I woke early in the morning to crows cawing right outside the bedroom window and squirrels dropping nuts and scampering on the roof. We went to the main house for breakfast with the Doanes and then on a little trek with Jean to the back of their property to see their eagle nest and the 2 "babies". I say "babies" because they are about as big as the adults, they just aren't really flying yet. We shared Jean's binoculars and took turns watching the young'uns. They pretty much sat still and it wasn't until we'd been watching them for quite a while that we realized there were, in fact, two birds there. One had been mostly hidden by the tree trunk and it's sibling.
At 11:30 we headed for the Shubenacadie River Runners and our tidal bore ride. It was an incredible, awesome experience. Kind of like white-water rafting only the rafts had 60-horse motors and we could ride through the same rapids multiple times.
We started at the Blue House where we watched them load out the day before. We all got outfitted with PFDs and sunscreen...stowing anything we wanted to take with us so it wouldn't get wet. We were assured that we would get completely soaked at some point. I took my camera along in a ziplock baggie in the zippered pocket of my cargo shorts. I decided to forego the T-shirt since it would only get wet and I figured that bare skin/swimsuit would dry a lot faster and not be as chilly as a wet shirt. They had slickers we could have worn but I didn't think it would be that cold so I passed. I think everyone in our group passed on the slickers.
We were about 5 boats with 8 people plus the driver in each boat. Our driver was Nathan...a kid of about 18 (my guess). He really seemed to know his stuff about the river though. He's been doing it daily all summer long for the past couple years.
We all loaded up the boats and then motored out to the middle of the river to wait for the bore. The initial bore itself is...well... kind of boring. There is a visible water elevation change but if you're not paying attention, you could miss it. The really fun part of the ride was when the rising water would start making rapids form in the narrow parts of the river. Then we'd run through 8-foot waves in our little rubber boats with nothing to hang onto except a little rope that ran around the outside of the boat. No one from our group of boats fell out but I saw one guy from another outfitter on the wrong side of the rubber.
When the water would get high enough for the first set of rapids to fizzle, we'd motor up to the next, just-forming rapids and ride that one for a while. Altogether, I think we hit 3 or 4 series of rapids and rode through each one 4 or 5 times. On the final 1 or 2 we really got soaked. The rapids at Anthony's Nose were especially wild. On our first run through them, the boat was filled to the brim with water and a couple of us got washed off of our seats into the center of the boat by a huge wave. The boats were self-bailing so it emptied out again in pretty short order and we were ready for the next run through!
When we got to the rapids at Eagles Nest Point, Keenan and I started looking along the cliff side for the Doanes' property. We could just see the silhouette of our cabin through the trees. I wanted to take a picture but the rapids were wild and I didn't want to take my camera out of its baggie to snap a pic right then.
On the way back, we pulled into 5-Mile Creek so the boatmen could change props on the boats. They use power props for pushing against the rapids but for the trip back to dock, they use a speed prop. While we were in the creek, Nathan scooped up a big handful of the red gooey mud to show us the tiny mud-shrimp that live there. The shrimp are a major food source for a lot of birds...and so tiny.
When we got back to the Blue House, we showered. That was kind of an unusual experience. The washroom there (they apparently aren't "bathrooms" or "restrooms" in Canada... they're "washrooms") is unisex. Actually, most of the washrooms we've run across in convenience stores, restaurants, etc are unisex (and usually one-hole). It's no big deal...all the shower and toilet stalls here have privacy doors but it's just feels odd (for me, anyway) to be in a bathroom with both men and women.
After cleaning up and dry clothes, we went to eat. They grilled steaks for us and provided bread, pasta salad and hot drinks. We were famished after the ride and cool water/wind and sucked it all down. 3 and a half hours of rapids running, shower, and food all for about $70 CA is not a bad deal!
As we were heading to the car to leave, we paused to look at the river. This was the first time we'd seen it bank-full. There is a phenomenal amount of water that flows in and out of here twice every day. I still can't quite get my head around that idea...
