Sept 25

It’s surprising what you learn when you travel.   Resilience, flexibility, tolerance, amongst other vital qualities.  The early explorers and settlers are never far from my mind on this trip, and these are the characteristics that determined their ability to wrestle a life out of this hard land.  Living so close to the land and sea, with little insulation, has given me a new respect for the hardy folk who came before.  They had much less – no camper, propane, money, 12 volt batteries, refrigeration.  When it was dark and cold, imagine their fears, and their nightmares.  How hard would it have been to face winter’s onset with little in the larder and less in the fields?

Today we visited Port Royal, Samuel de Champlain’s earliest settlement in the New World, where French fur traders formed the first social club in the New World in 1604, The Order of Good Cheer.  A tiny, wooden square of buildings on the edge of the wilderness, the far boundary of the known universe.  They must have laid in a good supply of rum to keep the winter nights at bay. 

We on the other hand have sustained our spirits with excellent local wine, and stocked our larder with the riches of the fields – intoxicatingly fragrant strawberries, oozingly pungent cheeses, beer, bread, potatoes, corn, and lobsters.  Now on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, we’re clearly back in civilization as we had passed two coffee roasters before 11 am and tasted half a dozen lovely wines by noon today! 

Camping has become a delight with all the summer crowds dispersed and the weather still sunny and warm.  We took some local advice and found a treasure at the end of a dirt road on the south shore, below Lunenberg.  Not the Spanish gold of Oak Island, but a deserted rocky headland with a local restaurant, local music, and great peach pie!  Simply sublime to wander through the dark to find Steve Chapin playing Cole Porter next to our campsite. 

Tonight we are alone perched on a grassy slope above the Bay of Fundy watching the tide mount the precipitous rocks below at a relentless pace.  At the boat basin down the road the fish boats are sitting just like in photos – on the bottom!  In this Photo Shop age, who really expects to see such a cliché?    But here, with 35 foot tides twice daily, life has its ups and downs. 

The days are noticeably shorter, the nights are cold, and winter can’t be far off, but for now we will enjoy each day as it comes.  This timeless travel is deeply satisfying, and the troubles of the real world seem like a distant universe.

Sept 19

Was it only last week I was gloating about the summer weather?  Well my karma has come back to bite me as the aftermath of Hurricane Maria has brought fall in a big way.  (Or as the woman in Summerside said, describing where the market was, 'The intersection of Summer and Winter.')  The days are lovely, tho noticably shorter, but the nights have become pretty chilly!  We woke to 7 C this morning, and that was inside!  I had bought a nice fleecy blanket, but had to give it to Buddy last night and we slept under all the other layers. 

Mutiny is highly likely here, as Norbert has decreed that no clothes shall be worn under the covers.  It's icy getting into bed, and it's really nasty getting up to pee at night!   I'm thinking he could sleep with Buddy, and I'll wear what I like on the sofa!.  But we did buy a little ceramic electric heater today, so instead of using our noisy and unpredictable propane heater I'm hoping we'll have steady warmth now if we plug in at night.  Now that may not always be easy as we're running into campsites closed for the season, but at least it's better than perpetually frozen buns. 

But aside from the domestic strife, the days continue to be delightful.  Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Applicious, another Fall Flavours event held in a 300 acre orchard.  We feasted on mussels, corn, pie (with cheddar a la PEI), oysters, and more apples.  There was a pie eating, pie baking, oyster shucking, oyster eating, and funny hat contest, as well as several local musicians.  Great day out, and came home just stuffed!  Today found the Canadian Wind Energy Institute, with it's 47 giant wind turbines.  Really amazing and exciting.  We're actually camped on the shore beneath one of them, all alone for miles along a red sand beach. 

Tomorrow we're going in search of  the lobster boats coming in with their catch.  Hope to find a few offloaded into our kitchen too!   

Sept 16

Dateline Charlottetown.  Just a quick message to say we are safely out of the track of Hurricane Maria.  Plenty of rain and some wind overnight here, but the storm track is east of Nova Scotia, heading straight for the Avalon Peninsula on the east coast of Nfld.  All the news here is in a panic as this looks like a repeat of Igor, one year ago, which devastated much of the east coast of Nfld.  All we expect in PEI is a somewhat stormy day. 

We've been lounging in a king size bed all morning, watching the news and munching on our breakfast in bed.  We opted for a hotel for 2 night so we could be right in downtown and walk to our dinner dates.  We've been eating our way through the Seafood Festival, more today!  Had a most interesting talk on the sex life of lobsters yesterday, as well as some great oyster tastings, and wonderful fall flavours menu with wine pairings.  Luxury!

Off to walk the woof with an umbrella, then a date with some oyster shuckers.  Tata!

Sept 13

Sometimes it amuses me to imagine that all our readers get some pleasure or joy or amusement out of our adventures.  And sometimes I just know our posting will generate groans of envy!

We're sitting on a grassy campsite overlooking Cavendish Beach in PEI, watching the sunset.  We've just come back from our second swim of the day, and Norbert has cracked a beer while he makes the burgers.  Our bikes are dusty and leaning against the picnic table where we dropped them earlier on the way back from the Cows ice cream store.  Buddy's lying in the sun, eyeing the resident red fox next door, who in turn is keeping a close eye on us while he chows down on a mouse.  Life is tough!

