First up, I spent a couple of days in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After the palavah at Immigration and a strange almost-jet-lag, I decided to be a lazy bugger and spent most of my first day lounging around the hostel, emerging just for an hour or two in the morning. That was just long enough to locate the nearest Tim Hortons and revisit my love of what is essentially a Starbucks/MacDonalds type fast food place. I don't know what it is about Tim's, but I'm still in love with it nearly a decade after I first visited Canada.
Ahem. Moving on. In the afternoon, I accidentally ended up organising a mini road trip with one of my room mates. Bearing in mind I hadn't even been in the country 24 hours and my social skills are... limited... this is pretty impressive. Woo for this.
Due to the sudden change of plans - I had originally intended on spending nearly a week in Halifax - I spent my second day with my new road trip buddy trying to see a couple of city highlights. We started off with the Citadel, which is a big fort us Brits built to keep the French and the local Mi'kmaq people out.
Apparently it was never attacked, so I'm assuming it worked as a deterrent. Pretty interesting place, with the slightly kitschy bonus of having all the guides costumed as soldiers.
That's the guys who fired the noon gun, which they still do every day at the Citadel.
For added relevance, given the date, the Army Museum at the Citadel is home to one of the poppies that filled the moat at the Tower of London.
It's the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme, by the way.
We then decided to head down the waterfront and catch a ferry across to Dartmouth on the other side of the bay. The view of Halifax was nice. Dartmouth... not so much. We came back pretty quick.
No left turn...
Next morning the road trip began. Just as my road trip buddy, Shula, got the hang of Canadian roads with the help of another guy from the hostel. She's fine now, but I had a couple of squeaky moments the first day or two! Damn every other country and their insistence on driving on the wrong side of the road.
From Halifax, we took a leisurely drive up to Digby, a tiny little place on the Bay of Fundy. Lovely hostel - very social, which meant we spent most of that evening chatting with the other guests and then went out for ice cream at gone 10pm. Amazing ice cream was had, although my stomach began to regret it later in the night. Meh.
English... French... Acadian... uh...
We had hoped to go whale watching on the Monday, but were told that there was only one trip going from our chosen company that day and we didn't have time to get there from Digby. So instead we went for a drive around the area, starting at the beautiful Bear River.
There's lots of artists around here and a whole host of little galleries and shops. I picked up some art print cards and then grabbed a delicious iced tea and brownie at a cafe down the road. So much yum. And yes, the Canadians are so far conforming to the stereotype of being super friendly.
From Bear River we headed up the road to Annapolis Royal, the original capital of Nova Scotia, where we had a wander along the bay front in the blazing sun, I got a bit more sunburnt and we checked out the tidal power station. I quite like renewables (as should you all!), so I thought this was fascinating.
The Bay of Fundy famously has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world (average spring tide is 14.5 metres), so a tidal plant here seems sensible. Water passes through the causeway as the tide comes in and is collected in a head pond on the landward side. When the tide starts going out again, they let the water back out of the head pond, passing through turbines on the way. Ta-dah. Electricity.
Science bit done.
Then we had to do some shopping and got some free salmon skewers because they were about to go out of day. Thanks, supermarket man. Would've been better if we hadn't then nearly charcoaled them and set off all the smoke alarms in the hostel...
Zoe 3 - 1 Whales
Our final day in Digby dawned a bit grey. I phoned the whale watch people and was warned that the chances of seeing whales wasn't great because it was very windy on the bay and they wouldn't be taking the boat out very far. We decided to head down anyway, because if the boat did go out, we'd have a chance of seeing something even if it wasn't whales.
So we piled mine and Shula's bags into the car, making sure we had enough space for Renee from the hostel to hop in with us, and headed on down Digby Neck to the tiny village of Westport. This involved taking 2 little ro-ro ferries, which only cost $7 for each trip, plus you only pay westbound.
On arrival in Westport we were again warned that whale-spotting chances were slim and that now even getting out on the water was a diminishing possibility because so many people had dropped out. We decided to stick with it though and after grabbing a refreshing cuppa, trooped onto the boat.
For nearly two hours we stared out into the bay, willing a whale to appear. I even considered trying Dory's whale-speak on them. Renee spotted a seal and then we saw some puffins.
And then Renee, with her super eagle eyes, spotted a whale. Just for a second. I'd say probably a minke going by the size and shape, but I only got a brief look and by this point, the skipper had got word of whales elsewhere and we didn't stop.
For a while I was disappointed that we hadn't stopped to see what sort of whale Renee had seen. Such disappointment quickly vanished when we caught up with the other whales.
Each of those little plumes is the blow of a fin whale. I counted either 4 or 5 altogether. At first, that's all we saw and then, much to everyone's delight, we saw the whales.
