The Cabot Trail

Friday, July 19 – Day 31

We headed north out of “Baddeck Cabot Trail Campground” around 9:30 this morning, we took a lunch with us as we expected to be out approximately 5 or 6 hours.  The trail is a 300 Km. loop road in the northern part of Cape Breton Island and includes Cape Breton Island National Park.

Just after we got onto the trail we saw a bag piper at the Gaelic College, we’d like to think that he was piping us in, but realistically he was just practicing. He sounded pretty good.  As good as bag pipes can be.  The east side of the island has a lot of Scottish names that are unpronouncable to most humans.  The scenery along the coast is spectacular and we spent lots of time taking pictures at the scenic overlooks.

  As we were taking pictures at one overlook we came back to our truck to find this guy pecking at the rear window.  He was obviously fending off a rival that he saw in the reflection.  He kept this up for a good 10 minutes – totally oblivious to us and a number of other sight-seers, who were taking more pictures of him than of the scenery.  Even when I got into the back seat he didn’t want to give up the fight.  Crusty old bird!

We continued around the loop till we got to the cut-off to Meat Cove…don’t ask me how it got its name.  We took this road approximately 30 Km. the last 8 Km of which are gravel, up and down hills and valleys till we finally arrived at the most northerly community in Nova Scotia.  There are a few houses and a store that sells gifts and ice cream to the tourists.  There are a few hiking trails that lead off  from here and other than a stony beach there is little else.  I got my feet wet where the Gulf of St. Lawrence meets the Atlantic Ocean.

 

By this time it was already close to 3:45 and we were only 1/2 way around the loop.  The whole east side was waiting for us.  This side of the island has its own spectacular views as well.  To me this is a classic picture of the Cabot Trail, although normally I have seen it photographed in sunshine…sorry, not today!  A light rain had started shortly after we left Meat Cove and continued more or less until we got home.  The last few hours we gave little attention to scenery as we were anxious to get home.  As it was we did not arrive there until 7:30; 10 hours after we had left.  We will try to get back along this coast again before we depart the island.  This seems like a nice area with lots of tiny fishing villages and a distinctly French Acadian flavour.

  

Prince Edward Island–Anne of Green Gables & Cavendish

No trip to PEI would be complete without a visit to the Cavendish home of Anne of Green Gables and it’s author, Lucy Maud Montgomery (LMM).  Like the novel, the Green Gables National Historic Site is a work of fiction.  The building has been re-built and refurnished to the period while the barn is a total reproduction.  But don’t tell the bus-loads of tourists who flock there from around the world.  The tour of the Green Gables house was a shuffle-line from room to room, upstairs, downstairs and then out.  Having said that, the grounds do give you a feel for the setting of LMM’s “Anne of Green Gables” books. 

The best part of this side trip was a visit to the Cavendish Post Office where Canada Post has done a good job of telling about Lucy Maud Montgomery’s life here.  Apparently LMM’s family “the McNeill's” , were the postmasters there and LMM would work at the post office.  The post office “supplied” her with the necessary paper to write her novels and she was able to send the manuscripts to publishers at no cost!  She also explained that, had she not been able to do this she may never have had her works published and it saved her the embarrassment of having her many rejections public knowledge.  The post office also hand cancels post cards and letters here with a special LMM cancellation.

We went a little further down the highway to visit Prince Edward Island National Park.  It is located along the Gulf of St. Lawrence where I dipped my feet into the water.  The shoreline is quite steep in places and finding a sandy section of beach isn’t that easy.  The red sandstone cliffs that we saw coming over the Confederation Bridge extend around to this side of the island.

 

On our final day in Charlottetown we finally got to visit the Lieutenant Governor’s house. On the tour we actually got to go beyond the double grand staircase.  We were standing in the bedroom that, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, (that will be William and Kate to most of us) slept in during their tour in 2011.  Sorry no pictures were allowed on the second floor as it is a private area!

PEI–Orwell Historic Village–East Coast Scenic Drive

 

The Orwell Corner Historic Village is about 25 minutes east of Charlottetown on the way to the Wood Islands Ferry Terminal.  The village consists of mostly original buildings with a few reconstructions.  It captures the essence of rural village life in the mid-1800’s in PEI.  Once you pass through the gates of the visitors centre they do a pretty good job of blocking out 21st. Century technology.       The interpreters that we saw did not wear any watches nor did they have modern eye glasses that would spoil the setting.  The blacksmith was “sweating it out” by the forge making decorative hooks to be sold in the the visitors centre, while the women were giving demonstrations of the many useful articles for sale in the general store.

As it was a slow day, one of the farmers cornered us and proceeded to tell us about every piece of farming equipment that they had in the yard, most of which still operated.  When we were able to escape we went to the schoolhouse. The school held about 40 children from grades 1 to 10 in one room.  Some of the smaller children sat 3 to a desk.  I guess class size was not an issue with teachers at this time.

