August 18th:  Greetings from Cape Breton!  We crossed over on the Canso Causeway about 5:30, and are settled into the Walmart RV park at Port Hawkesbury.  We had a very rough and bumpy drive along the southern coast of Nova Scotia - the roads are terrible, even though it is marked on the maps as a scenic route!  Pounded the heck out of the motor home.  But we enjoyed the scenery and just went slow.  Will move on to Baddeck in the morning for several days.

Now, to catch up.  Tuesday, August 15th:  Up and on the road in the Jeep to Old Town Lunenburg, a UNESCO heritage site and an old fishing and ship building town.  Took the scenic route along the coast and drove through lots off scenic small towns.  Mahone Bay is a very pretty (but very "upscale" town that has really capitalized on the tourism industry - lots of beautifully restored old buildings. Loved the name of one of the restaurants!

Lunenburg itself was packed to the gills (pun intended) with tourists, which is NOT our cup of tea, but we did find a beautiful old Anglican (related to Episcopalian!) church there - the 2nd oldest organized church in Canada, founded in the early 1700's.   It is a classic example of "carpenter gothic", with the architectural features all made of wood instead of stone and masonry.  It suffered a tragic fire the late 80's/early 90's and was almost completely destroyed.  However, as it was a National Heritage Site, there were very complete records about the construction, tons of documentation and pictures, etc., and they were able to rebuild the church!  There are, fortunately, a number of very talented woodworkers in Old Lunenberg, and you would never know the building is not hundreds of years old!  We had a nice visit with two young ladies who gave us a tour of the sanctuary - sure wish we would have been able to attend a worship service on a Sunday.  Altar guild members - be thankful we don't have a solid brass eagle/lectern - they have a man that comes in and polishes it, and it takes him a solid week to do it!  He does it every 3 months!

For those of you who are Tom Selleck fans of his Jesse Stone movies, the other highlight of our day was finding Jesse Stone's house, which is located on Stonehurst Cove just outside of Lunenberg.  We found it on our Google map and drove right to it - down a little old road literally carved out of and through the many large rocks in the area, to the very end of the road, and there was the bridge and the red house!  Had a nice visit with two ladies who are teachers from Ontario who summer in another house on the little island where the house is, and they took a picture for us!

Grabbed a bite to eat at the "Fish Shack" but were disappointed.  Glennis had poutine, which was just OK, and Mike had steamer clams, which had not been cleaned properly and were sandy.  But his beer was good, so he was happy.  And the "beeper" to let us know our meal was ready was a kick!

 

Back in the Jeep and back to Indian Harbor, with a stop at a wonderful bakery in Mahone Bay for some amazing ginger/molasses cookies.  

Made a quick side-trip to see Oak Island, of "Curse of Oak Island" fame.  Got there after the visitor center had closed, but took a picture of the causeway so we could say we were there!

Ice cream for dinner, another beautiful sunset,  a little reading, and to bed.

Wednesday, August 16th:  Lazy morning, a little house cleaning, then a trip to the SS Atlantic museum on Terrence Bay, a few kilometers east of Peggy's Cove.  It was a wonderful little provincial museum telling the story of a terrible shipwreck near there in the late 1800's.  Over 580 people lost there lives when a ship bound for New York from Ireland misidentified a lighthouse and crashed into the rocks at full speed.  All of the women and children on board perished except for one little three year old boy, as they were in the portion of the ship that sank first.   The priest at the local church organized rescue parties and the fishermen from all over the area responded to help rescue the survivors.  Unfortunately, the wreck was in winter and all of the boats had been stored away for the winter season.  The heroic efforts of the fishermen and local residents saved many lives that otherwise would have been lost, but this was the largest loss of life in a Canadian maritime accident until the sinking of the Titanic.  Many of the victims are buried in mass graves at the Protestant and Catholic cemeteries located nearby.  Such a sad story.

We stopped in Peggy's Cove on the way back to our campsite to grab pictures of the cove and the lighthouse.  The rocks around the lighthouse were literally CRAWLING with people - they looked like little black ants all over everywhere.  

We took pictures at the lighthouse, and headed back to the motorhome for another outstanding sunset, hot dogs, couscous salad, and AMAZING S'mores made from the ginger cookies, giant marshmallows and chocolate.  Wow - we were comatose from a sugar high after that one!

We were so fortunate to get a spot right on the beach when we arrived at King Neptune's Campground in Indian Harbor - the view is incredible!

Thursday, August 17th.  Lazy morning, got things organized to head for Cape Breton tomorrow, then were going to go to Peggy's Cove for some clam chowder for lunch.  When we got there, you couldn't even hardly drive into the place there were so many people, and definitely nowhere to park, so we just turned around and left.  Yikes!  Glad we got to enjoy it when it wasn't so crowded.  We went on down the road to West Dover to a wonderful little restaurant called Shaw's Landing.   We ate outside on the deck, overlooking a pretty little harbor.  We each had a cup of chowder (the size of a bowl) and we shared a toasted cheese/lobster sandwich made with home-made bread.  It was a totally delicious lunch!  The chowder was cream-based, loaded with scallops, lobster and chunks of cod, and the sandwich was just right - not too cheesy and lots of lobster.  We would definitely go there again!

After lunch we went back to the motor home and collected Baxter, then headed to a parking area just east of Peggy's Cove for a hike out through the boulder fields.  There are huge boulders and little lakes scattered all through the area, left-overs from the receding glaciers.  Hiked to the top of a hill with a great view of the surrounding area, then back to the Jeep.  Grabbed a view more pictures in the area, then back to camp and got read to leave in the morning.  

We had planned on another of our molasses/ginger cookie S'mores, but Baxter had other ideas and ate all the cookies while we were having lunch!  (Glennis's bad for not putting them out of reach when we left).  Oh well, we substituted ice cream instead.

Friday, August 18th:  Up early, back to Peggy's Cove to get pictures of an amazing mural carved in granite that we couldn't get to on Wednesday or Thursday as there were too many people.  Much better at 7 AM! 

Baxter's tummy wasn't too excited about all the cookies he ate, so good we were in an out-of-the-way place and able to get things cleaned up good.   Out of the campground by 8:30 and headed for Cape Breton (see the start of this day). Got to take a funky little ferry across Isaac's Harbor - only held us, a Class C motorhome, and 2 cars!  We decided if it we sank it was women and dog's first, with Mike out the window last! 

Stopped in Guysborough at Rare Bird Alehouse for late lunch/early dinner (excellent fish and chips and beer!).   As previously noted, horrible roads, but good scenery.   After we settled in at Walmart RV park, grabbed a few groceries, and settled in for the night.  On to Baddeck tomorrow! 

Mike and Glennis

Things we learned:

• Little ferries and big motorhomes are a bit scary
• Roads less traveled make for interesting adventures
• Drivers here are REALLY scary -they just pull over and park on the roadway when they want to stop and look or take pictures!
• Baxter likes ginger/molasses cookies - Bad Baxter, Bad!
• Cell service in Canada sucks!
• You know you've been in Canada too long when you start wanting to end each sentence with "eh?"