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Cape Breton Nova Scotia

This is a 'must see 'location for any traveller to Nova Scotia or even Canada. The scenery is so spectacular that one of the drives through the area has been named in the top 10 drives of North America - no small feat when you consider the competition.

Cape Breton coastal drive.

The drive along the coastline of Cape Breton National Park was well worth the entrance fee.
We spent 2 nights camping at one of the NP campsites and it was probably the most expensive campgrounds that we have stayed at on our travels. That's because we had to pay the camping fee PLUS a daily entrance fee! Talk about double dipping. The campgrounds were pretty enough but not that memorable that we took many photos of the area.
The real attraction was the skyline walk that runs along the hilltop that can bee seen as the horizon in the picture on the left.
The walk was very popular and quite long. Instead of getting out early in the day to complete the walk, we didn't get started until about 2pm. This was unfortunate timing as Paige was in need of a sleep and didn't want to walk. Her big brother came to her rescue.

Ash carried Paige when she was tired.

Poor Ash ended up carrying her for quite some time and all without complaint. Jill also carried Paige, so that by the end of the 7km walk she had walked maybe 800 metres in total - a tiring day for everyone. The walk was quite spectacular and not just for the distant views.
As we walked along the track, keeping an eye open for moose in the distance, we were told of a moose not 3 metres away from the track laying beneath a tree.

Smile! I'm on camera.

This was the closest moose that we saw along the trail, but only one of three altogether and our first sight of the real animal - an exciting part of the walk.
The walk ends at a series of wooden stairs which allow the walker to descend to a low enough point to watch whales that often frolic in the ocean off the cape. We did see some movement of what we think were pilot whales but they were so far away that we couldn't make out any significant detail. Even so the stairs and walk were exciting? terrifying? - it all depends on whether you were a 3 year old or their parent!!

The Jenkinsons near the end of the Skyline Walk.

Hold her tight please Ash!

One whale viewing platform on the Skyline Walk.

Later along the walk we were lucky enough to see another moose in a clearer space. I started to photograph her (I think it was a female) and decided that I could get closer. All was going well enough, she knew I was there and didn't mind too much until Megan decided to join me. A snorting moose MAY be a greeting, but I didn't think so, so we beat a hasty retreat.

Are you looking at ME!?

The night before we went for our skyline walk, we had driven to a place that is considered isolated in Canada. We had considered taking the camper to this site, but as we started our descent into the area we agreed that it had been a good idea not to.

Meat Cove campgrounds.

An attractive aspect of Meat Cove is that you can often see whales cavorting in the ocean just in front of the campgrounds. Unfortunately the grounds are very steep and not ideal for young children with sites bordering the steep cliff lines.

Happy children at Meat Cove.

Rather than camp there though we decided to have dinner on the beach instead.

Jill did the cooking - I just served the wine.

It was a great experience although it took ages to be cooked as we hadn't realized the BBQ wasn't set-up correctly and the flame was being blocked. The kids were happy to explore and Ash even found a geocache! We left one of the geocoins that we had, thankful to be able to drop it off at last.

The drive out reassured me that NOT taking the trailer was a wise move - steep dirt tracks with considerable corrugations and tight turns to defeat any chance of a run-up meant we would have been trapped until someone with a more powerful vehicle could help.

The road in and out of Meat Cove.

New Foundland

New Foundland (NF) was in our minds the climax of our tour across Canada. This was because it was the northern-most and eastern-most travel point in Canada for the Jenkoz travelling troupe. It did not fail our expectations, but rather exceeded them in some ways.

Table mountains, New Foundland.

Getting to NF is an experience all of it's own. The ferry service is renowned for publishing a timetable that it rarely follows, so it wasn't too much of a surprise to find that our booked ferry was delayed for 7 hours. This meant that we travelled from North Sydney, NS at 1am instead of 4pm - a blessing in disguise for us. Kids will sleep anywhere so the trip for them was mostly taken asleep - although Ash didn't get much at all, like his parents. The UNexpected came in the form of ship announcements giving us the ETA. There were 3 separate such announcements about 30 minutes apart and each gave dramatically different ETA's until eventually we were to arrive some 2 hours later than we first expected! I began to wonder if the captain had got lost.