Back at the Doanes' we told them about the ride and relaxed a bit until time to fix supper. Jean gave us both a copy of Melanie's latest CD (Adam's Rib, to be released in the US August 24) and one of Creighton's (maybe his only one...I'm not sure...gladly the cross eyed bear). Keenan and I played croquenolle (I have no idea how it's spelled...) with Chalmers. It's a game played on an octagonal playing board with wooden checker-like things. The board has a checker-sized hole in the middle, a ring of pins about halfway out and concentric rings drawn around the ring of pins out to the edge. It was a fun game to play. Again, we played Keenan and me against Chalmers and, of course, he pretty much skunked us. As I described it to my parents after we got back, "Nobody beats Chalmers at his own games and he doesn't play anybody else's." He spends his days honing these gaming skills (golf, tennis, pool, croquenolle, carpet bowls, etc) and no one who doesn't do the same stands any chance at all. He enjoys the mastery and the winning, not the competition.
After supper, Jean and I poured over various maps, planning the route that Keenan and I would take tomorrow to Prince Edward Island and then, eventually, to Cape Breton. Keenan and Chalmers played carpet bowls. I gave the Chalmers a copy of my quote collection with an inscription inside the front cover to them personally. I also need to remember to send Jean my bread pudding recipe...the one with the lemon sauce. Memo to self...
Jean also showed me a Canal Map that shows a route (mostly based off of original Indian routes) between Halifax Harbor and the Bay of Fundy. It's a hop-skip-jump sort of route using rivers, lakes, portages, etc to get between the two. It would be an interesting journey.
By 10:30, I was ready for bed again and Keenan/I headed for our cottage. We got ready for bed but it ended up being another hour or more by the time we finally got there. We got involved in a discussion about being single, family, relationships, etc and time just slipped away.
31 July 1999
30 July 1999
Shubenacadie & the tides
We had decided that we needed to be up at 7, to the airport by 8 and on the road by 9. Through some sort of mix up, we ended up rising at 6 and didn't realize we were an hour early until it was time to leave. We figured we'd just take the scenic route...
Got the rental car... We'd reserved a mid-size...Chevy Cavalier...and somehow ended up with a luxury-class, sporty, red Volvo...leather seats, electric everything...too, too chic! I also bought some Canadian money at the airport. Not the best exchange rate but I didn't have to go looking for a bank either. I gave them $120 US dollars and got back about $170 Canadian.
We hit the road in fog but had no trouble finding the way. We turned off of Hwy 102 at exit 10 and instead of heading to Maitland (to the left), we went right because we had lots of time to kill and hadn't had breakfast yet. We found a quaint little cafe in Shubenacadie where we could get bagel, eggs, bacon, juice, coffee, etc for both of us for barely $5 CA total.
We loaded us back into the car and headed for the Doane's at South Maitland.
We met them and got acquainted over tea/coffee and collected the packages that I had mailed ahead...the camp stove, (empty) fuel bottle and the tarp poles. Apparently, someone decided that duty needed to be paid on the items so we paid back the $10 that the Doanes had to pay to "ransom" my packages. Then Keenan and I got in Jean's car for a land tour of the tidal effect. We got on the little secondary highway in front of their house and headed north to bay coast. She took us to Burntcoat Head...a small park at the mouth of the bay off of the Bay of Fundy that eventually becomes the Shubenacadie river that runs along the Doanes' property. There is a lighthouse on the Head that is in the process of being reconstructed and turned into an interpretive center. We took the stairs up to the top, where the light would have been, to survey the whole area at low tide.
There was a treed "island" just off of the cliffs below the lighthouse. It reminded me of the island in "A Bug's Life" because, right now, there was a mud flat between the cliff and the island but at high tide, it was truly an island. Jean told us that the bay where we were is 20 Km wide and at low tide, it's all mud. At high tide, it's 20 Km of water between here and the far shore. That's a mind-boggling amount of water to image moving in and out twice a day!
We hiked out to the island...ok, "hiked" is too strong a word... But I was really glad that Jean had loaned us rubber knee boots because the term "mud" flats is all too accurate. The mud is very silty, very slick, and very thick in spots. It's also extremely dark and red...like tomato paste.
We walked all the way around the island. On the far side, we could tell the tide was starting to come in. At one point, I put my finger at the edge of the water with my hand/wrist/forearm straight above it. In less than a minute, my whole hand was covered with water.
We poked around in the little pools and puddles looking for critters. I expected them to be like tidal pools along the ocean, but it was very little like that. There were places where the rocks were covered with tiny barnacles, and in many of the pools we saw a lot of small hermit crabs but that was about the size of it. We didn't find any little shells that still had the original inhabitants in them, no little fish, no algae or seaweed, no crustaceans. There was some green, sort of slimy stuff growing on the rocks at the very bottom of the cliff but that was the only plant-type growth we really found in the mud-flat area. The top of the island was lush with green and trees and grass, though. It was a strange place.
