RVing With a Purpose

Friday, August 4, 2023

We woke up sometime during the night hearing the sound of a fog horn.  It was sounding every fifteen seconds.  It sounded far away, wasn’t very loud and we just went back to sleep.  When we got up this morning it was still very foggy so we took the time to cook a good breakfast and do a little maintenance on the van.  Then we walked out to the beach once more.  When we returned, there was a rainbow in the fog over our van.  Wow, what a special blessing from our Lord.

We sadly left our great little boondocking spot, wishing we could just stay a few more days.  However, we do have to return to the US in early September so, we need to keep moving.  There are just so many beautiful places to visit.  We continued our counterclockwise travel around the island.  This morning we drove through some of the area of the forest fires earlier this year.  As we drove we began discussing things we have seen, etc.  Today we talked about the churches we were seeing.  Many beautiful churches.  This surprised us because on previous trips to Canada, we have sometimes had difficulty finding a church to visit on Sunday, having to drive a much longer distance than we are accustomed to driving in the southern US.  This trip to the Maritime provinces, we have seen many Baptist churches, some Catholic, some Anglican, some Lutheran and almost no methodist. The Baptist churches have been all types of Baptist.  We were expecting more Catholic churches because of the early French, Catholic settlements.  However, then we remembered the information we received at Grand Pré, and that the French Catholic settlers would not take an oath of loyalty to the King.  So, the British brought what they called “Foreign Protestants” to this area and displaced the Acadians in the “great upheaval”.  The British also brought the “Foreign Protestants” to Merligueche and changed the name to Lunenburg in honor of George II.  This explains at least partially why there are many more protestant churches in the Maritimes. We visited Lunenburg today.  It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. “UNESCO considers Lunenburg the best example of planned British colonial settlement in North America, as it retains its original layout and appearance of the 1800s including local wooden architecture.”  Lunenburg is a cute little town with many colorful buildings.  We really enjoyed the harbor area however, most of the town is simply little shops filled with tourist buying T-shirts and trinkets or restaurants.  They do however have good ice cream served in freshly made waffle cones.

After Lunenburg we continued to Mahone Bay.  It is another quaint little town on the bay and we have a boondocking spot tonight right on the shore.  Lots of sail boats here. Very pretty setting.  The vibe here is more local village feeling and definitely not as touristy although there are tourists here.  Hoping for another quiet, peaceful sleep. Thanks for hanging out with us.

Thursday, August 3, 2023

We had a quiet, peaceful night right on the shore and this morning we headed back to Cape Forchu to visit the lighthouse again.  Anne cooked breakfast (oatmeal with cranberries and blueberries) in the parking lot while we were waiting for them to open.  We were the only ones there for the first tour so we had it to ourselves. We were able to climb to the top.  Such pretty scenery.  From Cape Forchu we resumed our counter-clockwise travel around the island taking the scenic route that hugs the ocean. It was a beautiful drive.

We unknowingly arrived in the little town of Shag Harbor.  We began to see various signs noting UFO’s and then drove by a bright yellow building with a sign saying “Shag Harbour Incident Society UFO Interpretative Centre”.  Google tells us it’s all about an incident you might remember (we didn’t) that occurred on October 4, 1967 and is reported to be Canada’s most famous UFO Case.  It’s still a big deal for the little community.  There is a UFO XPO in September.  Tickets for the two day event are only $250.00 if you would like to attend.  Sorry, but we can’t make it this year.

Moving right along, we continued our oceanside drive.  Our destination was Hawk Beach.  When we arrived in the area we first drove out to Hawk point.  In an attempt to find the white sand beaches, we ended up at a little park with a pond and all these cute little pirate ships floating around.  We had noticed several pirate displays/yard decorations as we were entering the community.  Seems we arrived just in time for Hawk Dayze.  Some of the locals told us it’s a local festival.  There will be different things going on all weekend and it began yesterday with the launching of the little handmade boats.

We found our beach.  We’ve had two long walks in the sand.  We are sitting here listening to the waves break on the shore as we prepare the blog.  It’s a great destination for the night.  But…it’s not about the destination, but the journey.  It’s been a fun, and interesting day.

Tuesday, August 2, 2023

We said goodbye to our friends Owen, Lynn and Maggie this morning as they were headed out clockwise around Nova Scotia.  We are going counterclockwise around the island.  We had a little work to do today before we left but were in line for our first ferry at 10:05.

We only drove about 107 miles down to Yarmouth, NS.  The Cape Forchu Lighthouse is probably the best lighthouse we have visited.  The grounds and gardens all around the lighthouse and the trail are so very pretty.  They don’t allow overnight parking or we would have just stayed there for tonight.  We didn’t get to go up into the lighthouse today but might do that tomorrow.  Anne has a knee that is bothering her so we are trying to be careful.  While at Cape Forchu we saw another white Beyond pull in the parking lot.  We met the sweetest couple from New Brunswick and we shared van life experiences.  They are new Christians and just this afternoon stopped at an antique store and purchased a beautiful 18^th century Bible.  They were so excited to show us their new treasure.  They also gave us some hints on what to do when we go to PEI and if we return through New Brunswick gave us some hints for there as well.  It’s so much fun to make new friends as we travel.

After leaving Cape Forchu we stopped at a cute little park on the shore of Yarmouth and just happened to arrive just in time to see the CAT ferry coming into port in Yarmouth.  That is one nice looking ferry.  It runs between Bar Harbor and Yarmouth, is a little pricey but depending on when and what route we decide to take back to the US, we could take that ferry.  It was another great, beautiful, sunny day.

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.