NOT the ferry captain ( as far as I know).

Once on the island however it was a fast exit and smooth driving out of Channel Port aux Basques to the nearest park for breakfast. Here we encountered the legendary New Foundland hospitality. There is a charge to enter the park, but when we said we just wanted to have breakfast and move on they immediately waved us through - a pleasant change from the officiousness of many Canadian government employees.

We had decided to drive for St Anthonys at the top of the western tip of New Foundland where we could go whale watching and maybe see icbergs floating past.We didn't see icebergs, rather something else we hadn't expected.

They're everywhere, they're everywhere!

The scenery along the drive along the highway to our first night's camping was quite spectaculr in places and devoid of inhabitants for much of the drive.

We stayed in a KOA at Rocky Harbour, inside the Gros Morne National Park limits for our first night - the first ever caravan park to feature a giant jumping pillow, which the kids made good use of.

Gros Morne NP is extrodinarily beautiful and spectacular. There is an inland fjord in the park which offers a hint of why it is so spectacular. Unfortunately we didn't have time for trips into the park proper and so had to content ourselves with a few roadside pics.

Scenery along the highway in NF.

The highway along the coastline from Rocky Harbour was good until we turned off the major route. It wasn't terrible, but the sudden dips and potholes couldn't be avoided or seen in many cases which made for a rough ride.

We had booked 2 nights at a park just out of St. Anthonys and drove straight past it the first time because their one and only sign is partly hidden from the road - a strange way to attract clients. On the drive into the area there were numerous signs warning of Moose, so we kept a good lookout for any but were disappointed to see no Mooses. Later we were told that the area has the greates concentration of Moose in the worldand we only need to travel at dawn or dusk to sse them. Guess what we did. Here's a clue, we are not dawn patrol travellers!

The next day saw us on a 12 metere whale watching boat heading out of St. Anthony's harbour. At first it looked to be a no show as there was still a lot of fog clinging to the coastline, but after a half hour or so we saw our first humpback whale - 20 meteres away!! The whole experience was humbling and awe inspiring when you realized that the animal surfacing so close was bigger than our boat!

Humpback whale tale near St Anthony's

Dolphins tried desperately to be noticed by leaping from the water in cartwheels and flips but they were further away and too quick to get good pictures of. The whales, in the end we saw at least 6, were far more sedate and simply surfaced, took some deep breaths in and out before going tail up and swimming to the depths for another 5- 10 minutes at a time.

The coastline was dotted with caves and one of them known as the The Big Oven was huge. More than 70 meteres high by 50m wide and travelling back into the hillside for over a 100m where it ends in a swimming beach.

Viking house as it would have been 1000 years ago.

I'm a viking tee,hee,hee

The tour took all morning and so we visited L'anse aux Meadows in the afternoon. This is the oldest known viking settlement in North America, a mere 1000 years old! After 'professional discovery' (the locals always thought it was just an Indian camp) the village was recretaed using local resources and stands as a living tribute to viking history.

Unfortunnately for us this is where Paige touched a giant Hogweed plant that later caused her and us so much pain and problems. After 2 emails to the authorities that run the site, there is still no response - a worrying sign.

Dusk patrol for moose

After dinner we made a dusk patrol of the roads to see if we could see any of the moose in the area. We were not disappointed this time. Every few hundred metres there seemed to be a moose grazing alongside the road. Another couple counted over 100 moose along the roadside in their 30 km dawn drive to the local airport - an amazing thought when you see how big these animals are. Moose must have territories and with so many living so close together it would be interesting times when moose mating season arrives!

All up, our visit to St Anthony's was a memorable experience for many reasons - mostly good.

On our travels back to the ferry, we encountered what I call a day of woe. You know how the saying goes - bad things happen in threes - that was our day of woe. It started normally enough with me breaking Jill's camera card and my coffee pot. Then the day seemed to ramp up some. As we drove the rough road back to our next campsite for the night - a car overtook us and signalled for us to pull over. Once we had done that we checked the trailer and found that the rear end had parted ways and the spare tyre was nearly dragging on the ground.