We got back in the car and went back to the Doanes'. Jean took us to the top of the cliff by their cottage where we will be staying tonight. The cliff is about 200 feet tall and looks out over the Shubenacadie river across from Eagle's Nest Point.
We watched the river slowly start to flow the other direction (upstream) as the tidal bore pushed it's way toward us. There is a small riffle just upriver from the Doanes' that tells you when the bore has arrived because it begins to get quieter as the water deepens. The most amazing thing from this vantage point is that when the bore arrives, you can actually see the edge of the bore by the changing color of the water. As the tide comes in, it stirs up a lot of that red silt and the tidal water is very obviously more opaque than the fresh water coming downriver. Where the two meet, there is a very clear "edge" that shows the advancing tidal water.
Then the 4 of us got in Chalmers' van and we went to the bridge just outside of South Maitland to watch the main bore. We saw the Zodiac boats from the river runners coming upstream and plopped some stones off the bridge into the mud below. What a splat!! It gives a really good idea of what the consistency of the mud is like...sort of like pudding.
We got back in the van and headed for a smaller bridge over 5-Mile Creek. The "creek" was maybe a foot wide at the very center of the channel when we got there. A few minutes later, we could see the tidal bore just starting to come around a bend. I took a picture, then waited 10 minutes and took another picture. The water was about 10-15 feet wide at that point and still rising. If I'd waited another 15-20 minutes, I might have seen the creek banks filled but by then we were all starving so we went back to the Doanes' for lunch.
For dessert after lunch, Jean offered us a Nova Scotian delicacy that I developed a real fondness for...butter tarts!! They're sort of like pecan pie but without the pecans and just a few raisins or currants instead. Very rich, and very tasty!
After lunch, Keenan and I moved into the cottage and I think everyone but me took a nap. I wandered around the property, watched the Shubenacadie flow upstream at full tide, wandered past the tennis court to the far end of the golf course and found a stairway that went down the steep cliff to about where high tide comes to. The tide was on the way out and I sat there and watched the tide receding from a little side channel and the freshwater stream start flowing downhill again. I plopped some flinty stones into the muck and marveled again at the color, texture and consistency of the goo.
Later, after everyone rose from naps, Keenan and I played a round of golf with Chalmers on the 7-acre, 6-hole course he built behind his tennis court. Keenan had golfed some before so it wasn't completely foreign to him. I've never held a club before so I didn't expect to be any good. Chalmers is extremely competitive. He was gracious enough about instructions and being helpful and companiable but the important thing was the winning. Keenan and I didn't even bother to keep score, but Chalmers never lost track. I came to the conclusion that he doesn't enjoy competition (otherwise he wouldn't have been the least interested in playing with such rank amateurs as us), he enjoys the winning. It got to be a bit much by the end of the round. Thank goodness we had dinner reservations and didn't have time for a second round!
We went to Captain Douglas House in Maitland for supper. Maitland has a lot of beautiful, historic homes and Capt. Douglas House is one that has been made into a restaurant. The interior is beautifully furnished with period pieces and the staff are dressed in costume of the era. It's like being invited into someone's home for a very nice meal. The 4 of us really enjoyed the food...fish and bread and salads and beer and dessert. The bill came to $73 CA for all of us.
We returned to the Doanes' and Chalmers was eager to have us play pool with him. He has a "pool room" set up in the barn...a finished room outfitted with a table, some barstools and the necessary lights/cues/etc for shooting pool. We played me/Keenan against Chalmers. I didn't keep track, but I'm sure Chalmers won. He was still raring to go at 10:30 but I was whupped and really wanted to go to sleep. Keenan went back to the cottage with me and I sacked out immediately in the bedroom. I think he was up for a little while after that.
Got the rental car... We'd reserved a mid-size...Chevy Cavalier...and somehow ended up with a luxury-class, sporty, red Volvo...leather seats, electric everything...too, too chic! I also bought some Canadian money at the airport. Not the best exchange rate but I didn't have to go looking for a bank either. I gave them $120 US dollars and got back about $170 Canadian.
We hit the road in fog but had no trouble finding the way. We turned off of Hwy 102 at exit 10 and instead of heading to Maitland (to the left), we went right because we had lots of time to kill and hadn't had breakfast yet. We found a quaint little cafe in Shubenacadie where we could get bagel, eggs, bacon, juice, coffee, etc for both of us for barely $5 CA total.
