I woke up at 4 am. Too soon to get up. I woke again and thought it was quarter to 7 and that, if I went back to sleep, I wouldn't wake up at 7. I looked again and it was quarter to 6 so I went back to sleep. Woke at 7 (for real!) and got up.
We had breakfast (cheese on bagels and tea/coffee), broke camp and headed out around 8. Bought gas in Charlottetown (.529/litre) then headed for the Wood Islands ferry. We got there at 9:45, in time for the 10:00 ferry. We had no problem getting on and settled in for the 75 minute ride to Caribou. At Caribou, we took highway 104 to 106 and 105 to Englishtown on Cape Breton.
We checked into the Englishtown Ridge Campground and got a pretty decent site toward the back, surrounded by trees. The front part of this place is much more "urban" than I like...RVs side-by-side (almost within reach-out-and-touch distance); a swimming pool filled with splashing noisy kids; a bar/rec center with the usual blaring TV, yelling kids, blow dryers, etc Bleah.... Back where we're camping, there aren't RVs and there are a lot more trees but the urban-jerks still abound. The people in the spot next to ours seem to feel it's their duty to FILL the campground with the sound of their music. K and I have to shout to each other across our picnic table to be heard. Quiet hours don't start until midnight...this could get interesting...
Tried to call the kayak guy again and got his machine. I left a message and will try again later.
We walked down the steep drive to the highway and mailed some postcards at the post office next door. Then we crossed the road and walked along the shore of St Anne's Bay. The view is incredible! I can see why it was called New Scotland...it certainly looks like any pictures I've ever seen of Scotland.
I found a great piece of driftwood along the shore...it's about the size and shape of a letter-opener and the top looks like a little guy in a boat. Too cool! I also picked up some purple shell pieces that should be gorgeous when polished up.
Just after 5, the sun started to poke holes in the clouds. All day, there have been big cotton-ball clouds everywhere with brief periods of sun. When it's cloudy, it's cool and seems a lot later. When the sun comes out, it's dazzling!
There were some "cobblestone jellies" on this beach too, but the beach here is pretty much cobblestone to begin with so they don't stand out as much. We hiked back up to the campground.
I went back down again later to watch the sky, light, and shadow play on the bay. I sat through a brief shower that started on the far side of the bay and gradually rolled its way to my side of the bay and over me. Without a single person or manmade object in view, it was the most peaceful, relaxing time of the whole trip.
Went back to camp and had supper. Then the camp owner came to tell us that Angelo called. Our kayaking trip is still on!!
As the day is winding down, someone is playing bagpipes in the front part of the campground. They started with Amazing Grace and moved into jigs. The place has completely filled up. The rain showers quiet things down but in between, they rev up again. The people next to us are still playing their music loudly enough that even with earplugs in, I can recognize the songs playing. I hate public campgrounds...
03 August 1999
02 August 1999
Exploring PEI
I woke up around 7...this seems to be a bit of a pattern... I got up and made tea. K got up shortly after that and we made breakfast of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, more of those great little plums we bought, and tea/coffee.
We tidied camp a bit then headed out to do some hiking. Our first stop was Brackley Beach just to see what it looked like. From the parking lot, you take a trail through the big dunes that cut off the view of the water. On the water side of the dunes, there is a beach area, roped off for lifeguard coverage (when the guards are on duty). We didn't hang around.
The first hike was Bubbling Spring and Farmland trails. Not far from the trailhead is Stanhope cemetery. This cemetery was started by the original settlers. The oldest (readable) stone is for Elizabeth Boyver (or Bovyer...) who died in 1811. All of the stones that are still standing have broken off but generally, the top portion is lying right behind the bottom portion so that if it's still readable, it's all there. Most of the stones were either missing completely or unreadable though.
The spring trail winds through pine and birch forests, stopping occasionally at viewpoints overlooking ponds or bays. Eventually we came to the spring itself. There was a man with a couple dogs (which had been playing in the spring) that had muddied up the water but in a few moments the silt settled and you could actually see the water lifting the silt at various points along the bottom in tiny little water volcanoes.
The whole trail makes a big sort of figure-8 shape and when the trails cross they change. Since we started on the spring trail, when we crossed we were on the Farmland trail. This section of trail was mostly farmland that had belonged to the Acadian and Scottish settlers. Where the woods have reclaimed the fields, the trees are mostly white spruce instead of the birch/pine that we saw on the earlier trail.