Oops. That's not meant to happen.

Not good - the wooden frame inside had rotted from years of exposure to water and the tyre weight coupled with sharp bumps as we drove along, tore the skin off the back of the trailer. A very helpful fellow traveller stopped and gave us 2 screws from his RV door to hold the skin back in place. We also tied it on using the clothesline cord for good measure. But that was not the end of it. Because we had been using so many electrical gadgets in the car, when we stopped the lights were left on and so drained the battery! We needed to get a jump start before we could drive on again.

Okay - so we left the lights on and the battery is flat!

To top things off, the evening was one of the windiest we experienced with driving rain also - with the way things had been going I was sure the trailer was going to collapse too - thankfully it didn't -I guess we had exhausted or 'bad luck' for the day.

Seabreeze campsite? - more like coastal hurricane!

It was a slow start to the last day of our island tour, so instead of it being a liesurely cruise to the ferry, it eneded as a mad dash to be sure we got there on time. Strangely the ferry was running on time so we had to too. But it wasn't the end of our surprises - just as we arrived at the exit to the ferry, customs asked whether we had any vegetables or fruit on board - yes we did - then it needs to be removed now. We mentioned that we didn't know anything about it, was there something that we missed when we came over? No we don't advertise it much!! Not much advertsising meant no signs, no warnings on pamphlets or ferry information, in fact no mention AT ALL until you arrive.

An hour later...I have them!

At least this gave us something to do while we waited to drive onto the ferry, and the ferry ACTUALLY took the time predicted so that we arrived back at North Sydney by 11pm. With nowhere to stay for the night we simply drove through the night and ended in Bangor, Maine USA for lunch the next day.

Jamaica? No problems mon!

Sitting at an open bar after 3 gin and tonics and gazing across the Caribbean sea has inspired me to write of Jamaica BEFORE I relate the earlier sections of our travels so far.
The title again says it all but misses the point about why. In Jamaica the tourist is KING. It doesn't matter what else may be going on here, violence, drug dealing (more on that later) or theft - that's for the locals - not tourists!!! I write this from the Jamaican point of view - tourists are simply too valuable to the Jamaican economy.
Being a king or queen in another country may sound grand, but of course it has it's drawbacks too. As a tourist you are fair game for EVERY vendor of EVERY product (remember that mention of drugs?) Step out of the cossetted surrounds of your resort and you are soon assailed by the local populace who assume you have infinite sums of cash to pay them for their goods.
Case point
Part 1.
Jill and I visited Ocho Riso a town where cruise ships frequent (frequent as in a few times a week frequent). We were driven into 2 separate shopping malls where the security guard raises a metal barrier to allow vehicles in and out. Once in there I had the distinct feeling of being "food" rather than a shopper. Hungry shop owners watch you closely and ignore all statements of, "Just looking" as though they were never spoken. Every shop has specials and great deals which are the best in Jamaica...mon. You may NOT look unmolested at anything in the shop. I missed my opportunity to grab a duty free bargain watch for a mere $3000US rather than the usual $6000US. That's shopping in the tourist malls.
Part 2
By the second tourist mall, we decided to walk across the street to the local markets and see what was on offer there. By the time we had crossed the street I had 2 offers of drugs and a taxi ride. Jill sailed on unaccosted. Entering the market meant entering a cacophony of offers and entreaties to look inside their tent. With over a hundred such tents, it meant a lot of offers and most were made at the same time in competition with their neighbours. Eye contact with anybody was a definite no-no. You look at a vendor in Jamaica and the deal is halfway complete according to them. I felt wrung out and unsettled by the time I had walked for 5 minutes around the markets.
Part 3
Taxi drivers in Ocho Riso must be the 2nd largest industry behind street vendors if the number of them is anyhting to go by. The are also imbued with the Jamaican persuasive techniques. Taxi driver,"Yo mon! I will give you a ride." "No thanks, answers the tourist."  "Yes mon, I have a ride for you (said louder and more forcefully) where do you want to go?" "Nowhere." Come with me mon, I will take you, my taxi is just over here, come on mon let's go there now." NO WE DON'T WANT A RIDE THANK YOU," is the exasperated response at which point the taxi driver takes a different tact and offers unasked for advice in the hope of a tip.
We also discovered the 106 Jamaican uses for a car horn while walking along the road of Ocho Riso;
1. toot-toot - want a ride? (taxis)
2. toot-toot - hello
3. toot-toot - goodbye
4. toot-toot - you're in my way
5. toot-toot - you're NOT in my way but I thought I would toot anyhow
6. toot-toot - hey look everyone my car has a horn too!
Plus at least another hundred reasons for using your car horn at every available opportunity. Uisng your horn every 3 seconds is probably a driving test requirement.
In Jamaica they are meant to drive on the left side of the road just like Australia. The key word is MEANT. With a population of 3 million and over 300 road deaths each YEAR  - I'm sure you can joing the dots.
In closing
Remember I mentioned the drug dealers as we crossed the road - they weren't the only ones, By the end of our 500 metere walk each way down the street I (not Jill ever) had been offered nearly a dozen deals - always the best and always "Just what you need mon!"