We loaded us back into the car and headed for the Doane's at South Maitland.
We met them and got acquainted over tea/coffee and collected the packages that I had mailed ahead...the camp stove, (empty) fuel bottle and the tarp poles. Apparently, someone decided that duty needed to be paid on the items so we paid back the $10 that the Doanes had to pay to "ransom" my packages. Then Keenan and I got in Jean's car for a land tour of the tidal effect. We got on the little secondary highway in front of their house and headed north to bay coast. She took us to Burntcoat Head...a small park at the mouth of the bay off of the Bay of Fundy that eventually becomes the Shubenacadie river that runs along the Doanes' property. There is a lighthouse on the Head that is in the process of being reconstructed and turned into an interpretive center. We took the stairs up to the top, where the light would have been, to survey the whole area at low tide.
There was a treed "island" just off of the cliffs below the lighthouse. It reminded me of the island in "A Bug's Life" because, right now, there was a mud flat between the cliff and the island but at high tide, it was truly an island. Jean told us that the bay where we were is 20 Km wide and at low tide, it's all mud. At high tide, it's 20 Km of water between here and the far shore. That's a mind-boggling amount of water to image moving in and out twice a day!
We hiked out to the island...ok, "hiked" is too strong a word... But I was really glad that Jean had loaned us rubber knee boots because the term "mud" flats is all too accurate. The mud is very silty, very slick, and very thick in spots. It's also extremely dark and red...like tomato paste.
We walked all the way around the island. On the far side, we could tell the tide was starting to come in. At one point, I put my finger at the edge of the water with my hand/wrist/forearm straight above it. In less than a minute, my whole hand was covered with water.
We poked around in the little pools and puddles looking for critters. I expected them to be like tidal pools along the ocean, but it was very little like that. There were places where the rocks were covered with tiny barnacles, and in many of the pools we saw a lot of small hermit crabs but that was about the size of it. We didn't find any little shells that still had the original inhabitants in them, no little fish, no algae or seaweed, no crustaceans. There was some green, sort of slimy stuff growing on the rocks at the very bottom of the cliff but that was the only plant-type growth we really found in the mud-flat area. The top of the island was lush with green and trees and grass, though. It was a strange place.
We got back in the car and went back to the Doanes'. Jean took us to the top of the cliff by their cottage where we will be staying tonight. The cliff is about 200 feet tall and looks out over the Shubenacadie river across from Eagle's Nest Point.
We watched the river slowly start to flow the other direction (upstream) as the tidal bore pushed it's way toward us. There is a small riffle just upriver from the Doanes' that tells you when the bore has arrived because it begins to get quieter as the water deepens. The most amazing thing from this vantage point is that when the bore arrives, you can actually see the edge of the bore by the changing color of the water. As the tide comes in, it stirs up a lot of that red silt and the tidal water is very obviously more opaque than the fresh water coming downriver. Where the two meet, there is a very clear "edge" that shows the advancing tidal water.
Then the 4 of us got in Chalmers' van and we went to the bridge just outside of South Maitland to watch the main bore. We saw the Zodiac boats from the river runners coming upstream and plopped some stones off the bridge into the mud below. What a splat!! It gives a really good idea of what the consistency of the mud is like...sort of like pudding.
We got back in the van and headed for a smaller bridge over 5-Mile Creek. The "creek" was maybe a foot wide at the very center of the channel when we got there. A few minutes later, we could see the tidal bore just starting to come around a bend. I took a picture, then waited 10 minutes and took another picture. The water was about 10-15 feet wide at that point and still rising. If I'd waited another 15-20 minutes, I might have seen the creek banks filled but by then we were all starving so we went back to the Doanes' for lunch.
For dessert after lunch, Jean offered us a Nova Scotian delicacy that I developed a real fondness for...butter tarts!! They're sort of like pecan pie but without the pecans and just a few raisins or currants instead. Very rich, and very tasty!
After lunch, Keenan and I moved into the cottage and I think everyone but me took a nap. I wandered around the property, watched the Shubenacadie flow upstream at full tide, wandered past the tennis court to the far end of the golf course and found a stairway that went down the steep cliff to about where high tide comes to. The tide was on the way out and I sat there and watched the tide receding from a little side channel and the freshwater stream start flowing downhill again. I plopped some flinty stones into the muck and marveled again at the color, texture and consistency of the goo.
