The wind started howling early in the evening and continued into the next day. It looked like a strong storm was rolling in but it never rained.
From the tidal chart we could tell that the Fundy Tidal Bore event wouldn't happened until about 2 p.m. We decided to head for South Maitland and the Tidal Bore Interpretive Centre and just look around until then. Again, the GPS couldn't find the address nor the name given in the brochure. Again, because of poor signage, we probably went about 20 miles out of our way before we got onto the correct route to the place. And what a rough, narrow, messed up paved potholes road it was for about 50 miles and the wind was still howling and pushing the RV back and forth. When we arrived, the sign was bland and gave a different name for the place! One day soon, we're going to figure out how to trick the GPS into giving us the correct directions for where we are trying go to without it taking us back into the US or in the opposite direction.
A tidal bore event is when the incoming tide pushes the outgoing river back up the river bed, usually can only be seen where the river is in a narrow channel. Today we noticed a thin, small crest of water coming up the river; as it continued up river, the water level started to rise and continued to rise for about twenty minutes. Several rafts full of people raced along with the crest and stopped under the bridge before heading back down river to the staging area. We saw signs posted warning of coyote activity in the area with instructions on how to avoid an attack. We left a little while later and found a campsite for the night outside Aylesford.
1 June 2010
Today was spent going to Annapolis Royal and trying to locate Fort Royal Habitation 1605 somewhere in the area. After getting directions from two different people about the location of the visitors' centre and getting two different locations, we finally found out that it is called Fort-Royal and Melanson Settlement and are on the same road but two separate places with a third part called Fort Anne in town. We walked around the Melanson Settlement reading the plaques then continued down the road apiece to the fort.
This is similar to the Jamestown Settlement in that it is a complete reconstruction made from records.
Then we decided to drive down Digby Neck to watch for whales (as advertised in the brochures).
We arrived several hours before high tide, said to be the time they travel through this area, and parked beside the car ferry from East Ferry to Tiverton on Long Island. The ferry
went back and forth, mostly carrying pickup trucks, for about two hours as the fog slowly crept in, hiding the small lighthouse on Long Island. High tide was to be around 4 p.m. but we didn't see any whales or seals, just gulls, the ferry boat, and some fishing boats in the harbor.
We returned to Digby to find the Fundy Restaurant to have a seafood dinner...parking on the main thoroughfare where it is located was too tight for our RV so we went to the restaurant recommended by the woman at the visitors' centre. After a great meal and a very friendly waitress, we returned to the visitors' center to park for the night.
June 2, 2010
We found Peggy's Cove just before Halifax and took the detour to view this famous village and lighthouse.
This place was very rocky and I mean boulders every where with almost no grass, narrow winding street, steep hills, to the lighthouse and restaurant & gift shop. After about an hour we continued on to Halifax.
The less said about our attempts to find parking in Halifax....the better. And getting out of town was awful...signage here is terrible and you never know when the route numbers are going to change! We ended up spending the night at the Atlantic Super Store parking lot along with two tour buses, a tractor trailer and another RV, when we took a wrong turn off the 'freeway' and ended up going back the way we had come because we couldn't read the signage in the dark. Even though the signs were lighted, the part where the route numbers were at the top of the sign was in shadow making them hard to see clearly.
The next morning, we traveled up Rt 7/107 and then Rt 211 to the ferry dock (which was closed) not realizing that was the only way to continue onto Rt 316. We had to backtrack about 20 miles and return to Rt 7 to Melrose, using Rt 348 to Country Harbour Cross Roads to get to Rt 316. Still heading east, we took a right onto Rt 16 to Canso to get a campsite. Canso has a sign at the only road in or out saying it was established in 1604! It's clearly a fishing village. Our campsite was on the dockside. The roads getting here were horrible; we think worse than the Alaska Hwy ever was!
We noticed a strange sign while on the 100 series controlled access highways around here: a sign would say “No turn at the intersection” which usually turned out to be a gravel road, sometimes a paved one, which cut across the road.
June 3, 2010
From Canson we traveled up into the Cape Breton highlands stopping in Cheticamp just west of the national park. We had been taking our time getting that far, stopping often just to take advantage of the overlooks along the route. Our first stop was at the Visitors' Center which was closed. Directly behind the building was an arena with a huge parking lot so we spent the night there.
June 4, 2010
Today was spent traveling the Cabot Trail, the highway that loops around the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. This route features many overlooks and grades as steep as 13 percent. We stopped often and I took lots of photos. Near the eastern most point of the park, we saw several patches of snow in the ditch along side the road. We kept seeing signs for whale watching cruises but exited the park realizing we hadn't seen any of the businesses! The one we did see was closed until June 19th.