Afterwards we drove further along the coast to the Cape Bear lighthouse.  The lighthouse is still there and open for tours during the summer but the light has since be removed and replaced by an automatic light. Samuel, a grade 12 student from Montague, PEI gave us the tour of the station and described the former Marconi Wireless station that first received the distress call from the sinking Titanic.  (Cape Race, NL received the signal at the same time but was not a part of Canada then.)

 

 

Prince Edward Island appears so small on the maps of Canada but we were hard pressed to travel the perimeter of the island on the secondary roads that exist there.  We were wishing that we had the rental car back!

Another Rant - Good Service and Bad Service

Technorati Tags: vehicle,automobile,truck,car,repair,service,Halifax,Hammonds Plains,Winnipeg,GM,Birchwood

 

Friday, July 26 – Another post out of order!

Every time that I go to my GM Stealership in Winnipeg I feel that I’m going to Get It In the End.  Not in a pleasant way.  Before our trip, I had taken the truck into Birchwood GM with a braking issue…Every time I depressed the brake pedal the truck would start to brake but when I had slowed to about 10 km/h it would seem to go soft and braking power would diminish until I applied more pressure.  Anyway, when I returned at the end of the day to pick it up the Stealership reported this as a Non-issue and that it was working as it should…I swallowed that one.  Janet does not swallow anything…and she felt that we should get a second opinion.  So while we were in Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia.  Let me tell you about Hammonds Plains – It is a dot on the map just north of Halifax about 17 Km., where we are camped. They have a few service businesses there and one of them; (fortunately for us) is Hammonds Plains Service Centre .  I phoned them at 7:30 AM and told them I was from out of town and that my wife would divorce me if I didn’t have those @#$%^&* brakes fixed.  The service writer told me that they were fully booked, being a Friday, but she could squeeze me in at 9:00 AM.  I was in their shop by 8:50 and after waiting about 1/2 hour, Danny came out to talk to me…well actually he was not only the tech but he was also one of the owners!  No kidding, the owner actually came out to talk to me. ( At my Stealership, I couldn’t get an audience with a tech or the service manager if my life depended on it.)  Anyway, after test driving it – yes that’s right, they actually took it out to experience the problem, not just scan it -  he was pretty sure that it was a bad sensor on one of the front wheels.  He could order a new part and have it installed this afternoon – he told me the part would be about $250.  I told him that this was a very small price to save my marriage and to go ahead.  He told me he would call around 1:00 or 1:30 PM to advise if the part was in and that I should go back home and bring the truck back later.

Fast Forward 12:51 PM and I’m still eating my lunch.  Hello, yes the part is in and can you bring the truck in…Five minutes later I’m in the reception area.  About 3/4 hour later Danny is out front again with the new part in his hand explaining that he didn’t have to replace the the old part, he just cleaned it up, reinstalled it and checked the gap between the sensor and the rotor.  He had just returned from test driving it AGAIN! …I’m beginning to love this man!!  I told him that this was a long way to come to get my car and truck serviced and do they have a branch office in Winnipeg?…No such luck!  Final bill - $198.32 including a healthy 15% Harmonized Sales Tax for the boys downtown and in Ottawa.

So if you are anywhere near Halifax and need excellent auto service you should check out Hammonds Plains Service Centre .  All their techs are fully qualified and most have years of service experience behind them. They are passionate about training and customer service.

Post Script – Janet and I, are still happily,  amicably, married.

Prince Edward Island

Friday, July 12 to Thursday, July 18   -   Days 24 to 30

Charlottetown

We took the Confederation  Bridge to get to Prince Edward Island. (If you follow this link – also check out the “About” tab – neat design and construction stuff.) This is the longest bridge over ice covered water in the world at 13 kilometers.  An amazing structure that only took 4 years to complete including the approaches and toll plazas.  (The City of Winnipeg could learn some lessons from this massive project.)

In the truck we were able to see over the barricades – that’s a lot of water below us and we could see the red sandstone cliffs of PEI appearing in the distance.  There is no toll going over to PEI but there is a toll coming back – I suppose that is how they increase their population on the island.  And it’s true they grow potatoes on the Island: lots of them from what we could tell travelling towards Charlottetown.  The soil is a deep brick red colour and appears to be derived from those same red sandstone cliffs.

We settled into a Kampground of America (KOA), in Cornwall which is just outside Charlottetown.  Finally a good Wi-Fi connection!  We have been surprised that there is such poor connectivity in the east. This was our home base for exploration of the island.

Charlottetown prides itself on being the Birthplace of Canadian Confederation, although nothing was ever signed at the 1864 Charlottetown Conference and PEI didn’t even join confederation until 1873.  They joined Canada when their railroads needed to be bailed-out of financial difficulty. Their pride in joining confederation is shown in a number of venues around the city. The Confederation Centre of the Arts presents a free, outdoor, noon hour show, daily during July and August.  The show presents a story of Canada from the landing of the white man, to the building of the trans Canada Railroad – immortalized in Gordon Lightfoot’s, Canadian Railroad Trilogy and through to the multi-cultural Canada of today.                                               There are also people in period dress who do impromptu presentations on the street as well as leading guided tours through the downtown.   The other tribute to Confederation is a museum called Founders Hall. This is a multi-median presentation of confederation starting with the Charlottetown Conference of course and working through to the Canadian Centennial in 1967.