Later, after everyone rose from naps, Keenan and I played a round of golf with Chalmers on the 7-acre, 6-hole course he built behind his tennis court. Keenan had golfed some before so it wasn't completely foreign to him. I've never held a club before so I didn't expect to be any good. Chalmers is extremely competitive. He was gracious enough about instructions and being helpful and companiable but the important thing was the winning. Keenan and I didn't even bother to keep score, but Chalmers never lost track. I came to the conclusion that he doesn't enjoy competition (otherwise he wouldn't have been the least interested in playing with such rank amateurs as us), he enjoys the winning. It got to be a bit much by the end of the round. Thank goodness we had dinner reservations and didn't have time for a second round!
We went to Captain Douglas House in Maitland for supper. Maitland has a lot of beautiful, historic homes and Capt. Douglas House is one that has been made into a restaurant. The interior is beautifully furnished with period pieces and the staff are dressed in costume of the era. It's like being invited into someone's home for a very nice meal. The 4 of us really enjoyed the food...fish and bread and salads and beer and dessert. The bill came to $73 CA for all of us.
We returned to the Doanes' and Chalmers was eager to have us play pool with him. He has a "pool room" set up in the barn...a finished room outfitted with a table, some barstools and the necessary lights/cues/etc for shooting pool. We played me/Keenan against Chalmers. I didn't keep track, but I'm sure Chalmers won. He was still raring to go at 10:30 but I was whupped and really wanted to go to sleep. Keenan went back to the cottage with me and I sacked out immediately in the bedroom. I think he was up for a little while after that.
Shubenacadie & the tides
We had decided that we needed to be up at 7, to the airport by 8 and on the road by 9. Through some sort of mix up, we ended up rising at 6 and didn't realize we were an hour early until it was time to leave. We figured we'd just take the scenic route...
Got the rental car... We'd reserved a mid-size...Chevy Cavalier...and somehow ended up with a luxury-class, sporty, red Volvo...leather seats, electric everything...too, too chic! I also bought some Canadian money at the airport. Not the best exchange rate but I didn't have to go looking for a bank either. I gave them $120 US dollars and got back about $170 Canadian.
We hit the road in fog but had no trouble finding the way. We turned off of Hwy 102 at exit 10 and instead of heading to Maitland (to the left), we went right because we had lots of time to kill and hadn't had breakfast yet. We found a quaint little cafe in Shubenacadie where we could get bagel, eggs, bacon, juice, coffee, etc for both of us for barely $5 CA total.
We loaded us back into the car and headed for the Doane's at South Maitland.
We met them and got acquainted over tea/coffee and collected the packages that I had mailed ahead...the camp stove, (empty) fuel bottle and the tarp poles. Apparently, someone decided that duty needed to be paid on the items so we paid back the $10 that the Doanes had to pay to "ransom" my packages. Then Keenan and I got in Jean's car for a land tour of the tidal effect. We got on the little secondary highway in front of their house and headed north to bay coast. She took us to Burntcoat Head...a small park at the mouth of the bay off of the Bay of Fundy that eventually becomes the Shubenacadie river that runs along the Doanes' property. There is a lighthouse on the Head that is in the process of being reconstructed and turned into an interpretive center. We took the stairs up to the top, where the light would have been, to survey the whole area at low tide.
There was a treed "island" just off of the cliffs below the lighthouse. It reminded me of the island in "A Bug's Life" because, right now, there was a mud flat between the cliff and the island but at high tide, it was truly an island. Jean told us that the bay where we were is 20 Km wide and at low tide, it's all mud. At high tide, it's 20 Km of water between here and the far shore. That's a mind-boggling amount of water to image moving in and out twice a day!
We hiked out to the island...ok, "hiked" is too strong a word... But I was really glad that Jean had loaned us rubber knee boots because the term "mud" flats is all too accurate. The mud is very silty, very slick, and very thick in spots. It's also extremely dark and red...like tomato paste.
We walked all the way around the island. On the far side, we could tell the tide was starting to come in. At one point, I put my finger at the edge of the water with my hand/wrist/forearm straight above it. In less than a minute, my whole hand was covered with water.
We poked around in the little pools and puddles looking for critters. I expected them to be like tidal pools along the ocean, but it was very little like that. There were places where the rocks were covered with tiny barnacles, and in many of the pools we saw a lot of small hermit crabs but that was about the size of it. We didn't find any little shells that still had the original inhabitants in them, no little fish, no algae or seaweed, no crustaceans. There was some green, sort of slimy stuff growing on the rocks at the very bottom of the cliff but that was the only plant-type growth we really found in the mud-flat area. The top of the island was lush with green and trees and grass, though. It was a strange place.