The Rushes & Reeds trail is very short but includes a lookout tower over a pond and a boardwalk out onto a barachois pond. A barachois pond is a pond that was originally a salt-water bay but as it silts-in it becomes cut off from the salt water, eventually becoming fresh-water, and finally dying as it completely silts in. There were some fantastic reflections on the pond surface of the sky/clouds/trees. Awesome!
The drive through the park is very nice. It sort of splits the spit of land between the Gulf of St Lawrence (on the north) and various bays on the south. There are a lot of bikers and roller-bladers on the wide, paved shoulders along the roadway.
We left the far end of the national park and took the 10-minute drive into Charlottetown for supplies, to mail some postcards, for K to get some CA money, and eat lunch.
In Charlottetown, I called the kayak guy. Or tried to. I used the 888- number and it rang forever before someone answered. I think I woke them up... He groggily took a message. Angelo (kayak guy) got married yesterday and apparently it was quite a party...I'll call again when we get to Baddeck.
We stopped at an IGA to get K's 1st roll of film developed (1-hour). He had to make sure he had a good Bay of Fundy/tide picture for his travel journal.
We ate a sort of greasy-spoon cafe for lunch because it had a sign advertising "lobster roll special" and it sounded "Maritime-y". Turns out that lobster roll in this instance means "frozen, canned lobster with mayo on a hamburger bun." Bleah... I had the "Little John Club" sandwich instead and it was very good. I also bought a couple butter tarts on the way out for later.
We went back to the park via Cavendish to see what the other side of the park looks like. Mostly... a lot more people. I think we definitely picked the right side of the park to camp in. The campground here is much less treed and a lot more RVed.
We wanted to go back to the beach near our campground at low tide to get a picture of the "cobblestone jellies" but couldn't remember what time of day we were there. We thought it was around 6 but must have been much earlier because we got there at 6:30 or so and the tide had already come in.
We had a shower then supper. I made southwestern chicken soup. It was very good but, I thought, a little too salty. I don't remember it being that way when I've made it before...
We started breaking down camp to simplify things for our morning pack-out. Another short walk and then it was bedtime. 9:30.
We tidied camp a bit then headed out to do some hiking. Our first stop was Brackley Beach just to see what it looked like. From the parking lot, you take a trail through the big dunes that cut off the view of the water. On the water side of the dunes, there is a beach area, roped off for lifeguard coverage (when the guards are on duty). We didn't hang around.
The first hike was Bubbling Spring and Farmland trails. Not far from the trailhead is Stanhope cemetery. This cemetery was started by the original settlers. The oldest (readable) stone is for Elizabeth Boyver (or Bovyer...) who died in 1811. All of the stones that are still standing have broken off but generally, the top portion is lying right behind the bottom portion so that if it's still readable, it's all there. Most of the stones were either missing completely or unreadable though.
The spring trail winds through pine and birch forests, stopping occasionally at viewpoints overlooking ponds or bays. Eventually we came to the spring itself. There was a man with a couple dogs (which had been playing in the spring) that had muddied up the water but in a few moments the silt settled and you could actually see the water lifting the silt at various points along the bottom in tiny little water volcanoes.
The whole trail makes a big sort of figure-8 shape and when the trails cross they change. Since we started on the spring trail, when we crossed we were on the Farmland trail. This section of trail was mostly farmland that had belonged to the Acadian and Scottish settlers. Where the woods have reclaimed the fields, the trees are mostly white spruce instead of the birch/pine that we saw on the earlier trail.
The Rushes & Reeds trail is very short but includes a lookout tower over a pond and a boardwalk out onto a barachois pond. A barachois pond is a pond that was originally a salt-water bay but as it silts-in it becomes cut off from the salt water, eventually becoming fresh-water, and finally dying as it completely silts in. There were some fantastic reflections on the pond surface of the sky/clouds/trees. Awesome!
The drive through the park is very nice. It sort of splits the spit of land between the Gulf of St Lawrence (on the north) and various bays on the south. There are a lot of bikers and roller-bladers on the wide, paved shoulders along the roadway.
