Serendipity in the Maritimes

    After years of distractions, we finally got to head up to Canada’s Maritime Provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia / Cape Breton Island and Prince Edward Island. We had always figured we’d be going by motorcycle, but issues with my shoulder would certainly create difficulties handling “The Beast” while riding two-up with all the gear we’d need. So, we elected to drive it, which meant we could take bikes (Yay!!) and more easily “wing it”! The mantra of this trip is “Serendipity” and it paid off wonderfully!

This is a looooong post, so settle in for the ride. Tons of photos included so expect some delay displaying images while my server chokes.
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​Day 1: Thursday, Aug. 1
    Started out at 8:30am. Long hot driving day from ROC to Portland Maine. Day’s Inn Motel and dinner at a steakhouse.
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Day 2: Friday, Aug. 2
    On the road at 8am and crossed into Canada at Calais (US) / St. Stephen (CA) around 1pm where we stopped at an ATM to grab Canadian cash, a drug store for Karen to purchase a knee brace, and the Chocolate Museum to make our own chocolate bark … which didn’t last long (Brian’s, anyway).  After lunch in the park, we continued on to the ferry terminal at Black’s Harbor and discovered you need a reservation for the ferry to Grand Manan Island. Rather than wait on standby, we decided to catch GM Island on the way home, and continued on. Drove to Sussex NB and got a room at the Fairway Inn.

Look what we found!

Made them ourselves!

“Chocolate Park”

​Day 3: Saturday, Aug. 3
    Hot breakfast at the Inn’s restaurant, then headed to the Fundy National Park where we did some hiking. Stopped for lunch in the fishing town of Alma, then went looking for the Cape Enrage Lighthouse. Missed the (unmarked) side road to the lighthouse and continued on toward Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, famous for showcasing the extreme changes in tides and surreal rock formations. We scored a campsite at Ponderosa Pines CG which lies next to the park and hiked a two mile trail that leads to the parking lot of the park. We witnessed the “beach” at low tide.

Hiking in Fundy National Park

Alma Harbor fishing fleet

Hopewell Rocks at Low Tide

​Day 4: Sunday, Aug. 4
    We had time to kill until high tide, so again went looking for the Cape Enrage Lighthouse … in the dense fog. We found it before opening time and met a hiker at the entrance. Romain, from France, has been hitchhiking all over New Brunswick and asked for a ride back to the highway. Still had time to kill, so we shuttled her back to the highway and the lighthouse park was open when we returned. Took a tour of the property and had lunch before returning to Hopewell Rocks. This time, we saw the “rocks” at high tide and the change was amazing!

Foggy most of the time

Hopewell Rocks at (near) High Tide

Still thinking “tides”, we headed toward Burntcoat Head Park in Nova Scotia, site of the world’s highest tides … slightly higher than at Hopewell Rocks. On the way, we stopped to eat at Frieze & Roy’s “Mudslide Cafe” in Maitland NS, claimed to be the oldest General Store in Canada. As we left, violent storms set in, so seeing its track on radar, we scrapped the idea of camping at Burntcoat and headed toward Halifax. Safely arriving at a motel in town, we got two nights there so that we could spend the next day exploring.

Burgers and Fries before the storms

​Day 5: Monday, Aug. 5
    Today’s first destination was Peggy’s Cove, perhaps the most visited place in Nova Scotia, and it’s easy to see why. 

Used Dory For Sale?

Rugged coast at Peggy’s Cove

Karen the Bomber

Nice Neighborhood

Heading back toward town, we found the BLT / Rum Runners / Chain-of-Lakes rail trail and went for our first bike ride (30 miles) in Canada. 

The trail appears to be part of a long distance trail network that reaches all the way to Yarmouth at the southwest end of Nova Scotia. We had lunch at a coffee / bike shop right on the trail and chatted with a bike tourist using that trail before heading back to the motel. Great trail!

Aspen Alley

Sweet Trail!

​Day 6: Tuesday, Aug. 6
    Today was a cloudy / rainy day and not far southwest along the coast from Halifax is the town of Lunenburg, a historic fishing port and a UNESCO Heritage site. We walked the streets, visited the harbor, and had the greatest seafood chowder (haddock, scallops, shrimp and more) at the Old Fish Factory … our first “seafood experience” of the trip!

The Bluenose II

Fisherman’s Memorial

Let’s eat at the Old Fish Factory

Weaving around the bay, we got to the Ovens Natural Park and scored a (dry) cabin for the night. The privately owned park experienced a gold rush in the past, but also highlights a rocky coastline with caves that go “boom” when ocean waves plow into them.

Gold Rush!

Boom!

Rocky trails

After hiking the trails to the caves, we had dinner at the cafe where local talent plays nightly. What’s interesting is WHO the local talent is. The family that owns the park are musicians, and after seeing a CD for sale, we realized that the family is Harry Chapin’s family, originally from New York.