We got back in the car and went back to the Doanes'. Jean took us to the top of the cliff by their cottage where we will be staying tonight. The cliff is about 200 feet tall and looks out over the Shubenacadie river across from Eagle's Nest Point.
We watched the river slowly start to flow the other direction (upstream) as the tidal bore pushed it's way toward us. There is a small riffle just upriver from the Doanes' that tells you when the bore has arrived because it begins to get quieter as the water deepens. The most amazing thing from this vantage point is that when the bore arrives, you can actually see the edge of the bore by the changing color of the water. As the tide comes in, it stirs up a lot of that red silt and the tidal water is very obviously more opaque than the fresh water coming downriver. Where the two meet, there is a very clear "edge" that shows the advancing tidal water.
Then the 4 of us got in Chalmers' van and we went to the bridge just outside of South Maitland to watch the main bore. We saw the Zodiac boats from the river runners coming upstream and plopped some stones off the bridge into the mud below. What a splat!! It gives a really good idea of what the consistency of the mud is like...sort of like pudding.
We got back in the van and headed for a smaller bridge over 5-Mile Creek. The "creek" was maybe a foot wide at the very center of the channel when we got there. A few minutes later, we could see the tidal bore just starting to come around a bend. I took a picture, then waited 10 minutes and took another picture. The water was about 10-15 feet wide at that point and still rising. If I'd waited another 15-20 minutes, I might have seen the creek banks filled but by then we were all starving so we went back to the Doanes' for lunch.
For dessert after lunch, Jean offered us a Nova Scotian delicacy that I developed a real fondness for...butter tarts!! They're sort of like pecan pie but without the pecans and just a few raisins or currants instead. Very rich, and very tasty!
After lunch, Keenan and I moved into the cottage and I think everyone but me took a nap. I wandered around the property, watched the Shubenacadie flow upstream at full tide, wandered past the tennis court to the far end of the golf course and found a stairway that went down the steep cliff to about where high tide comes to. The tide was on the way out and I sat there and watched the tide receding from a little side channel and the freshwater stream start flowing downhill again. I plopped some flinty stones into the muck and marveled again at the color, texture and consistency of the goo.
Later, after everyone rose from naps, Keenan and I played a round of golf with Chalmers on the 7-acre, 6-hole course he built behind his tennis court. Keenan had golfed some before so it wasn't completely foreign to him. I've never held a club before so I didn't expect to be any good. Chalmers is extremely competitive. He was gracious enough about instructions and being helpful and companiable but the important thing was the winning. Keenan and I didn't even bother to keep score, but Chalmers never lost track. I came to the conclusion that he doesn't enjoy competition (otherwise he wouldn't have been the least interested in playing with such rank amateurs as us), he enjoys the winning. It got to be a bit much by the end of the round. Thank goodness we had dinner reservations and didn't have time for a second round!
We went to Captain Douglas House in Maitland for supper. Maitland has a lot of beautiful, historic homes and Capt. Douglas House is one that has been made into a restaurant. The interior is beautifully furnished with period pieces and the staff are dressed in costume of the era. It's like being invited into someone's home for a very nice meal. The 4 of us really enjoyed the food...fish and bread and salads and beer and dessert. The bill came to $73 CA for all of us.
We returned to the Doanes' and Chalmers was eager to have us play pool with him. He has a "pool room" set up in the barn...a finished room outfitted with a table, some barstools and the necessary lights/cues/etc for shooting pool. We played me/Keenan against Chalmers. I didn't keep track, but I'm sure Chalmers won. He was still raring to go at 10:30 but I was whupped and really wanted to go to sleep. Keenan went back to the cottage with me and I sacked out immediately in the bedroom. I think he was up for a little while after that.
Got the rental car... We'd reserved a mid-size...Chevy Cavalier...and somehow ended up with a luxury-class, sporty, red Volvo...leather seats, electric everything...too, too chic! I also bought some Canadian money at the airport. Not the best exchange rate but I didn't have to go looking for a bank either. I gave them $120 US dollars and got back about $170 Canadian.
We hit the road in fog but had no trouble finding the way. We turned off of Hwy 102 at exit 10 and instead of heading to Maitland (to the left), we went right because we had lots of time to kill and hadn't had breakfast yet. We found a quaint little cafe in Shubenacadie where we could get bagel, eggs, bacon, juice, coffee, etc for both of us for barely $5 CA total.
