Author: rvingwithapurpose

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Today began with a beautiful sunrise over the waters of the Bay of Fundy.  Wow, what a great way to start the day.  We were up early this morning because we were going on a whale watching adventure.  We ate our breakfast and took our Dramamine and put on warm clothes as encouraged by the tour group.  We of course were the first to arrive for check-in but we didn’t have far to go since we spent the night in the parking lot.  We were blessed with a gorgeous day.  We headed out of the harbor into the Bay of Fundy hoping we could get a few pictures of the whales.  We knew the whales were in the bay yesterday, but that is no guarantee that we would be able to find them today.  They are wild creatures in a wild environment.  We will not keep you guessing.  We were able to see and photograph SEVEN whales today.  There was a group of three unrelated whales, a mama and her baby, (really big baby, longer than BB) and two other single whales.  We also saw several groups of dolphin and several ocean sunfish.  We had never seen an ocean sunfish before  Interesting to watch but really not a very pretty fish.  They have two fins but no tail and swim on their side with one of the fins out of the water.  For those that might want to do this adventure, we used Brier Island Whale and Sea Bird Cruises.  They are one of two companies on the Island and were the first in the business.  They began in whale research and now use the tours to help fund continued research.  There were 2 naturalists on our trip, one teaching us about what we were seeing and doing and the other actually doing some research. All the staff were very helpful and we would recommend this group based on our experience.

After our tour, we scoped out some spots around the island to spend the night and drove about 3km out to another light house. After that we met up with the You Tube influencers, Owen and Lynn of VAN TREKKING Lifestyle.  We have followed their channel (one of our favorites) for several years but did not meet until this afternoon.  What a great afternoon we enjoyed with them.  We are boondocking for the night next door to them overlooking St. Mary’s Bay.  We are blessed to have two new friends that we will hopefully meet up with down the road.  We have similar travel styles and likes so… hopefully we will meet again.

It’s been another fantastic day on the Summer Road Trip.  Feeling very blessed tonight!

PS: After completing the blog we looked out and saw one of the prettiest moons we have ever seen.  Had to go back and add it to today’s blog.

Monday, July 31, 2023

This morning we left our campground home for the past four nights and resumed our road-tripping.  Leaving from Kentsville, we are driving counterclockwise around Nova Scotia island and as in the US, we are avoiding interstate type roads whenever possible and driving the more scenic, rural, routes.  First stop was at Margaretsville Lighthouse.  It was built in 1859.  The lighthouse was automated in 1963 and the Coast Guard still maintains the light to help fishing vessels and recreational boaters.  Just a short distance down the road at Port George is another lighthouse that we just sort of stumbled upon.  It was built in 1888 and was only 21 feet high.  The lighthouse is no longer in use and is maintained for historical purposes by a local group.  Next was the Hampton Lighthouse which was actually the one we set out to find today.  It is a white wooden pepper-shaker style tower, topped with a red roof.  This lighthouse is also maintained for historical purposes.

You never know what you will find when you are looking for lighthouses.  At the Hampton light, just down below the light, in the harbor, we found some lobstermen emptying their boat of many heavy lobster traps and various ropes and supplies.  There was some heavy duty work going on and they seemed in a hurry.  We learned that today was the end of lobster season so all traps had to be off the water by 6:00pm.  In the case of this boat, on the Bay of Fundy, there was less time to do the work because they had to get the boat emptied and repositioned to its slip before the tide was out so far their boat would be resting on the floor of the bay waiting for the tide to come back in. (after the 6pm deadline).  The men’s wives and children were there helping and all seemed to be in somewhat of a celebratory mood because the men would be back home rather than out on the boats.  It was fun to watch.

As we continued to loop around Nova Scotia, we headed out on a little spit from Digby called the Digby Neck.  The first ferry took us from Digby to Long Island.  Long Island is home to Balancing Rock.  We hiked out to the rock, read the sign boards, took some pictures and then drove on to another ferry for a longer ride from Long Island to Brier Island.  We were later than we planned arriving, so we haven’t explored the island yet but in the morning we will be boarding a boat for a whale watching trip.  Hopefully the whales will be active and we will get some great photos.

Sunday, July 30, 2023

Another pretty morning, a little cooler at 62 degrees when we woke up. Just about perfect.  We went to Melody’s church this morning, and everyone was very welcoming.  The sanctuary is full of rich wood and beautiful stain glass windows.  They had a newcomers and visitor luncheon after the service and we were invited.  We met so many people.  There were at least seven different nationalities present.  We had some great conversation.  After lunch we had to say our goodbyes to Melody, but it has been such a treat to be able to visit her here in Nova Scotia.  We will head on down the road tomorrow and she will leave for England later this week.  We did our walking in downtown again today.  This time we went back out to the sometimes waterfront harbor (sometimes the tide is way out and there is a mud flat.) and continued walking enjoying the views of the agriculture and dikes. The rest of the day was time for planning/resting/relaxing back at the RV park and catching up on paperwork.  It was another good day.

Saturday, July 29, 2023

What do Farmer’s Market, Laundry and Hike have in common?  That’s what we did today.  The Farmer’s Market in Wolfville opened at 8:30 this morning.  We were there early to assure we could find a place to park Beyond Blessed.  What a great market.  There were vendors with products of every kind.  The food options were amazing.  At least 3 bakeries with all kinds of fresh bread, pastries, breakfast items, sandwiches etc.  There were food and items from for sale from several nationalities. There was local farm produce of all kinds, as well as wine, liquor, beer, jewelry, lotions, potions, clothing, and even an author selling his books.  This was probably the best Saturday Market we have visited.  After seeing all the wonderful fresh baked bread we were very sorry we bought a loaf of bread at Walmart before we came to Wolfville.  We were told that these markets are standard for most communities across the maritime provinces.  We will be looking for another of these wherever we happen to be next Saturday. After leaving the market, we walked a few blocks to the quaint downtown area of Wolfville and around the harbor.  Nice morning walk-about.

Since we couldn’t stall any longer, we headed to the Maytag Coin Laundry in Kentville – the closest laundromat with decent ratings.  It wasn’t that great of a laundry but we got our clothes clean and that chore was done for another two weeks.  Cost $15.00 Canadian for 3 loads, wash and dry. While waiting on the clothes to finish, we studied the map for things we might do for the rest of the day.

We decided to visit Blomidon Provincial Park in Canning, NS, about 30 minutes from our campground.  It is known for it’s hiking and for views over the world’s highest tides. (Bay of Fundy)  Blomidon has 600ft high cliffs overlooking the huge mud flats at low tide as well as about 9 miles of hiking trails.  We hiked about 5 miles of the trails today in about 2.5 hours but we stopped and talked to people along the way.  It was a nice hike and a nice park.  It was another very nice day with perfect temperatures and sunshine in Nova Scotia.