Harry’s family keeps the tradition

​Day 7: Wednesday, Aug. 7
    Breakfast in the cafe, then back across the island to the Bay of Fundy and the Digby Neck. After taking two free ferries to reach the end of the neck, we got to Brier Island and biked nearly every ridable road, paved and otherwise, on the island … a whole 14 miles! 

Brier Island

Free Ferry’s to Long and Brier Islands

Brought the right bikes

Ride to the Light

Salmon Farm

They’re everywhere up here!

We got a room at the Brier Island Lodge which was up on a ridge providing a beautiful view of the harbor. After dinner, we took the car back out to the lighthouse to watch a spectacular cloudless sunset.

Harbor viiew from the hotel

Awwwww …

A bird on every pole.

​Day 8: Thursday, Aug. 8
    Perhaps Karen’s most important stop of the trip is getting to Digby today, but on the way back up the Digby Neck on the “Long Island” is the hiking trail to “Balancing Rock”. Beautiful sunny day and a great little hike.

It was a flat trail until ...

Balanced Rock

Getting to Digby, we got lucky and scored a motel room right on the main street. Lucky, because we’re in town for the town’s most important event of the year … the Digby Scallop Festival. Digby is the home of a huge scallop fishing trawler fleet and Digby Scallops are world renowned in all the best restaurants. They had fireworks to kick off the festival and we watched from the motel’s deck on the shoreline.

Let’s get this party started!

​Day 9: Friday, Aug. 9
    We stayed two nights in Digby to make the most of the weekend festival, but it was a rainy day to start, so we drove up to Annapolis Royal to see the tidal power station and stopped at another chocolate shop before returning to Digby in time for the real festivities. Hiking the local rail-trail, watching a scallop shucking competition, eating cupfuls of freshly fished and bar-b-qued scallops, watching the foam party then going to a restaurant after and ordering bacon-wrapped scallops made for a pretty nice day.

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go ….

Professional Shucker at work?

Before …

After!

Foam Party for the kids

All Kids!

“Enhanced” version of scallops

​Day 10: Saturday, Aug. 10
    We were leaving today, but the festival continued Saturday with a breakfast served by local pirates.

Would you eat what THESE guys are serving?

​Today was a mostly rainy driving day, all the way from Digby to St. Peters on Cape Breton Island where we scored the last available room at the Bras d’Or Lakes Inn.

At every light pole in town

Bras d'Or Lake right out the back

​Day 11: Sunday, Aug. 11
    The reason to stop at St. Peters is St. Peters Canal National Historic Site. As a “Canal Buff”, I found this canal and its unique lock pretty impressive. On the south end of the canal is the Atlantic Ocean with its tides. On the north end of the canal, is the Bras d’Or Lake. At high tide, the lake is at a lower level than the ocean. At low tide, the reverse, so the lock was built with twice the number of gates as a regular lock, but facing opposite ways. Very ingenious!

Walking distance from the hotel

Different kind of canal lock

Which way do we go?

After checking that out, we headed north along the lake toward Sydney, and went just beyond that to Grace Bay where we checked out the Cape Breton Miners Museum. This facility is above a now defunct coal mine that stretches deep under the Cabot Strait toward Newfoundland. We had a tour of the mine itself by a retired coal miner, and he had stories!

Descending a coal mine shaft

Storytelling

Coal Miner’s Memorial - Note the Lunchboxes

UNION STRONG!!!!

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
​- Frederick Douglass

From there, we traveled to Baddeck which is kinda the start point of the Cabot Trail, and we found a really cool campground on the shore of Bras d’Or Lake.

Testing the Waters

​Day 12: Monday, Aug. 12
    Great weather today as we started our loop of the Cabot Trail. After getting out of town, we dropped Karen off at Lake O’Law Provincial Park and she started a 32 mile bike ride from there to Cheticamp on the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Wonderful parks in Canada

Karen’s ride

At Cheticamp, we stopped to eat yet another round of seafood chowder before heading into the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Wow!

 The road heading up the east side of park facing the Gulf is too spectacular to imagine. I elected not to ride this section due to the lateness of the day as it would have run us late to get to our destination for the day at Meat Cove. But I did hop out to ride up the dirt road to Meat Cove coming off the loop road. Even that 8 mile stint was a challenge due to the crazy hilly terrain. Beautiful, no doubt.

I can see the camp from here

Brian's Ride - Short, but very sweet!

Karen arrived at Meat Cove first, had already got us a campsite, visited the beach, and our dinner was lobster rolls from the food truck parked there. Sweet! Beautiful evening and sunset at the northernmost point of Cape Breton Island.

Water warm enough to swim?

First Class dinner in my mind

I got a Peaceful, Easy Feelin’

​Day 13: Tuesday, Aug. 13
    A gorgeous sunrise started our day as we left camp.

The Next Day … Rise and Shine!

A most remote campground

Headed down the east side of the park facing the Atlantic, we first stopped at a trailhead and hiked out to an overlook above Ross Beach on the Atlantic. 

Hiking today

Atlantic shoreline

Looking for a breakfast place, we found a chocolate shop along the highway and stocked up. It was an off and on rainy day but we were driving toward our next adventure. Arrived in Pictou NS, found a campground on the edge of town, did laundry, and I finally got my first “Halifax Style Donair” (do a web search!) at a pizza joint in town. 