We loaded us back into the car and headed for the Doane's at South Maitland.
We met them and got acquainted over tea/coffee and collected the packages that I had mailed ahead...the camp stove, (empty) fuel bottle and the tarp poles. Apparently, someone decided that duty needed to be paid on the items so we paid back the $10 that the Doanes had to pay to "ransom" my packages. Then Keenan and I got in Jean's car for a land tour of the tidal effect. We got on the little secondary highway in front of their house and headed north to bay coast. She took us to Burntcoat Head...a small park at the mouth of the bay off of the Bay of Fundy that eventually becomes the Shubenacadie river that runs along the Doanes' property. There is a lighthouse on the Head that is in the process of being reconstructed and turned into an interpretive center. We took the stairs up to the top, where the light would have been, to survey the whole area at low tide.
There was a treed "island" just off of the cliffs below the lighthouse. It reminded me of the island in "A Bug's Life" because, right now, there was a mud flat between the cliff and the island but at high tide, it was truly an island. Jean told us that the bay where we were is 20 Km wide and at low tide, it's all mud. At high tide, it's 20 Km of water between here and the far shore. That's a mind-boggling amount of water to image moving in and out twice a day!
We hiked out to the island...ok, "hiked" is too strong a word... But I was really glad that Jean had loaned us rubber knee boots because the term "mud" flats is all too accurate. The mud is very silty, very slick, and very thick in spots. It's also extremely dark and red...like tomato paste.
We walked all the way around the island. On the far side, we could tell the tide was starting to come in. At one point, I put my finger at the edge of the water with my hand/wrist/forearm straight above it. In less than a minute, my whole hand was covered with water.
We poked around in the little pools and puddles looking for critters. I expected them to be like tidal pools along the ocean, but it was very little like that. There were places where the rocks were covered with tiny barnacles, and in many of the pools we saw a lot of small hermit crabs but that was about the size of it. We didn't find any little shells that still had the original inhabitants in them, no little fish, no algae or seaweed, no crustaceans. There was some green, sort of slimy stuff growing on the rocks at the very bottom of the cliff but that was the only plant-type growth we really found in the mud-flat area. The top of the island was lush with green and trees and grass, though. It was a strange place.
We got back in the car and went back to the Doanes'. Jean took us to the top of the cliff by their cottage where we will be staying tonight. The cliff is about 200 feet tall and looks out over the Shubenacadie river across from Eagle's Nest Point.
We watched the river slowly start to flow the other direction (upstream) as the tidal bore pushed it's way toward us. There is a small riffle just upriver from the Doanes' that tells you when the bore has arrived because it begins to get quieter as the water deepens. The most amazing thing from this vantage point is that when the bore arrives, you can actually see the edge of the bore by the changing color of the water. As the tide comes in, it stirs up a lot of that red silt and the tidal water is very obviously more opaque than the fresh water coming downriver. Where the two meet, there is a very clear "edge" that shows the advancing tidal water.
Then the 4 of us got in Chalmers' van and we went to the bridge just outside of South Maitland to watch the main bore. We saw the Zodiac boats from the river runners coming upstream and plopped some stones off the bridge into the mud below. What a splat!! It gives a really good idea of what the consistency of the mud is like...sort of like pudding.
We got back in the van and headed for a smaller bridge over 5-Mile Creek. The "creek" was maybe a foot wide at the very center of the channel when we got there. A few minutes later, we could see the tidal bore just starting to come around a bend. I took a picture, then waited 10 minutes and took another picture. The water was about 10-15 feet wide at that point and still rising. If I'd waited another 15-20 minutes, I might have seen the creek banks filled but by then we were all starving so we went back to the Doanes' for lunch.
For dessert after lunch, Jean offered us a Nova Scotian delicacy that I developed a real fondness for...butter tarts!! They're sort of like pecan pie but without the pecans and just a few raisins or currants instead. Very rich, and very tasty!
After lunch, Keenan and I moved into the cottage and I think everyone but me took a nap. I wandered around the property, watched the Shubenacadie flow upstream at full tide, wandered past the tennis court to the far end of the golf course and found a stairway that went down the steep cliff to about where high tide comes to. The tide was on the way out and I sat there and watched the tide receding from a little side channel and the freshwater stream start flowing downhill again. I plopped some flinty stones into the muck and marveled again at the color, texture and consistency of the goo.