We've been in PEI for 5 days, and enjoying every bit of it.  And every bite - in fact the lobster sandwiches were so good at lunch yesterday that we pedalled back in the evening for more!  We have dinner reservations for the next 3 nights in Charlottetown - it's the Fall Seafood Festival, so restaurants all have a tasting menu on special.  Great beaches, lovely people, and no crowds now that it's September.  We cycled a stretch of the Trans Canada Trail and met only 4 other cyclists.  (That could have been because someone else read the weather forcast that predicted rain and wind which materialized right on cue, 20 km from home!)

I'll add some photos, which don't do the red cliffs and towering dunes justice, and then I think the burgers should be just coming off the grill! 
Miss you all, and wish you were here with us!

Sept. 8

I'm sitting in the camper finishing my morning latte, listening to the patter of rain on the roof, as I open my computer for the day's news, weather and blog.  It's surprisingly relaxing hearing the rhythmic rat-a-tat on the aluminum roof, especially when we're snugged up warm and cozy in bed at night. 

We've had a magical few days in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  Like all of our fabulous parks,  it's beautiful, wild, rugged, and scenic.  Since it's after Labour Day, it's also been quiet and almost deserted which is especially nice after some of the noisy campsites we've seen lately.  We hiked the highest trail in the park, above Keltic Lodge, to a windswept rocky outcrop overlooking the Atlantic.  It was the most strenuous hike I've done yet, but worth the effort to be rewarded with the awesome view and the scarily blustery winds.  At the end of the day we were rewarded with a swim in the surf, an unexpected treat.

Yesterday we did some more hiking, saw seals, gannets, eagles, lots of chipmunks for Buddy, then set off to find a waterfall said to funnel right onto a sandy beach.  Hot and sweaty, we hiked down a lovely curved beach, and to our delight, there it was!  We sank into deep brown peet stained pools of fresh water, splashed under towering falls, while watching the birds splash in the surf below us.  What a treat!

The weather has been weirdly unpredictable - sunny and humid days, then rain showers, and two days ago a huge storm.  We had decided to camp at a tiny campground right on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, and through the evening the rain and wind escalated.  By dusk we couldn't even see the cliff edge beyond the windows, but we could hear the surf pounding below us.   The young couple in a tent moved into the lee of the shelter building, and the other campervan abandoned ship and drove away.  We decided the wisest move was to drink, so we opened a bottle of champagne.  We had bought lobsters for dinner, so in the midst of thundering rain and wind we cracked and picked our way through a most delighful dinner.  Somehow the exotic meal made us feel secure in the buffeting, swaying storm, and we slept soundly.  (I don't suppose the champagne had anything to do with our state of relaxation.)  We woke to sunshine, glittering surf, and another fine day. 

Last night we stopped near the tiny town of Mabou, 'home of the Rankin sisters', so we could eat at the Red Shoe Pub.  Great little place with live music, seafood chowder, and local brew.  I must say a huge improvement over the Glenora distillery up the road.  They produce Canada's only single malt whiskey, which we thought was overpriced, overdistilled, and overly snooty.  I'll stick with Laphroig thanks.

Today we leave Cape Breton, and if the tides and winds conspire, and the ferry is running, we'll be in PEI tonight.  We're hoping to do some biking on some of the 250 km of Trans Canada Trail  there, so we'll need some good weather.  Today is starting wet, so a good day for driving.  Anyway, what will be will be.  We'll take the good with the bad, and enjoy each day as it comes.

Sept 4

Time seems to pass so quickly on this trip.  Days go by and I realize I haven't said anything for a week.  But we're busy! 

In fact, after leaving St. John's we had a long drive back across Newfoundland to the Port aux Basques ferry, so several long days.  And admittedly, internet coverage has been spotty at best.  Not so bad as my cell phone which has only worked for 3 days in Nfld - most annoying.  But other than that, we've had a great time on the rock. 

Fabulous food - we've eaten moose, caribou, lobster, and fantastic desserts like bakeapple cheesecake and partridge berry pie.  Decent coffee has been harder to find though, and on more than a few grocery stores we've had to resort to Kraft cheeses and Post cereals - challenging.  Scenery - spectacular.  People - delightful.  But they have some idiosyncrasies.  They are really lousy campers (or good ones, I suppose, depending on your point of view).  They go out for a week with all the bells and whistles, set up platforms for dining, all manner of barbeques, dangling strings of cute lanterns, at least 4 tents per site, kids' ride-on toys, blow-up toys, noisy toys, and generators to power it all.  And they stay up all night partying, I think because they've invested so much effort in making camp!  We won't be sorry to leave that behind.

The history on the east coast has been the most surprising to me.  Cabot landed in Bonavista in 1497, St John's was a thriving port in 1550, the French had a sophisticated city enclosed by 2 miles of fortifications at Louisbourg in 1744.  Not forgetting that the Norse had already come and gone some 500 years before all that, and three successive first nations occupied much of the coast over the past 8000 years.  All this long before Cook arrived on the west coast to find a sparsely occupied virgin land.  It's astonishing how much older everything here is.

We're sad to have finished our visit to Newfoundland, but there's so much more to see.  We've arrived in Cape Breton, and will have a few days to do some hiking in the National Park before moving on to PEI.  If today is any indication we're in for lovely end of summer weather - it was 26 C today, and plenty warm enough for a swim at the wonderful long sandy beach at Ingonish.  Every day we swim I expect it will be the last for the summer, but so far it's only been improving.  Let's hope that continues for a while. 
Tata for now my lovelies.