 

Lots of nice old buildings in the downtown area.  We went into St. Dunstan’s Basilica which is just down the street from Province House.  I’d never been in such an ornately decorated church in my life.  I can only imagine someplace in Europe that could surpass the beauty of this place.

Sea Caves, Covered Bridges and the Hopewell Rocks

Saturday, July 6 to Thursday, July 11 – Days 18 to 23

Penobsquis, Kings County , New Brunswick

The “tranny transplant” had been posted previously, so I won’t discuss that at length.  Just to get things into the proper chronology…The truck transmission “went south” for us on Saturday afternoon.  We spent the balance of Saturday and Sunday brooding about what we should do next.  We decided that on the following Monday, July 8 we would rent a car and do some touring while we waited for the truck to get fixed.  We rented a Kia Sportage, which was cheap at only $35 dollars a day – no mileage charges.  It was fairly roomy and easy to get in and out of.  The only complaint that I had was the steering tended to be a bit “twitchy” for me.

  We travelled to the tiny, coastal, fishing village of St. Martin via Fundy National Park.  We didn’t spend lots of time in the park but it looks like a great place for hikers.  We had tried to time our trip so that it coincided with low tide that afternoon but it turned out that we were a couple of hours early before we could get into the sea caves.  We decided to catch a couple of covered bridges located on the edge of town.  Kings County has the most covered bridges of any place in Canada and over the course of the few days that we were here we saw six of them.  The reason that they built covered bridges was to protect to wooden beams and bridge decking. They proved most popular though as romantic hide-aways.

We then proceeded to the Fundy Trail, it is a hiking, biking, driving trail that follows the shoreline of the Bay of Fundy.  It starts just east of St. Martin and runs for about 11 Km one way.  We stopped at most of the scenic lookouts into the bay and they were quite spectacular.

 

By the time we returned to St. Martin the tide had gone out and we were able to walk to the sea caves. Really quite neat. The picture on the left shows one of the caves when we arrived – the picture on the right shows the same cave at low tide with people walking on the beach at its mouth.

 

The Hopewell Rocks is one of the prime attractions on the Bay of Fundy.  Again to really appreciate them you should try to see them at both high and low tides. We were fortunate enough to have the time to do this. In fact they sell tickets that are good for two consecutive days. There are two highs and two lows in 24 hours and 52 minutes – the difference between a high & a low is about 6 hours and 13 minutes. You can walk on the ocean floor 3 hours before and 3 hours after the low tide.  These formations are called the “Flower Pots”.  At left you can see people walking around and through the arches; on the left you could paddle through on a kayak – as many people sign-up to do.

 

The Fundy tides are the highest in the world due to the shape of the bay, which becomes shallower and narrower the further up the bay you go.  The volume of water that rushes into the bay twice a day is approximately 100 cubic Kilometers. I suppose for Maritimers this is just an everyday occurrence but for this couple from the prairies it is absolutely amazing.

Saint John–Last Day

Friday, July 5 – Day 17

Another day, another museum.  This time it was the New Brunswick Museum. It is located in the uptown area, in the converted Market Square, near the docks.  Lots of outdoor restaurants, bars and cafes here, catering to the young crowd that works in the area.

At the entrance to the museum is a tall column of water that is powered by the Fundy tides. The Column is in the centre of the staircase and rises over 30 feet high. The column is marked at at different levels and the current level coincides with the current tide experienced in the bay.   When we were there we noticed that the tide was definitely rising in the tubes.

They have done a particularly good job telling the history of whales and whaling.  A large part of their information/knowledge came from a beached Right Whale, a few years ago.  Unfortunately, Delilah the whale died, but they found out later that her calf was adopted by a pod and survived.

 

There was also a good exhibition of New Brunswick industry which included ship building and forestry, farming and mining.  The shipbuilding exhibition was very effective; showing how the keel was laid and then how it was built up from there. It demonstrated how the ship was fitted out with masts, rigging and sails and how it was finally ready for launch.

The CAA Tour Book had listed the museum as a gem and usually we agree with their assessments. Janet and I, were expecting so much more from this museum but it just didn’t seem to get us excited.

Small World Story - On our way back to Hardings Point Campground we stopped by a Cox Communication store to see if we could get a cheap “burner” cell phone.  We explained that we were from Manitoba and what we were hoping to get.  It turns out that she used to live in Winnipeg and went to Westwood collegiate.  She lived in the Heritage Park area so a great number of her friends went to Sturgeon Heights Collegiate. (Our boys went to Silver Heights Collegiate, the school that merged with Sturgeon Creek Collegiate to form Sturgeon Heights). She was a few years younger than Kevin and David so wouldn’t know any mutual people – It just seems strange that we would choose that store and that sales associate.  Anyway, we didn’t purchase the burner phone as it would only be effective in New Brunswick as each province seems to have their own provider – not like the USA where there are national networks such as Sprint and Verizon.