Later, after everyone rose from naps, Keenan and I played a round of golf with Chalmers on the 7-acre, 6-hole course he built behind his tennis court. Keenan had golfed some before so it wasn't completely foreign to him. I've never held a club before so I didn't expect to be any good. Chalmers is extremely competitive. He was gracious enough about instructions and being helpful and companiable but the important thing was the winning. Keenan and I didn't even bother to keep score, but Chalmers never lost track. I came to the conclusion that he doesn't enjoy competition (otherwise he wouldn't have been the least interested in playing with such rank amateurs as us), he enjoys the winning. It got to be a bit much by the end of the round. Thank goodness we had dinner reservations and didn't have time for a second round!
We went to Captain Douglas House in Maitland for supper. Maitland has a lot of beautiful, historic homes and Capt. Douglas House is one that has been made into a restaurant. The interior is beautifully furnished with period pieces and the staff are dressed in costume of the era. It's like being invited into someone's home for a very nice meal. The 4 of us really enjoyed the food...fish and bread and salads and beer and dessert. The bill came to $73 CA for all of us.
We returned to the Doanes' and Chalmers was eager to have us play pool with him. He has a "pool room" set up in the barn...a finished room outfitted with a table, some barstools and the necessary lights/cues/etc for shooting pool. We played me/Keenan against Chalmers. I didn't keep track, but I'm sure Chalmers won. He was still raring to go at 10:30 but I was whupped and really wanted to go to sleep. Keenan went back to the cottage with me and I sacked out immediately in the bedroom. I think he was up for a little while after that.
29 July 1999
Travel day
Coe Ann picked me up at 5:45am to take me to the airport. I caught the 7:30 to Chicago and the 10:50 to Montreal. My luggage all arrived (always my concern when I have to check anything...), I cleared customs and met Sylvain outside the customs area. We talked about whether to leave the airport or just hang out there and decided that it was pretty borderline whether I had enough time to actually go anywhere. If I had another hour, it would be worth it...
We went up to a food court area...very nice for an airport...with slate-tile type floor, wrought iron cafe tables, huge windows (looking out over the tarmac) and very decent food. I was very thirsty but not particularly hungry so we stopped at a cafe and he got a sandwich, I got a bottle of water.
We had a nice long chat, got caught up with each other and took a tour of the Montreal airport (that part took all of 20 minutes...). I gave him a couple of chocolate bars and a copy of my quote collection. Eventually I decided that it was time to check my luggage again and discovered that my plane left an hour later than I thought (I hate military time...or I can't do math...or both...) We could have gone someplace more interesting than the airport cafe. Hmph!
Made it to Halifax about 8:30pm and took the shuttle to the hotel. Keenan was already checked in and, in fact, had been there most of the day since he took the red-eye out late the night before. He was pretty congested and had spent most of the day filling up the room's only garbage can with used Kleenex. What is it about the prospect of camping with his favorite cousin that makes him ill?!? I'm going to develop a complex...
Actually, I was mostly concerned about how we were going to deal with it. If he got as sick as he was the last time we went camping, we were going to have to pay for some hotels... Turns out to have been not a big deal. He was mostly all better the following morning and we both stayed healthy for the rest of the trip.
We went up to a food court area...very nice for an airport...with slate-tile type floor, wrought iron cafe tables, huge windows (looking out over the tarmac) and very decent food. I was very thirsty but not particularly hungry so we stopped at a cafe and he got a sandwich, I got a bottle of water.
We had a nice long chat, got caught up with each other and took a tour of the Montreal airport (that part took all of 20 minutes...). I gave him a couple of chocolate bars and a copy of my quote collection. Eventually I decided that it was time to check my luggage again and discovered that my plane left an hour later than I thought (I hate military time...or I can't do math...or both...) We could have gone someplace more interesting than the airport cafe. Hmph!
Made it to Halifax about 8:30pm and took the shuttle to the hotel. Keenan was already checked in and, in fact, had been there most of the day since he took the red-eye out late the night before. He was pretty congested and had spent most of the day filling up the room's only garbage can with used Kleenex. What is it about the prospect of camping with his favorite cousin that makes him ill?!? I'm going to develop a complex...
Actually, I was mostly concerned about how we were going to deal with it. If he got as sick as he was the last time we went camping, we were going to have to pay for some hotels... Turns out to have been not a big deal. He was mostly all better the following morning and we both stayed healthy for the rest of the trip.
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