The New Land of the Scots

The last post left with us disembarking from the ferry into Nova Scotia.  View from the ferry.

About to pull free from the ferry

And this was waiting for us in the Nova Scotia terminal.  I would love to know what the actress playing April O'Niel is up to now.

Nova Scotia's license plates proudly proclaim it as 'Canada's Ocean Playground'; they aren't lying. The coastline dominates much of your view while you're in the province, and even when it's out of view you can smell the sea salt in the air. After our arrival last week, we made the short drive over to CaribouProvincial park we were going to camp at that evening. We pulled up to a group of camp workers sitting around a table, hopped out of the car to ask for a spot, and heard, “The camp doesn't open until this weekend....” Woof. [Seriously, Canada, why doesn't your tourism season start until July? I'm used to camping in Wisconsin as soon as the snow melts!] We began inquiring about other campsites in the area, when another of the workers came jogging up to us and said, “You guys can spend the night here, free of charge. I don't want you worrying about trying to find a campsite this late in the day.” [Ed: It was 2:45] After doing the polite dance back and forth for a minute, [Are you sure we can stay? We don't want to be a problem! “of course you can! It's really not an issue!”] we wandered through an empty park and picked the best spot in the lot. We realized later that evening that the wildlife also didn't expect the park to be open, as we saw two deer walk right past our spot, and heard an owl just overhead that evening.

We meandered into town to stock up with groceries again. Sobey's is the national grocery store chain of Canada, heavily endorsed by Jamie Oliver [crème fraiche!!!!!], and the place we stocked up on groceries. Most of them have an adjunct liquor store. Canada has some wonky alcohol laws, and it appears that every alcohol shop is run by the Province [PEI Liquor! NS Liquor!] but all alcohol is sold there, not like New York where beer can be in stores but not wine and spirits. Time again to reiterate just how ridiculously expensive it is in Canada. Even the crap beers are $20+ per 12-pack. Wine is never cheaper than $10/bottle [and is usually $15+], and liquor... Sweet baby jesus the liquor. Bacardi 1.5L is almost $50. Almost double what it is in America. I said screw it and bought cheap Canadian whiskey, and I'm going to drink it neat to slow down my damn consumption of it. Can we get to Argentina for dollar bottles of Malbec already??

Next we moseyed over to the Tim Horton's to leech their free wifi. I've still yet to step foot inside of one, but have happily borrowed their internet numerous times. While we were going through our bevy of super important Facebook updates and feed reading, a car pulled up next to us, a gentlemen stepped out, and then stepped up to our window and knocked. I initially thought we were going to get a tongue-lashing for being ungrateful bums [not untrue] but instead we were asked if we were indeed from Wisconsin. Turns out none other than the Mayorof Pictou himself, Joe, had pulled up next to us and made our acquaintance. Turns out Mayor Joe had been in Appleton before, and was a cheesehead fan himself. [Good man] Joe asked where we were staying, and we told him the provincial park. A look of confusion passed over his face briefly, as he said, “But...that park isn't open until Friday.” and I clarified for him that the very nice staff over there had graciously let us spend the night anyway. Mayor Joe gave us some pins celebrating Pictou and we bid him farewell. Nova Scotia was going out of its way to make sure our first 24 hours there would be a good one.

The crest of Pictou! Thanks Mayor Joe!

We packed up early the next morning and had a long drive across much of the island. We went south west to Thomas Raddall provincial park. The park here was also almost empty, but it was open. 

Let's take another second to appreciate how kickass Nova Scotia's flag is [inverted colors from Scotland]

After setting up, we made our way down to the coast, and had the entire beach to ourselves. The water had noticeably warmed up since we were in Maine, in the sense that after about 5-7 minutes your feet numbed to the pain instead on continuing to throb in pain. Despite the temperature not being very warm, you can feel the strength of the sun, so an afternoon reading on a beach by ourselves was an afternoon well spent. Playing counterbalance to such a nice afternoon was a realization back in camp that we are still woefully unprepared for the veracity of the mosquitoes in rural Canada. We decked ourselves out in our permetherin-laced gear, put on bug spray, but still that wasn't enough for us to survive the onslaught.

