From Summerside, PEI to Newfoundland

(Dave apologizes that he is unable to make this blog. He prefers to write the Newfoundland one.... we'll see)

It’s been awhile since we last told you guys what we’ve been up to. Last told, I believe, was that we had just spent some time in Prince Edward Island and were heading to Nova Scotia. Since then we have travelled for 6 nights in Nova Scotia, and two nights in Newfoundland.  You may have seen hints of what we’ve been up to from the last post with just pictures.

We arrived in Nova Scotia on Thursday May the 26^th. We drove from Summerside, PEI to Lyon’s Brook, Nova Scotia. Lyon’s Brook is just outside of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. The drive took about five hours, and it was a great. The scenery, like all of the Atlantic Provinces, was stunning. Surprisingly though, I find Nova Scotia to be a bit different than New Brunswick. We drove through a lot of small villages when we were first driving in.

We stayed one night in Lyon’s Brook at a family owned campground. We were lucky enough to have a great spot.

Our beautiful site

Dave making a fire.

The Trans-Canada Trail.

The small trail through the forest that connects the campground to the trail.

The Trans-Canada trail was connected to the campground too.The night we arrived, we took advantage of the trail and did a nice walk along it. Some farms backed on to the trail and we got to see some horses and cows up close. We watched some cows for awhile that were three metres away, they would eat grass and then occasionally stare up at us, it was really neat. I unfortunately didn’t bring my camera then so wasn’t able to get any pictures of the cows. On the way back, we saw a big porcupine lumbering along the trail, we scared it and it raised its quills and ran, well, attempted to run back into the forest.

The next morning we did a nice jog along it, and it was great. The weather was warm, sun was shining and we really enjoyed it. After the jog, we packed up our stuff and headed off to Halifax.

The drive took just a couple of hours, if that, and we ended up with another nice campsite, this one a KOA. The campsite was actually in Upper Sackville, which is a 30 minute drive to Halifax. We stayed at that campsite for four nights, so we had a few days to spend in the area.

Our site in Halifax.

The stream that flowed beside our campground.

Halifax has a great downtown with a lot of neat shops. The harbour front was also very nice. Unfortunately we went there on the Sunday evening, so not everything was open, but we had some coffees and looked at the boats along the harbour.

We also spent our time there checking out the neighbouring towns going to the Natural History Museum, the Citadel, Peggy’s Cove, and more.

We left Halifax on Tuesday morning, and headed up to Cape Breton Island. This was another beautiful drive, but the scenery was different. Cape Breton is definitely a beautiful place. We ended up in another KOA campsite near North Sydney. The campsite was inside an old quarry, but now the bottom was filled with grass. It was a great site, and it was neat to wake up beside a large wall of rock.

This is the bridge that was outside of the campsite. Pretty neat.

Our first full day there we spent at the Louisbourg Fortress. It was fantastic! For anyone who doesn't know what Louisbourg is, it was a French fortress built in the early 1700s on Cape Breton Island. It is now a National Historic Site in Canada. The fortress is about an hours drive from where we were staying near North Sydney. We got there at 11:00 bought our tickets and took the shuttle bus down to the site. There was not only the fortress itself, but also homes, bakeries, gardens, soldier's barracks, and so much more, and all of it rebuilt to their period customs.

This is what happens when we try to take a photo.

They have rebuilt a large part of the fortress, as only little remained after the British destroyed the fortress in 1760. The really cool part of the fortress is that it is very interactive. The people that work there are all dressed up and play the characters. They literally talked to us as if we were visitors in their homes, in the year 1744. All the people who played this characters were very informative, and they answered all the questions Dave and I threw at them. It was very, very impressive. We spent an entire day there and were able to see two cannon firings and a musket firing. Oh! The sweetest part would have to be that there was an active archaeological dig going on. We were able to talk to the archaeologists, and they showed us where that day, they had found the old drainage pipe that they used to bring their water and waste to the water. They had a pit, and we could see it. They also showed us what they had found that day, and there were a few metal pieces that could've been part of a lock, and pieces of a smoking pipe. Very, very cool.

So we stayed in North Sydney for two nights. Our last night there, after our full day at Louisbourg, we had our first night of thunderstorms. We woke up a lot through the night, it was a pretty big storm. But we still woke up in a dry tent, no harm done. It was neat the next morning though because water was coming down the quarry walls.

We are now in Newfoundland. We took the night ferry on Thursday evening (which is a whole other story). We still want to spend more time in Cape Breton but we are no longer going up to Labrador, for two reasons. 1: we left something of considerable value at the campsite in Halifax and have to go back and get it. 2: We were told that it may not be possible to get from Labrador to Ontario, through Northern Quebec. Supposedly the only road that connects is a "trucker's road" and very hard to drive on. People who tried to travel along it last year had to turn back because of fear of damaging the car. A very large portion of the road is very unpaved. So after our stay in North Sydney, we took the night ferry here, and then we are staying here for a week or two, then heading back on the ferry and seeing the rest of the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton, than heading back to Halifax, then out west from there. We'll be covering ground we have already done, but there was still so much we didn't see, and we won't be spending as much time in the areas we've already been to.

So, the night ferry. We were supposed to be at the terminal no later than 9:30 pm, and the ferry was supposed to take off between 10:30-10:45 pm. We arrived there earlier, around 6:30, because we had nothing to do. So we got there and read, called our parents, and wasted some time. Around 9:30 we decided to just go read in our car, waiting for them to announce the loading of vehicles on to the ferry. Around 10:00, they announced that the boat had come in late and docking would not start until 1 am! and that's just docking, not leaving the port. So we wasted even more time. Around 12:40 they started to load vehicles on to the ferry. Luckily, our line of cars was the first on. So we got in, parked our car on the lowest part of the ferry and found a place in the common area. The ferry was actually very fancy inside. The common floor had a bistro, a restaurant and a large area for people to sleep, with many tvs available to watch by plugging in earphones in the seats, like airplanes. The chairs were comfy, but they did not recline too much.  The ferry didn't end up leaving the port until 3:45 am. We didn't get the greatest sleep, as the chairs  are not too comfortable to sleep in. Also, the room is filled with others. Some of them were talking very loud (like the three men in the room who were talking very loud, with rough newfie accents, not a word could be deciphered), then there were the moans and groans and snores of people sleeping.

Foggy morning.

Docking in Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland

The ferry we took

We finally arrived in Newfoundland at 12:30pm. Since we were the first ones at the last time, we were last off, as the car was parked on the lowest level. Taking the ferry was definitely a neat experience, but when we take it back, we're taking the day one. It will also be neat to be on the water in the sunlight too.

So we've been here for a couple days now. We've been here at Gros Morne National Park. We are staying in the campground, right in the heart of it. There is so much wildlife! Wow, its amazing! We've only been here a couple of days and we've seen moose, black fox with babies, we had just missed seeing a caribou yesterday while we did a hike on to a mountain. Today we did a hike along the coast, and a bald eagle flew right beside us, dived down and fought with a crow. Just awesome!

Dave is planning on writing the Newfoundland post. There is going to be so much to write. We've been here two days and have already seen so many things. I never knew Newfoundland was so mountainous. 

Here is a hint:

Me, standing in front of our campsite, mountains in the distance.

Love and miss you alll!!!