Everybody knows of the stereotype that Canadians are the friendliest people on earth and after a week in Nova Scotia I can tell you it’s true, at least for the Nova Scotians!
Every day I meet strangers who are curious and want to learn what I am up to with this strange vehicle[1]. Sometimes they don’t even want to talk to me, one guy in the car in front of me paid my ferry ticket and all he said was “Welcome to Nova Scotia!”. Crazy!
I can’t imagine somebody paying the ticket for a stranger on the ferry from Meilen to Horgen just because. I have to admit, it also has never occurred to me to do so. On the other hand, I’ve never seen a car with a Canadian license plate on that ferry 🙂
Anyway, after a week “on the road” I am about half way through Nova Scotia. I followed the coastal roads to the south and then further on to the Bay of Fundy, then I drove back to Halifax. The plan is to follow the eastern shores until I reach Breton Island. From there I’ll follow the Cabot Trail and then I’ll head to New Brunswick.
The South Shore is beautiful and the tide is impressive and gets even more impressive at the Bay of Fundy. The low tide leaves back huge sand beaches, and people hunting for clams. A shame the water is so freaking cold (and I don’t like clams). When I don’t boondock (wildes Campieren) I like to stay at provincial parks which are like state owned campsites, with hot shower and flush toilets. A night costs $26.70 and they are usually at very nice spots, as a bonus usually there are connecting trails. So far I stayed twice on them and on the second one I did some trail running along the coast, which was harder than it sounds because quite a bit of the trail was on stone beaches. Also, figuring out where the trail is, is a challenge by itself! Unfortunately I forgot my Garmin charger back home, no more Strava fame 🙁
The weather is ok – it’s between 10-15C however, the wind can be quite strong and then it gets really cold. On the bright side there hasn’t been long lasting rain showers and no sunburn! 🙂 Everybody tells me that it’s unusually cold and they promise it will get warmer now!
Regarding the time budget I think I’ll have to hurry up a bit if I want to be in Seattle by August. I didn’t plan to stay in Nova Scotia two weeks but it seems like I will. So much for Nova Scotia is a small province! In addition to that, the whole journey started two weeks late because of the shipping issues. Currently I do about 200km a day and I don’t really want to do much more than that.
I am happy with the Landy, everything works as planned. There are some details I will have to address in the future but for now I am content with leaving it as is.
Sunset at Brier Island in a timelapse:
And now to the pictures:
[1] While I was writing this sitting in front of the Landy, already setup for the night, a couple walked by and we started talking. After getting a crash course on how to properly cook Lobster I was invited over for tea, apple pie and the Stanley Cup match. The next morning I got an amazing breakfast as well! Thank you so much for your hospitality, Tom and Rebecca!