Caving in, we broke out the mosquito net, and had to quickly accept that our 10'x10' wasn't quite as big as initially we thought. We huddled beneath it, watching Despicable Me [Thanks Marybeth!] while Bethany still ended up getting eaten alive. We cashed out the next morning, and fled the bug free Shubie Campground in Halifax.  [I have to give a shout out to Two Girls &A Grill, a little roadside shop selling deliciousness to famished travelers. We ordered the fish & chips and a strawberry milkshake, and they were both done to perfection.]

Halifax is the hub of Nova Scotia and made for a fun urban couple of days.  Alexander Keith's brewery, home of the first IPA beer, sits down by the wharf and has an exceptional brew tour, with actors and a couple of tastings.  Their IPA is a lot less hoppy than American ones [or more stomachable some would say], and they had a microbrew 'Galaxy' ale that was lights out. [The first beer Bethany has ever liked!] 

Not pictured: Sobriety.

There is also a large citidel that overlooks the harbor open for the public to walk around:

Cape Breton is a popular tourist destination for Canadians [and others]. It was settled by French Acadians in the 1600's, and while many were forcibly removed by the British after they seized control of French Canada [resettling in New Orleans, to become Cajuns], this section of Nova Scotia proudly retains its French roots. Because of the heritage, we noticed many of the signs made the switch to having French first, and several road signs were only in French. On top of that, it is visually stunning. We [smartly] made the decision to stay at the base of the mountain, near the area that has internet and isn't torn to shreds by wind.

We say that, but the wind was still strong enough to dry out our tent in about 5 minutes

Sunday we ventured out into the park proper, heading towards a hiking trailed called the 'Skyline' trail. We had no idea this is what we were in for:

Pausing to snap a picture, we noticed the wind was much stronger here out by the coast. Bethany was buffeted pretty strongly as she tried to take this picture:

What a sexy vehicle

and when she came back to the vehicle, she opened the door, a gust of wind hit, and there was a flash in front of my eyes as several of our receipts flew out my window and out over the sea.

The Skyline trail told us to be on the watch for bears, coyotes, and moose. We saw two bunnies and a slug. We made our way out to the last bluff, several people we passed on the way warning us that it was very windy. 

This yellow heather only grows on the bluffs in Nova Scotia and totally can take the high winds! Better than me!

We got to the boardwalk that heads down the bluff, and saw a sign that explained why the winds are so strong here [coastal winds hitting winds coming over the mountains], but what was more pertinent to us was the graphic that showed where we were, and showed a wind arrow with '130 kph' on it. Wait wut? We made our way out onto the bluff: 'hey, this isn't so bad!' I thought to myself as we made our way out along it. Then I realized it was because we still had a windbreak from some trees. The full force hit shortly thereafter, and great googly moogly. We felt like the poor saps cable news puts out in a hurricane. Leaning into the wind, trying to make our way down the rail-less boardwalk, hoping a gust doesn't pick one of us up and toss us over the side of the cliff. We made it about halfway down and called it good. Sitting there with our feet against ledges to buffer us against the gusts, you could see where the wind collided with the sea, forcibly pressing itself into it and causing great semi-circle ripples where it pushed its way out away from the cliffs. You could follow the concentric circles back into their origin points, where the column of air must just be slamming into the water, but of course we couldn't see the culprit of all this chaos.

Pictured: 70mph gusts.  Not pictured: wind

We took the long loop of the trail to head back, hoping to catch some wildlife. Instead, we got rain driven into us in 30 mph winds, on the open top of the mountain where no trees grew. The trek back, mainly in silence, allowed me to contemplate how batshit insane it would be to be responsible for building / maintaining the trails, the road, any of the parks amenities. I also can't imagine what it'd be like to be here in winter. Or, to be one of the brave families that settled and lived in 'Fisher's Cove' for over a century:

[I was fairly disappointed that we didn't see a single moose during our 6 mile hike, but Cape Breton does not disappoint. On our drive back to camp we saw a mother moose and a baby moose (or “moose-ette” as Ike called it) along the side of the rode. Massive! I thought it was a statue when I first saw it out of the corner of my eye. I would hate to see what would be left of Sweetcakes should we ever run into a moose – so here's to that never happening!]

Monday morning, we broke camp early and made our way to the ferry, and with it, onwards to Newfoundland!