Better than a gyro!

Back at camp, I saw that a section of the Trans-Canada Trail was passing just out the back of our campground so I went riding before sunset.

If I kept going …

Follow the pink line ... all the way across Canada!

​Day 14: Wednesday, Aug. 14
    We’re in Pictou because the ferry to Prince Edward Island leaves from Caribou just north of there. We caught the ferry (w/a reservation!) to PEI and headed north to the Stanhope Campground at PEI National Park, right on the north shore facing the gulf. 

Waiting our turn

Underway, once again

The park runs for 37 miles (sorry … we’re in Canada … 60KM) along the north shore highlighting the sand dunes in the area near our CG, and includes the farm known in the book “Anne of Green Gables”, which we weren’t particularly interested in since we didn’t read it. But we did enjoy some local humorous word-play.

Not Anne’s Green Gables

We set up camp and went riding! Along the shoreline, we rode as far west as we could before reaching Robinson’s Island Trail System … A natural area with single-track trails looping the island and includes a few “challenges” for mountain bikers. Returning to camp, I continued for some extra miles (35 total) of exploring before getting back just before sundown.

Whoop-de-doos

Teeter Totter

​Day 15: Thursday, Aug. 15
    Today, we did a short drive over to Kensington, extracted the bikes from the back, and hopped on the Confederation Trail to Summerville. The Confederation Trail system on PEI is a network of main and branch rail-trails covering the length (273K) of PEI.

When the trains moved out … bikers moved in!

Had we planned it out, it might have been great to make a few days of it, but we got in 20 miles in beautiful weather and even made a stop at yet another bike and coffee shop along the way.

Bikes and bakeries are a natural match

A face full of bakery goodness

Time to head south. We returned to the car, loaded up and crossed the (8 mile long) Confederation Bridge ($40) to New Brunswick on our way back toward Blacks Harbor and Grand Manan. Grabbed a campsite at New River Beach Provincial Park, just a short drive from the Blacks Harbor ferry port.
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Day 16: Friday, Aug. 16
    This time, we have 11:30am reservations on the ferry and made it to Grand Manan Island. 

Gotta catch this ride

Packed like sardines!

First order of business is grab a tent site at the Anchorage Provincial Park, THEN pull out the bikes! We rode back up to the ferry port and out to the trailhead to Swallowtail Lighthouse where Karen hiked out for a closer look while I waited, nursing a weird kink in my hip. 

Imagine working here

Windy enough to tie her down?

Had dinner at The Seaquel restaurant right opposite the ferry terminal before heading back to camp (20 miles today) and sharing the campground with the hoard of bunnies who seem to own the place. Cute.

DANGER! Invasive species!

​Day 17: Saturday, Aug. 17
    Super foggy in the morning, we broke camp, left the car in the visitor’s lots near the CG office and biked over to the Ingall’s Head ferry terminal to catch a lift to White Head Island. It’s a 3 mile, 1/2 hour ride on the free ferry to White Head and we rode pretty much everything rideable on the island before returning to the terminal and back to Grand Manan.

Back on Grand Manan, we took a “shortcut” back to the car via a trail along the coast. The trail turned out NOT to be particularly bike friendly (fortunately at low tide) as we ended up hike-a-biking along the beach with loose rock, gravel, and sand. What a way to wrap up the biking for the trip!
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Hope the Captain can see where he's going

Any leftovers?

Glad it’s LOW tide

32 minus 6 miles. We didn't swim it!

Back at the park, we packed up the bikes and headed to the terminal for the ferry ride back to the mainland. It wasn’t far from there to the US border, but it was late enough that we elected to stay at a motel near St. George and cross in the morning.
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Day 18: Sunday, Aug. 18
    Big travel day. No waiting required, we crossed the border right in downtown St. Stephen/Calais. Early Sunday morning, the US border guard was friendly and laid back. Probably sees mostly local traffic between the neighboring towns across the border since the main crossing is outside of town. Traffic, fog and rain made a slow go to Haverhill Massachusetts where we called it a day at a Hampton Inn. Nicest hotel of the trip, yet was shockingly reasonably priced. 

​Day 19: Monday, Aug. 19
    Took off at 8am (after a full breakfast in the dining room) to head west across the state on Route 9, which got us to North Adams in the Berkshires. Of course, we had to climb (uh … drive this time) up the twisties to Mt. Greylock, back down the other side, and then to Williamstown, a gorgeous college town where I introduced Karen to a coffee shop / cafe I stopped at a couple years ago on a bike tour. We crossed the MA/NY border on the Taconic Trail and wiggled through the Troy/Albany area to connect to the NYS Thruway. More heavy rain slowed us down again but we finally pulled into our driveway around 7pm where we found our friend/neighbor/cat sitter finally sitting with the kitties after NOT seeing them for a couple weeks. They’re shy.
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Highest point in Massachusetts

Exactly

Great Trip!

Life is good.