Do I  Look that stressed!?

You be the judge.

Nova Scotia

Now I'm going to be careful about how I relate the two areas of Nova Scotia that we travelled, because the people who live in Cape Breton (formerly Breton Island) like to distinguish that they are from Cape Breton - a part of Nova Scotia - not Nova Scotian. Confused? It's kind of like Adelaidians saying that they are South Australians which happens to be a part of Australia. Hair splitting? Maybe - but the inhabitants of Cape Breton sure have plenty to be proud of. For that reason the blog will divide here to showcase Nova Scotia in separate parts.

We raced off of Prince Edward Island as the opportunity allowed and decided to push on to a free campsite at a place called Havre Bouchere. The place was alongside a shack owned by the in-laws of another teacher at my school in Thunder Bay.

We arrived quite late in the evening - just on dusk, which means prime mosquito time! We were all eaten alive again as we set up and got dinner underway. The wind was strong and gusty too which was a concern that later became a problem. During the night a wind gust blew our canopy onto the roff with a loud bang and Jill and I needed to take it down as it rained on us. All in all it was not a good night for the adults.

The scenery was great though and the kids loved the beach nearby.

Free campsite at Havre Bouchere.

After staying for one night we headed off for Halifax, capital of Nova Scotia. Jill had big travel plans for us when we reached there but in the end we didn't get to see much.

Lighthouse at Peggy's Cove.

What we did see at Peggy's Cove was very nice though and that is probably why we didn't get much beyond there. That was certainly the most touristy place that we had visited at that time.

I think also that the pace of travel was telling on everyone (except Jill) at that time so we just needed to slow the pace and enjoy where we were instead of trying to see everything that was there to see.

Sitting on a rock next to Peggy's Cove lighthouse.

We drove a little in Halifax to look around but again the urge to explore had died a little and we felt the squeeze of time on us as the ferry for New Foundland was booked and we still had Cape Breton to see. A stop in some of the parks in Halifax showed us just how important this place was to the British when they feared French invasion and later the Canadians fearing uboat attacks in the 2nd world war.

Ash is "blown away" at the fort overlooking Halifax harbour.

This whole area of Nova Scotia has been a military stronghold for hundreds of years and many of the old forts and ammunition sites are still standing. On our last day in Halifax as we waited for repairs to our camper trailer, we visited another park where an old tower in the Point Pleasant Park. The tower was partly closed but the nice gurad there allowed us to go to the top to see the views - I think it was Jill's legs that helped convince him to be nice.

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Coming down the stairs of the tower.

My postergirl - who could say no to those legs?!

We criss-crossed the island a couple of times going from Havre Bouchere to Halifax and back again which was rather unfortunate as there wasn't much to see from the highways. This part of Nova Scotia was okay but not particularly exciting  - apart from Jill's legs - did I mention those?

Don't touch the plants!

After our visit to L'Anse aux Meadows in New Foundland left Paige with a more lasting memory than any of us really wanted. We were walking around a National Park that shows a viking village from 1000 years ago, and the kids were playing on the edge of the tour as the guide spoke. 

