the ocean.  Sir William had a swimming pool dug into the rocky bottom which filled with water at high tide, and provided a nice swimming pool when the tide receded.

Sir William's vast house, his equally large barn and his bathhouse/artist's hideaway are open to the public with guided tours.  It is quite a remarkable place, beyond the uniqueness of driving over the seafloor for a half mile to get there.

After a dinner of lobster back at the motorhome, we rode back out to the end of the road to Minister's Island to view what it looked like at high tide.  It is again very remarkable the range of the tides and how much the landscape changes between tides.

The road to Ministers Island at low tide and high tide

I have an app on my phone which has the tides on it.  This is the tide for this area this afternoon.

The Pendlebury Lighthouse provided guidance to mariners into St Andrews Harbor from 1833 to 1933

St Andrews Harbor

A rainbow over the Bay of Fundy

Many homes are heated by wood and we often see huge piles of wood stacked and ready for another winter.

Prince Edward Island, Canada

Tues, Jul 30

Today is a travel day.  We got an early start in the fog to the ferry dock about 3 hours away for the trip to Prince Edward Island.

A foggy start this morning in Nova Scotia

While we were in New Brunswick I noticed on the map that Prince Edward Island might be another stop on our tour of the Canadian Maritimes.  Like the rest of the provinces, I knew (and know) very little about them.  This makes a nice round out of the trip without having to double back on some of the roads we've already traveled.

A foggy arrival in Prince Edward Island

The ferry ride was about an hour fifteen minutes.  Probably the biggest ferry we've been on.  It has four decks.  The lower deck is for trucks, RV's and other oversized vehicles.  The next deck is for cars, and the upper decks are lounges and restaurants.

It seemed appropriate that we would arrive in PEI (as it is referred to) in fog in as much as we had left Nova Scotia in the fog.

We've settled into a nice campground which seems to have been carved out of a large farm.  We are seemingly well out into the rural area.

PEI is relatively flat and there are lots of farms.  One of their primary agricultural crops is potatoes. There are huge fields planted.

We've taken the afternoon and evening to relax around the campsite.  Tomorrow we'll start the touring.

The Canadian Maritimes - New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island

Wed, Jul 31

A lazy morning followed by and active afternoon.  And a day without rain, or hardly even a cloud.

First stop was an unusual (probably the most unusual we've ever seen) crafts store, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  It is housed in a stunning building overlooking one of the most beautiful gardens we've seen.  The majority of crafts are imported from Indonesia, where the owner has a second home and lives there in the winter.

Clara tries out some of the unique wooden furniture

Clara enjoying the beautiful gardens

Dave, enjoying the beautiful gardens

Then to Charlottetown, the capital of the Province.  It's a relatively small town, but still too large for me.  However, they've done a nice job of redeveloping their downtown and waterfront.  Of course, there were craft shops, and Clara enjoyed them.  It's hard to understand - I can go through one of those stores in about 2 minutes.  But she finds all the little interesting things to look at, and can take quite a bit of time.  That's okay, we've got plenty of time.

Scenes around Charlottetown

This island is known for its potatoes.  There are seemingly thousands of acres of potatoes grown.

Potato fields go on forever

The honor system of buying a bag of potatoes

From Charlottetown, we drove about 30 miles to Summerside, home of The College of Piping and Celtic Performing Arts of Canada (www.collegeofpiping.com).

We had been told that they have the best show on the island, I we have to agree.  We spent a wonderful evening enjoying dance, song, and piping.  They even told some jokes.  "What's the difference between a bagpipe and an onion?   You don't see anyone crying when a bagpipe is cut into pieces."

Thurs, Aug 1

We took most of today to relax around the campsite.  We did some minor provisioning and drove to a little coastal community just to see what was there, which wasn't much.

But this afternoon got rather interesting.

Two motorhomes moved in on either side of us, and we quickly found out that they are from Quebec and only only speak French.  They are friends from a very small island which is a part of Quebec, but on the map appears to be closer to and North of PEI.

Through sign language we eventually figured out (I think) that he is a fisherman on the island and comes here on holiday (a 5 hour ferry ride).  He really was interesting, and tried very hard to communicate, but only a word now and then got through.  Apparently, the people on this very small island only speak French and there must not be much interaction with English speakers.

Then, about dinner time, a lady approached us with 3 kids and 2 Japanese teenagers who are here in PEI on an exchange program.  She wanted to show the Japanese girls what a motorhome looks like because they don't have them in Japan.  Neither of the girls spoke English, so it was another round of hand signals trying to make each other understand.

These Japanese girls visited us for a few minutes this afternoon.  They were intrigued by the motorhome and I'm not sure they really understood what it was.  I think they thought it was a permanent home.

By the time we had finished all of this both of us are exhausted.

The RV Park we are staying in is in a very rural setting

Tomorrow we head back to toward the USA, but first we're planning a couple days in New Brunswick at an RV Park we visited on the way here and thought might be a good place to relax for a couple of days.

Nova Scotia, Canada

Fri, Jul 26

It rained again this morning. No wonder everything is so green around here.