We left the far end of the national park and took the 10-minute drive into Charlottetown for supplies, to mail some postcards, for K to get some CA money, and eat lunch.
In Charlottetown, I called the kayak guy. Or tried to. I used the 888- number and it rang forever before someone answered. I think I woke them up... He groggily took a message. Angelo (kayak guy) got married yesterday and apparently it was quite a party...I'll call again when we get to Baddeck.
We stopped at an IGA to get K's 1st roll of film developed (1-hour). He had to make sure he had a good Bay of Fundy/tide picture for his travel journal.
We ate a sort of greasy-spoon cafe for lunch because it had a sign advertising "lobster roll special" and it sounded "Maritime-y". Turns out that lobster roll in this instance means "frozen, canned lobster with mayo on a hamburger bun." Bleah... I had the "Little John Club" sandwich instead and it was very good. I also bought a couple butter tarts on the way out for later.
We went back to the park via Cavendish to see what the other side of the park looks like. Mostly... a lot more people. I think we definitely picked the right side of the park to camp in. The campground here is much less treed and a lot more RVed.
We wanted to go back to the beach near our campground at low tide to get a picture of the "cobblestone jellies" but couldn't remember what time of day we were there. We thought it was around 6 but must have been much earlier because we got there at 6:30 or so and the tide had already come in.
We had a shower then supper. I made southwestern chicken soup. It was very good but, I thought, a little too salty. I don't remember it being that way when I've made it before...
We started breaking down camp to simplify things for our morning pack-out. Another short walk and then it was bedtime. 9:30.
01 August 1999
Prince Edward Island
I got up about 7. Keenan was still asleep. I went out to the cliff to watch the river. The tide was just past full and receding. There was just a bit of fog hanging in the bend of the river on the shady side opposite me but the sun was bright above/through it. The sun was shining (the first fog-free morning!!) on the cliff-face and I could really see the colors and rocks for the first time. I took a few pictures of that then wandered around the property to get pictures of the music house, our cottage and the car. I didn't get the golf course or tennis courts as there just wasn't a good vantage point for them.
I did some packing until about 8 or so when K got up. We finished packing and neatening the cottage in just a few minutes and went to the big house for breakfast. We had a "Santa Claus melon" with our breakfast that was wonderful! The outside of the melon is kind of striped like a gourd or watermelon. It's shaped sort of like a blunt football. The flesh is pale green, like a honeydew but much more flavorful than any honeydew I ever tasted. Good stuff!
We cleaned up breakfast, said our goodbyes and hit the road around 9:30.
We headed out across the big bridge where we watched the tide a couple days before, skirted Truro on a sort of back highway through dairy lands, then onto the main highway for a bit. We got off at an interchange along the way to stop at a local market. We got some wonderful plums, bread, cheese, a tomato, peanut butter and a bag of Cape Cod potato chips. I'm generally not a big potato chip fan but we bought several more bags of these chips before the trip was done. I'm a convert!!
We made really good time from there to Oxford (via a $3 toll road), where we turned of to take a coastal scenic road toward the Confederation Bridge. It's a toll bridge but only from the PEI side...which we found out later is $37 CA (!). We wound our way across PEI to PEI National Park and the Rustico Island campground where we had reservations for the next two days ($15 per night plus a $7 registration fee).
Its a very nice campground...heavily treed and low visibility of other campsites. It sprinkled occasionally as we were setting up camp but it waited until we were done to really rain for a few minutes. We ate lunch (cheese and tomato sandwiches) snug and dry under our tarp...which I was really glad I went to the trouble to get here.
We went for a walk in the rain out to the end of the peninsula and along the beach. It rained off and on but wasn't cold.
When we got to the beach, there were all these large (some, dinner-plate size), smooth, dark, round stones on the shore. I started toward the water using the big round stones like stepping stones when I discovered that they weren't stones at all...they were jellyfish left stranded by the tide. Most were a beautiful amethyst color although some were clear and uncolored except for some whitish innards you could see. We flipped some over to check for tentacles and to confirm if they really were jellyfish. They were. Some were pretty disgusting...looking like afterbirth...others were actually very pretty. There were tons of them all up and down the shore.
We walked along the shore until it looked like it was getting too rocky to be worth the trouble. We turned back and returned to camp. We sat at our picnic table writing out postcards and hanging out. We could hear the roar of moto-cross cars coming across the channel...I hope that doesn't go on too long...