That is the only fairly clear image I have of the whales (there's one towards the bottom left of the image), but we got plenty of time to see them. They swam just ahead of the boat and we very carefully followed them at a distance. For the next 15 minutes or so they kept popping back up. I'm sure we would have stayed out longer, but fog was rolling in and as we turned for port Brier Island had completely vanished into the fog bank. Kind of worrying when it's Brier Island we were heading for.
Suffice to say, we did make it safely back to port, still buzzing from our whale encounter. Westport was very pretty in the fog as well.
Unfortunately, we just missed the ferry back across, so we had an hour to grab some food before heading back to Digby. Delicious and reasonably priced burger and chips was scoffed in the car as we waited on the wharf for the ferry to reappear out of the fog.
After that, it was a super foggy drive back to Digby to drop Renee off and then Shula and I had to begin the epic long drive to Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. Because of the slightly-longer-than-expected whale watching trip and the missed ferry, we were setting off nearly an hour later than I would have liked. Fortunately, because we had to drop Renee, I had time to use the phone at the previous hostel and give the next one a ring to warn them we were going to be late. Very late. Horribly late.
The drive was uneventful. We finally rolled into Charlottetown after 1am, having stopped just a couple of times for gas and a massive cup of tea from Tim Hortons for me.
And then I slept like a log.
Kitsch-central
First day on PEI we had a wander round Charlottetown, which is quite pretty and also has a cafe that sells amazing Island Strawberry Green Tea. It is delicous and went very well with the blueberry scone which wasn't really a scone - the Canadians seem to have a funny idea as to what counts as a scone. This was not a scone.
After our morning wander, we headed up to the north coast to Cavendish. This was the birthplace of the author LM Montgomery, who wrote Anne of Green Gables. To my surprise, Green Gables actually exists, although the way it is presented now is to match with the books, not as Montgomery knew it. It was a farm just near to the one she grew up on and inspired much of her writing, as did the beautiful landscape around Cavendish.
This is the point at which I admit I haven't read Anne of Green Gables, but the sites were fascinating nonetheless. All that remains of her childhood home is the cellar.
Whereas Green Gables has been preserved and decorated to match the descriptions in the books. I can only presume there must be a mention of this insane wallpaper in there, because it seemed very out of place in such a plain house.
Beautiful clear sea.
And a lovely view of the dunes.
Pretty nice afternoon, but with some time still to spare, we headed across the narrow eastern end of the island to the little town of Souris and its quaint lighthouse.
Didn't stick around long, but there's some good views to be had from that there lighthouse. And then back to the hostel, where I made the most disgusting looking hoisin stir fry ever. Tasted all right though.
This morning, we have driven from Charlottetown to Campbellton, New Brunswick. Along the way we've stopped to admire the pretty coast of PEI.
Grabbed an ice cream at Borden-Carleton, just before the massive Confederation Bridge to the mainland.
Stopped at Tim Hortons in Miramichi, had to back track because the road was closed for no apparent reason and then picked up a hitchhiker just outside Campbellton who proceeded to tell us all about his family history and the Battle of Hastings. And took us across the river into Quebec where confusingly all the signs are in French only.
Oh, and I must mention that I'm staying in a lighthouse. A LIGHTHOUSE. Yeah. This trip is pretty awesome.
Tonight there's going to be fireworks because it's Canada Day and then tomorrow is our last day with the car. Final day of exploring New Brunswick before I leave Shula and head off to Quebec City for a few days.
Attack of the midges
Our final full day on PEI began with rain, which fortunately cleared to gorgeous blue skies by the time we set off towards the north east of the island to the little Greenwich peninsula. This is part of the Prince Edward Island National Park and very pretty. Rolling sand dunes, forests, grassland and this floating boardwalk over the pond.
Beautiful clear sea.
And a lovely view of the dunes.
Pretty nice afternoon, but with some time still to spare, we headed across the narrow eastern end of the island to the little town of Souris and its quaint lighthouse.
Didn't stick around long, but there's some good views to be had from that there lighthouse. And then back to the hostel, where I made the most disgusting looking hoisin stir fry ever. Tasted all right though.
This morning, we have driven from Charlottetown to Campbellton, New Brunswick. Along the way we've stopped to admire the pretty coast of PEI.
Grabbed an ice cream at Borden-Carleton, just before the massive Confederation Bridge to the mainland.
Stopped at Tim Hortons in Miramichi, had to back track because the road was closed for no apparent reason and then picked up a hitchhiker just outside Campbellton who proceeded to tell us all about his family history and the Battle of Hastings. And took us across the river into Quebec where confusingly all the signs are in French only.
Oh, and I must mention that I'm staying in a lighthouse. A LIGHTHOUSE. Yeah. This trip is pretty awesome.
Tonight there's going to be fireworks because it's Canada Day and then tomorrow is our last day with the car. Final day of exploring New Brunswick before I leave Shula and head off to Quebec City for a few days.
Happy Canada Day, folks.
Sounds like fun even if there is a lit of mentions about food lol
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