This afternoon the weather cleared as we entered Nova Scotia. It's hard to believe we've come here. I've heard of the place, but never thought to much about it.

The welcome center and it's Welcome to Nova Scotia display is by far the best I've ever seen in our travels. And the staff and the facilities were outstanding. A lot of places could take lessons from this one.

We settled into Hidden Hill Family Campground near Truro.

At the welcome center, we were told that there is a Blue Grass Festival this weekend in Bible Hill (that's right, there is a community named Bible Hill). It's very near Truro on the Bay of Fundy (Nova Scotia side of the bay). It was only a few minutes drive, so we decided to go. It turned out to be a really big affair for this community and we had a great evenings entertainment listening to blue grass music. It was very good, with some very pronounced accents at times. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sat, Jul 27

We are steadily progressing East in Nova Scotia, arriving at our Easternmost campground, Baddeck Cabot Trail Campground.

Quickly after settling in at the campsite, we drove into the town of Baddeck (I've been corrected several times on the correct pronunciation - BA (long A) Day.  You have to leave out the first D and emphasize the remaining D).  We are actually on an island, which is a part of a peninsula on the Eastern end of Nova Scotia.

This is very pleasant small town on the shores of Bras d'Or Lake (Bra (long A) - Dor Lake).  The Lake is a huge fresh water and salt water lake which has two narrow openings to the ocean.

We explored and are planning our agenda for the next few days.

Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone lived here and on the waterfront he and his wife, Mabel are enshrined sitting on a bench.

Clara joins Mr. and Mrs Bell.  I hope they are not having a private conversation

This afternoon we found out that there is a Ceilidh (ka lee) tonight.  A Ceilidh is a traditional Gaelic social gathering, which usually involves playing Gaelic folk music.  

It is held at the St. Michael's Parish Hall which can hold maybe 60 people and it was sold out.  

We got tickets early and it was another one of those Wow! evenings.  Two hours of some of the best entertainment we could have expected.

Two nights in a row of fun music!

Sun, Jul 28

Today we had nowhere to go, and we didn't get there!

We more or less picked what looked like an interesting place on the map and headed there. Unfortunately, we didn't pick well.

We started at the Alexander Graham Bell Historic Site in Baddeck.  I thought it would be interesting, but it really wasn't.  We stayed a little while, watched a movie about Bell, then left.  I would have thought it would be much better.  Oh well, you gotta have some bust along the way.

The view from the Alexander Graham Bell Historic Site.  Ain't bad!

We'd heard of Sydney, so we headed there - a 2 hour drive.  Turned out to be just another large town with chain restaurants and looks like any place USA.  Then we'd heard of the Louisbourg National Historic Site and it was only a few miles (kilometers) away, so we headed there.  Unfortunately, we got there too late to make it worthwhile to take advantage of.  We've heard some good things about it, but didn't have time - so we headed back.

Some of the terminology is interesting

One of the highlights of the day was a McLobster at McDonalds.  It was pretty good.

A day of driving without much to comment on.

This is a good point to throw in a  picture of where we've travel so far on this trip.

In two weeks we've traveled from Scranton, Penn to Braddeck, Nova Scotia.  We're at the Easternmost point of this trip.

I guess every once in a while, ya gotta have a day that doesn't turn out great.  This is about the only one I can remember in all of our travels.  But as the saying goes "A bad day here is better than a good day there".

Mon, Jul 29

Today made up for yesterday!

We drove the Cabot Trail.  It is primarily what brought us here in the first place.  I wasn't sure what it was when I first heard of it.  I actually thought it might be a hiking trail.  I actually chose this campground because it was advertised to be on the Cabot Trail.

Turns out that the Cabot Trail is a 200 mile loop road along the edge of the ocean (and Sound) on Cape Breton Island on the Northeastern tip of Nova Scotia.  And it is an absolutely beautiful drive.

These pictures were taken on the Southern Shore of the island.  The geology of the Southern Shore is dramatically different from the Northern Shore

Locally they advertise it as the most scenic drive in North America.  I wouldn't classify it as such, but I would certainly put it among the top 10 or 15 most beautiful drives that we have been on in our travels.  I think my all time favorite would have to be Trail Ridge Road across the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

The Northern side of the island

There were many fishing villages along the way

All the lobster pots are stacked now because the season ended a few days ago.  Scallop season starts now.  Yum!

Although the drive is 200 miles, and we don't like to drive that much in a day, we really didn't have much choice because it's a loop with no shortcuts.  So we did it and it wasn't too bad.  We stopped numerous times (for craft shops) and the views.

The leather shop just about broke me!

It wasn't until the last hour that it seemed like it was a long drive.

But Wow!  Some of the views were breathtaking.  Clara and I both commented that some of the scenery reminded us of Western North Carolina.  It was like taking the mountains of Western North Carolina and plopping them onto the coast of North Carolina.

Western North Carolina - with an ocean in the background!

A female moose was feeding beside the road and drew the largest crowd we saw today

The signs along the drive were a mixture of English, French and Gaelic

Tomorrow we head for Prince Edward Island, another province that I don't think I'd ever heard of.