RVing With a Purpose

Monday, August 7, 2023

Woke up to off and on rain this morning.  We are watching the weather a little more closely since a friend sent us information from Meteologix Canada indicating there is a possibility of a hurricane affecting the Canadian Maritimes around August 15.  This information was a surprise to us, but you know we will now watch things closely.  If need be, will cut our trip short or find a place to hunker down if needed.  It is still very early but we do appreciate the heads up.

This morning after another “see you down the road” to Lynn, Owen and Maggie we went on another hike we had skipped when here last, Egypt Falls.  It’s not a very long hike and is listed a moderate on All Trails but it’s a pretty tough hike.  It’s just pretty much all down hill from the start and therefore all uphill on the return.  There are several places where there are ropes to use to keep you from sliding down the hill or help you get back up.  We needed the ropes a few times.  It was also a little muddy and slippery today. However, the payoff was tremendous.  This is now our favorite water fall in Cape Breton, and probably of this trip.

After completing the hike we headed to a laundromat to dry our clothes that were drenched yesterday.  We hung them in the shower last night with a fan but…still wet this morning.  They were dry in 20 minutes at the laundry mat and then we went back into the National Park.  We went back to the Skyline Trail because another thing on our to-do list is to hike to the point at sunset.  We left the parking lot at about 7:00 to hike out to the point on the Skyline trail. Sunset was not until 8:26 but it’s about 1.7 miles out to the point and we didn’t know how crowded it would be.  There were people there waiting for sunset but not really as many as we expected.  It was windy and the closer to sunset it got, the colder it got.  Unfortunately, it also started misting rain.  Never really rained hard, but we were glad for our raincoats and they were quite damp by the time we got back to BB.  It was not a magnificent sunset but it was a good one.  We like our pictures and are glad we made the effort.  So now after a short drive, we are at another Ioverlander spot in Pleasant Bay.  There are several other vans here and we can listen to the surf beating against the shore all night.  It was another great day.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

We had a quiet night in the Truro WalMart parking lot last night.  There were at least 13 other RVs in the parking lot when we woke up this morning.  First, we headed back toward the Fundy Discovery Center that we tried to visit yesterday but wouldn’t drive through the water to get there.  Today there was no water over the road in the area we could see but the road was now barricaded and there certainly could have still be water further on down the road.

We decided to drive on to Cape Breton.  It was so hot when we were here two weeks ago that we skipped some hikes we had on our to do list.  Today we decided to hike to Uisge Ban Falls (pronounced OOSH-KA-ban, ISH-KA-ban, or Eeesh-kah-ban) and is Gaelic for “white water”.  Cape Breton has very strong Irish and Scottish roots.  The hike is rated moderate on All Trails and that is probably about right.  Currently the road into the Provincial Park is closed due to a washed out bridge so we had to walk down the road and over the closed bridge to get to the trail head. The first portion of the actual trail is easy with a nice gravel path to follow.  Closer to the falls there are rocks and boulders to climb over or around to get a good view of the falls.  You then arrive at a tall waterfall in a beautiful granite gorge that today had a lot of water flowing over it. It was a great hike with a really good payoff for the effort.  Our total hike was 2.8 miles.   However, about 2/3s of the way back to BB, it began to rain – really rain.  We were drenched.  Sure glad we had BB with all our clothes.

After changing into dry clothes we drove about 25 minutes to our Harvest Host site for the night.  It’s a brewery but they also have smash burgers and pizza.  Unfortunately, they were sold out of pizza and the food truck for the smash burgers was closed for the one night of the season.  Oh well, we had plenty of food in the freezer.  While we were eating supper, to our surprise our friends Owen and Lynn pulled into the parking lot.  We knew they were in Cape Breton but didn’t know where.  We had another good evening of visiting with them.  So much fun to meet up with friends on the road.  Hope you have all had a great weekend.

Saturday, August 5, 2023

We will begin the day with a correction.  On more than one occasion we have referred to Nova Scotia as an island.  A friend reminded us that it is not.  We knew that, but it just feels so much like an island.  Nova Scotia has a 7,500 km (4,660 mile) coastline but is connected to New Brunswick across the only 25 km (15.5 miles) wide Chignecto Isthmus. As you recall we drove to NS from New Brunswick.  So, even though it is not an island, the vast majority of NS is surrounded by water and it definitely feels like an island when you are sitting on the beach just chilling. More importantly, it is just an absolutely beautiful place that we are so glad we have visited.

Now on with what we did today.  We were on the road at 6:40 headed to the bakery to pick up sticky buns.  You will recall that we loved the sticky buns we got from the Wolfville market last Saturday. Max did a little research and determined the location of the bakery to be less than five minutes from Lunenburg, in Blockhouse, NS.  It’s a delightful French bakery, can’t pronounce the name but it’s Boulangerie La Vendeenne.  We visited the bakery yesterday but they were out of sticky buns.  They had made 100.  They said they would make more for today but that we needed to come early. They open at 7:00 so we were there before 7:00.  Oh, those buns are sooo very fine.

Our next stop was unexpected and sad.  On our way to Peggy’s Cove we saw a sign for the Swissair 111 crash sight.  We remembered a little about this commercial airline crash but had to look up the specifics.  It occurred Sept 2, 1998 on a flight from JFK to Geneva, Switzerland. The plan went down in the Atlantic Ocean not far from Peggy’s Cove, due to electrical and instrument failure due to an inflight fire causing spatial disorientation and loss of control of the plane. 227 lives were lost.  We stopped and walked up a little hill to the memorial.

Next stop Peggy’s Cove.  This is one of the places everyone told us we had to see.  It’s actually a very small village, population of 30 permanent residents.  They say they have everything to support daily life – a schoolhouse, church, general store, lobster cannery, and boats of all sizes.  They also have an iconic lighthouse that is pictured in post cards and tourist brochures for NS.  There were way more than 30 tourists taking pictures this morning even with the off and on rain.

After walking on the rocks and taking pictures, we were off to Halifax, the provincial capital.  Due to the flooding of two weeks ago, we had to make a couple of detours but soon we were in the traffic of Halifax.  So thankful we were here on Saturday because we know traffic would be much worse during the work week.  We wanted to go to the Halifax Seaport Farmer’s Market.  It is the oldest continuously operating farmers’ market in North America having been founded in 1750.  It was very crowded.  To be truthful, we were a little disappointed.  We expected it to be larger and with more diversity of vendors.  The market in Wolfville has been our favorite so far.  We remembered what a wise man once told us  “If you never go, you’ll never know.”  So we go.

After leaving Halifax, on our way to Truro, we stopped at the Stewiacke Tourist Information Center.  We had been told that they would allow us to fill our freshwater tank.  This was another interesting stop.  We got a lot more than water.  The owner greeted us and immediately gave us permission to fill with water.  We asked him about the “Mastodon Ridge” name.  He told us the story of the finding of mastodon bones in a gypsum quarry nearby.  He took us inside to see some of the mastodon bones on loan from the Halifax museum.

It was a very interesting day but we stopped early to avoid more storms and flooding.  Be sure to be praying for your pastors as they prepare for the Sunday messages – that they will speak what God wants them to speak and we all will have ears to hear.

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.