At the end of the walk, a lady came over and explained that we should be careful as she thought some of the plants could be Giant Hogweed. At first I thought that she was just pulling our legs, but she continued to explain that the plants have an acid somewhere on them and when it gets on the skin it will react with UV and cause blisters that may scar for life. 

We immediately told the kids to keep away from the plants that she had just shown us and they did - except that Paige may have ALREADY unwittingly touched a plant - as the pictures below show. At the height of her blister size it spread almost the entire length of her finger and her wrist and hand joints were turning red too. This was all after she had started a course of antibiotics and steroids and cortisone cream. On the day that we visited the Statue of Liberty when the temperature was at least 38C with 80% humidity, her blister began to leak - urrggh. Thankfully it meant that the skin stayed intact and she may avoid infection.

As Jill proudly quipped to one American, "We may have the dangerous animals, but you've sure got the dangerous plants!"

Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island can be summed up in three words, 'Small and pretty'. Busy, cheap petrol, well marked highways are also applicable but not the the same extent.

Just getting to the island is an exciting experience for anyone who hasn't done it before. Confederation bridge links the the island to the mainland of New Brunswick across almost 13 kilometres of water. It is the longest bridge in the world to cover water that freezes - I guess you have to claim the longest somehow!!

 As soon as you get onto the island you begin to realise how much tourism this little place gets. The welcoming town is purely tourist shops offering everything that a tourist could ever want. The information centre was huge and interestingly for such a small place the island was divided into regions with separate driving trail names. Naturally the central area of the island where Anne of Green Gables was set was the busiest of all the regions.

Knowing the potential for limited campsites, we headed west for another part of the Island to look over the goods there. Because of a few delays in travelling across - yes the Jenkinsons were fluffing! - we arrived late and missed a site at the first provincial park we tried. Luckily there was another 5 minutes along the road, unluckily it was Friday night in a local park. "Quiet time" is meant to be between 11pm-7am, however the people across the way from us ignored that and were still happily singing and laughing loudly at 2am when I finally got up and asked them to stop.

I'm not sure that they actually understood my accent that well so I kept it simple with please stop. Most did, but that was our night shot and we were glad to be leaving the next morning. I delighted in leaving the car door open with the keys in the ignition which creates the most annoying ding-ding sound - right next to our neighbours trying to sleep in their van. Aaah, it's the little things in life that make it worthwhile. :-)

The park was called Jacques Cartier and it had a nice pink sandy beach.

 After that sleepless night we drove the small distance to the top of the island called North Cape where there was a windfarm.

 Next to the wind farm was also the longest rock reef in the world or something like that, but I think it was another of those "longest" claims - like it's the longest rock reef made from rocks that are found on PEI. Anyhow that was singularly unimpressive. The cliffs were nice though, simply because they were different.

The red cliffs of the island are another tourist attraction - gotta get 'em where you can! You can even buy T-shirts that have been dyed with the local mud - that would have saved our kids a lot of time then!!

After North Cape we drove a few kilometres across the island to the Green Gables area to look for a place to sleep. Sure enough, before lunchtime the biggest park of the area was full and saying good luck in that way that tells you they are really saying, "You should have booked - nah, nah, na, nah,nah" But luckily just down the road again at White Sands we grabbed one of only three sites left and it was REALLY quiet - ah bliss. The downside was that Jill's note regarding a $15 entrance to the Anne of Green Gables film set for a look around had had a price increase to $75 - we didn't visit.

Instead we headed for the big city of Charlottetown to get some hayfever relief for Ian who was suffering terribly. We also decided to eat a lobster dinner as that is part of the islands attraction too. Expensive but nice, we were served by an Australian waitress living in Canada. The night out was a great change to routine and we all enjoyed it.

The next day as we walked along a mosquito infested trail that cost $20 to look at some sand dunes, the lobster had its revenge! It waited until the most inopportune moment and decided it had to exit my system immediately! I still have the mosquito bites on my bum to prove it!!! Apart from that the walk was okay but not overly memorable.  The chance to photograph was good, and I had plenty of posers!

It was from here that we decided to head off the island via the ferry - a quick decision that lends itself to another story.