There are lots of bike and sailboards on the other cars in the campground. And we saw lots of sail boarding as we were driving to the campground. There was a sing up at the front of the ground that said there was no vacancy. When I made the reservation a couple weeks ago, I got one of the last couple sites available, so I imagine it is pretty full. I don't know if all the sites are reservation only or if they hold a certain number of them for walk-ins. In any case, the campground doesn't feel crowded, even if it is full.
I made sun-dried tomato/parmesan pasta with dried mushrooms and zucchini for supper. It was way tasty! I though it had just a touch too much dried red pepper but K thought it was fine as-is.
We went for a walk after supper into the twilight and found an old, long-unused outdoor amphitheatre. It was a very nice walk. Then we took showers and went for a little drive to scope out the rest of the park and find the trailheads for our hiking adventures tomorrow.
We went to bed around 10 and chatted a while before sleeping the night through.
I did some packing until about 8 or so when K got up. We finished packing and neatening the cottage in just a few minutes and went to the big house for breakfast. We had a "Santa Claus melon" with our breakfast that was wonderful! The outside of the melon is kind of striped like a gourd or watermelon. It's shaped sort of like a blunt football. The flesh is pale green, like a honeydew but much more flavorful than any honeydew I ever tasted. Good stuff!
We cleaned up breakfast, said our goodbyes and hit the road around 9:30.
We headed out across the big bridge where we watched the tide a couple days before, skirted Truro on a sort of back highway through dairy lands, then onto the main highway for a bit. We got off at an interchange along the way to stop at a local market. We got some wonderful plums, bread, cheese, a tomato, peanut butter and a bag of Cape Cod potato chips. I'm generally not a big potato chip fan but we bought several more bags of these chips before the trip was done. I'm a convert!!
We made really good time from there to Oxford (via a $3 toll road), where we turned of to take a coastal scenic road toward the Confederation Bridge. It's a toll bridge but only from the PEI side...which we found out later is $37 CA (!). We wound our way across PEI to PEI National Park and the Rustico Island campground where we had reservations for the next two days ($15 per night plus a $7 registration fee).
Its a very nice campground...heavily treed and low visibility of other campsites. It sprinkled occasionally as we were setting up camp but it waited until we were done to really rain for a few minutes. We ate lunch (cheese and tomato sandwiches) snug and dry under our tarp...which I was really glad I went to the trouble to get here.
We went for a walk in the rain out to the end of the peninsula and along the beach. It rained off and on but wasn't cold.
When we got to the beach, there were all these large (some, dinner-plate size), smooth, dark, round stones on the shore. I started toward the water using the big round stones like stepping stones when I discovered that they weren't stones at all...they were jellyfish left stranded by the tide. Most were a beautiful amethyst color although some were clear and uncolored except for some whitish innards you could see. We flipped some over to check for tentacles and to confirm if they really were jellyfish. They were. Some were pretty disgusting...looking like afterbirth...others were actually very pretty. There were tons of them all up and down the shore.
We walked along the shore until it looked like it was getting too rocky to be worth the trouble. We turned back and returned to camp. We sat at our picnic table writing out postcards and hanging out. We could hear the roar of moto-cross cars coming across the channel...I hope that doesn't go on too long...
There are lots of bike and sailboards on the other cars in the campground. And we saw lots of sail boarding as we were driving to the campground. There was a sing up at the front of the ground that said there was no vacancy. When I made the reservation a couple weeks ago, I got one of the last couple sites available, so I imagine it is pretty full. I don't know if all the sites are reservation only or if they hold a certain number of them for walk-ins. In any case, the campground doesn't feel crowded, even if it is full.
I made sun-dried tomato/parmesan pasta with dried mushrooms and zucchini for supper. It was way tasty! I though it had just a touch too much dried red pepper but K thought it was fine as-is.
We went for a walk after supper into the twilight and found an old, long-unused outdoor amphitheatre. It was a very nice walk. Then we took showers and went for a little drive to scope out the rest of the park and find the trailheads for our hiking adventures tomorrow.
We went to bed around 10 and chatted a while before sleeping the night through.
31 July 1999
Tidal bore ride
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.
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.
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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