After Boston we drove up the East Coast passing by many fishing villages and lobster towns. We also visited the first of the many lighthouses that we were going to see.
This lighthouse was situated at the end of a 300m groin made out of huge granite blocks. Very impressive since it was made in the 1800’s. The scenery driving up the coast was magnificant with lots of ocean views and islands. We stopped in the town of Bar Harbor, situated at the top of Maine. This is another beautiful little fishing village and we found some very nice accommodation right on the ocean overlooking the town and the islands off the coast.
The reason we picked Bar Harbour was that it was also at the entrance to Acadia National Park, which is situated on an island. We drove around the island taking in fantastic views off the cliffs with islands and birds in abundance. It was a very pleasant day walking around and searching for bears and deer. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find any but we will keep trying as our holiday goes on.
On our last night in Bar Harbour, we could hear the sound of bag pipes coming up from the beach. When we went outside to see what was going on, we found this man standing on the rocks, fully dressed in his kilt, playing the bag pipes. He played for over an hour and then walked back into our cottages, playing tunes at different cottages who had guests sitting outside them. We wondered what he was doing, and strangely we found out a week later.
On the 12th July we drove further up the coast, crossing the border at Calais. This is another one of these towns that stradles the border and offers gas at a 30% cheaper price on the US side. To discourage people from chasing cheaper prices, the border crossing is always slow, it took nearly half an hour to get back into Canada, while people were happily just driving through from Canada into the USA. As a tourist it is very frustrating being stuck in these long queues and doesn’t give you a good impression of Canada.
Once through the border we stopped at the St Croix Island overlook to have lunch and read a bit about the first French settlement. We also stopped in at the small town of Saint Andrews, another beautiful little fishing village before finally making it to Saint John, New Brunswick where we were to catch the ferry to Nova Scotia.
It was very reminiscant of Bruce’s last stay in Canada as he parked the car in the queue to catch the ferry. This was Rosie and Liam’s first experience of a huge car ferry and they were suitably impressed as we drove on and then went up to the lounge area. It was a pleasant two hour cruise and Bruce and Rosie roamed the decks looking for whales (unsuccessfully) and listening to the Titanic theme.
The ferry took us to Digby and we found some very nice accommodation overlooking a tidal creek and the inlet. This was our first experience of the huge tidal shifts, before we went out for dinner, we walked along the edges of the 10m wide creek picking up rocks. When we got back from dinner, there was no creek at all, just a lot of shells on the sand.
It was bright and sunny the next day and we booked ourselves in for a whale cruise. This required us to drive down the Digby Neck to Brier Island, which was one of a small archipelago of three islands, which required us to take a couple of small car ferries. We arrived early for the first ferry, so went up to the cafe to have a coffee. It was another little gem, well priced and great outlook.
As you can see, it was low tide when we went across. When we came back the ferry was right at the top of the jetty.
As we walked out to catch our whale boat, we laughed at this little fishing boat and wondered when it would get back into the water. Our Whale boat was quite good, and very fast. Bruce happily sat at the back and enjoyed the sunshine for the whole trip.
Everyone was very excited and we were all staring out to sea in anticipation of seeing our first whale. There were a few boats out looking for the whales and when we saw some sitting still, it was obvious that some whales must be there. We didn’t have to wait too long for them to find some whales and then the boat just got near to them and drifted waiting for the whales to surface. We then spent a pleasant couple of hours drifting around with the whales sometimes cruising along the top of the water and at other times diving so that we would have to search to see where they would surface again.
During the trip we mainly sat around a group of three humpback whales. They would roll over every now and again to take a good look at us and then take a dive. After a while the captain decided to go searching for some different whales and after a while we managed to find another couple of whales, this time they were Fin Whales. These type of whales are much quicker so when they submerge they travel along way before coming back up. We found them a second time but then lost them.
We spent another hour of traveling around looking at the birds and searching different parts of the island for more whales (they were also doing a bit of research, so were interested in pods that they hadn’t seen before).
We returned to Brier Island to find the tide had come in. The boat we laughed about now looked very much at home and could easily have gone out to sea.
The next day we visited Kejimkujik National Park, still chasing a moose and deer. The park was very nice with waterfalls and swimming holes, but we still didn’t see our moose.
From the park we drove back to Annapolis Royale, which was one of the first forts in Nova Scotia. It was set up by the French, as all the forts seemed to have been, but was taken over by the British in the late 1700’s. The French influence is everywhere (they call this the Acadia region) but there is also a major Scottish and Irish influence, since they shifted here during the famine of this period.
The fort is quite interesting, when you look at the defences that were set up. The mounds serve two purposes, one is that it makes it harder to storm the walls and the other is that it makes it difficult to calculate the distance to the cannon positions, the first wall blending into the second wall from a distance.
This fortress changed hands several times during the 1700’s as France and England were both trying to establish supremecy over their dominions.
The next day we set off for Yarmouth with the aim of stopping in Halifax. Yarmouth didn’t hold much for us, but we lucked out when we visited the Information Centre, they gave us $140 Flip Video camera so that we could create a short video to enter in the “I Love Nova Scotia” competition.
We continued on to Lunenburg.
Rosie wanted to visit Lunenburg so that she could goto the Fishermen’s Museum (it is in her blood you know!). Lunenburg was a very nice little town, but a bit over commercialised – we struggled to find accommodation. We looked around for a while before moving on a few kilometres and stayed in a very nice resort for the night, since they were offering great rates. Unfortunately the price doubled the ncxt night so we moved on instead of staying. Apart from the museum, we didn’t find much else to look at.
We continued onto Halifax and were disappointed to find that everything was full (again). We couldn’t believe that a capital city would be full, but The Tall Ships were in town along with a “KISS” concert, we ended up in a dodgy motel for the night before progressing on the next day (sadly we could have got accommodation at a higher rate than we wanted to pay, in retrospect we should have taken it and had a look around Halifax since our accommodation problems didn’t go away). We moved onto Antigonish the next day and couldn’t believe our bad luck.
On the way into town we passed a large speedway, with a trailor park full of visitors. When we reached the town, the main street was packed and we kept seeing people dressed in kilts walking everywhere. “No Vacancy” signs were out and we knew we were in trouble again.
We stopped to see what all the commotion was about and found out we just missed the main parade. We then walked down to the park and saw what the problem was.
The “Highland Games” were taking place and a round of the NASCAR championships were happening (the Speedway conspired to get us again). We visited the tourist bureau and after first saying that nothing was available, they then offered to us accommodation at the University of St Francis Xavier (at $AU175 a night) and with trepedation we accepted . We expected a dormatory type room and Liam was complaining bitterly as we drove there.What a surprise this turned out to be. We had a little apartment, with two bedrooms connected with a small passage containing a fridge and a microwave leading into our bathroom. Liam had a TV and we had a TV. Liam thought this was great. We also had access to the University Gym and Swimming pool, which we took advantage of. We were so impressed that we decided to indulge ourselves for another night.
We then went to visit the Highland Games to find out what all the fuss was about. It was great. You had the heavy lifting events with the Caber tossing taking place, this was a hoot as these great big guys kept trying to toss this long pole so that it flipped over. After several failed attempts they finally agreed to cut 1 foot off it and when they still couldn’t toss it, they cut another foot off it.
All the time your ears were being pounded with bagpipe music from all directions. All over the park you had different bands practising, while at the same time one band was competing. Bruce loved the bagpipes and we realised what the guy was doing back in Bar Harbour.
We went for a drive around to see the different beaches in the area, which only reinforced our view that we have hidden treasures in Australia that you can only appreciate when you see what other people worship. While on this trip we dropped in at one of the many little icecream shacks that are scattered everywhere. Icecream is extremely good value in Nova Scotia and a definite indulgence that should not be curtailed.
After Antigonish, we travelled into Cape Breton, where the Cabot Trail begins. It was a lovely drive along the rugged coastline, with magnificant drop aways and scenery. We stopped for lunch at the Alexander Bell Museum, which had great views over the inlet and excellent gardens to sit in and enjoy lunch.
As we proceded up the coastline we came across one of the many quirky little restaurants that jump up out of nowhere. To make you stop and look at this one, aptly named “Joe’s Scarecrows” the owners have created an amazing array of scarecrows all sitting aroung in the adjacent field. There is nothing else around it, so you wouldn’t stop for any other reason. The views over the ocean were also extremely good.
As soon as we arrived in Cheticamp, at the beginning of the Cabot Trail (200km looping drive around the top of Cape Breton), we booked into a motel and then drove a further 20km to the Skyline Trail. Bruce has wanted to see a moose for the whole trip and felt that we had to go on an evening hike if we were to finally see one.
He wasn’t disappointed, first we saw a couple of moose grazing on the slopes just off the path and then a bit later we saw a big moose laying down in the bushes. Liam quietly crept up, camouflaging himself with his hat and sweater so that he could get a really good look at the Moose. We were slightly disappointed that it didn’t have big anteliers, but apparently it is the wrong time of the year for anteliers.
At the end of the trail, you reach this fantastic boardwalk overlooking the ocean. We didn’t see any eagles, but you cannot have everything.
On one of our days in Chiticamp we took a drive to Pleasant Bay and had lunch at the “Rusty Anchor”. This as a nice restaurant sitting at the top of a cliff, with great views of people ocean Kayaking and other on whale boats. We were able to see the whales in the distance, all you had to do was focus on the boats.
Every day as we drove in and out of Cheticamp, we passed this funny little house and Rosie couldn’t resist stopping and taking a photo. There are lots of really interesting houses and buildings in Nova Scotia. Many have a dazzling array of flags fluttering in the breeze and several like to display their French heritage (Acadian). Bruce managed to stop at the bakery on the way out of town and indulged himself in a chocolate croissant on the drive.
On the drive through the Cabot Trail, we came across our best Moose siting. This young buck was happily swimming in the lake eating the water weeds. It was pouring with rain, but we still stood around and watched for several minutes. It was a great site and produced some really good video.
As we continued our drive towards Fort Louisbourg, we went through and town of Whycocomagh where we saw another unusual garden full of characters. I had to look it up later on the internet to see why they were there. Apparantly a mother had created it as a surprise for her son, who had just graduated from Law School. It was yet another sight that you just flew by and then wondered why you didn’t stop and take a better look.
Fort Louisbourg was our destination and again we were stunned to find nearly all accommodation full. Everyone kept saying that they were having a dead season, but we managed to turn up in these towns at the same time as the “Tall Ships”. This was the fourth town that we coincided our visit over the last three weeks. This time Rosie and Bruce had to actually visit them so that we could find out where they were going next, to make sure we weren’t going to be there.
We came to Fort Louisbourg to see the fort and we were not disappointed here. The Fort was fully restored as a means of providing work for the township when the mine closed. This meant restoring all the original buildings that were inside the fort and to restore the embattlements.
You now have a large number of towns folk walking around in period costume, going about the normal life style of this time period. It was really very good. We left Liam for a short time in the kids play area and when we returned Rosie didn’t even recognise him, she thought he was one of staff members. He also fooled alot of tourists as well as he helped their children to fire the guns and build the fort.
