Day Something

Okay well its gotten to the point now of me not being able to remember what day it actually is, meaning I know it’s the 22nd of June, but have not the time nor the inclination to mathematically calculate what day of the trip we are on. Suffice it to say, I have not written anything down in quite a while .My promise at the end of the last blog was an empty one.
We find ourselves now in a town called Glen Margaret; a stones throw from Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia. I’m not sure if anyone remembers the tragic Swiss Air crash of 1998, but it happened just off the coast of where we are staying (wiki!). Wayside RV Park, you can call me Jim Bob and Amy Loretta for the next little while.
We have been staying here for the past three nights, two nights longer than we intended. We had planned to be in Halifax by now – which is like 30 minutes away – but got a bit comfortable here.
We have met the nicest couple; they are our neighbors Mary and Len. They have traveled the entire continent of North America between them, in fact this is what they do currently: travel. I hope I get to do that myself one day, though that is most likely a pipe dream at the moment because Bertha is literally burning a hole in my pocket as I write.
Anyway, we have spent a good deal of time with them, Mary in particular, and it’s been fantastic, they are both so interesting and have so many stories to tell and are such generous people too. Also, I think Falcor has a crush on Mary.
So today we spent the day resealing our stupid effing roof. It wasn’t too bad actually, I felt quite handy and useful and I think Amy did too. Once in the groove it actually became quite a bit of fun – until my OCD struck and I went a bit crazy with the silicone.
Waiting for it to dry, before applying another RV sealant for extra leakage protection, we took a trip to grab some lubrication for ourselves in the form of beer, and lubrication for our hungry Cobra so that she could keep wiping her bloodthirsty gas-guzzling smile with our greenbacks. It turned out to be that both necessities were on the other side of town close to downtown Halifax, so after a quick fill up that couldn’t have come soon enough, we decided to go and check out the city. Luckily for me Amy was driving because trying to navigate your way through a downtown city-centre in this beast is like putting a monkey at the wheel of a hummer in a parking lot. I don’t know what that actually means, I just made it up – point is, its scary and dangerous and hard.
After a few close run ins on the road, we decided to retreat with white knuckles and our tails between our legs and try again with a bit of fore planning tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Right so what I really want to catch you up on was our jaunt along the Cabot trail which is where we were before this and also where I took my vacation from recording the days events. It has been my very favourite part of the trip so far. Its funny because sometimes you hear about places that have so much hype that you expect to be under whelmed when you get there and I suppose quite often are, and then there places you think are overrated that completely blow you away and for me the Cabot Trail is the latter. Another place I experienced this was when I went to Paris, France. I had heard so much about it all my life and had seen so many pictures that I never imagined that it would ever meet my expectations, but it blew them away and I would go back there in a heartbeat.
So go to the Cabot Trail because the stories and picture I have for you will never do it justice.
So after leaving Ben Eoin we spent a night at the base of the Cabot Trail camping along some side street in the middle of nowhere on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic. It was as amazing as it sounds.
The next morning we started up the Trail which is basically a road (not a very good one) that winds through mountains along the Atlantic. Now I will say that if I had it to do over again, I would have chosen a much smaller ride cos there were times where we thought Old Bertha wouldn’t make it up and over the other side, like flooring it up and literally teetering over the other side – one bat of the eyelash would have made the difference. But the ol’ girl worked hard and got us round – even did a bit of off roading which I am now 100% certain she was not built for.
The Cabot Trail was so beautiful, a fantasy place like where those fairy guys lived in Lord of the Rings… or like in Avatar, with the shiny little bugs flying all around you, except we weren’t blue and we didn’t have to sleep in a crazy little machine to get us there… the Cobra took care of that.
So all in all we were there for 3 amazing days and nights; lots of hiking and swimming and driving round cliffs. I suppose apart from the scenery and wonderful people we met along the way, going whale watching was a highlight. We went out on a beautiful sunny day on a Zodiac motor boat, so we were very close to the water and there only 9 of us aboard including the Captain, so it was very intimate. The first whale we spotted was called a Minke. It was an amazing site to see it coming up out of the water to get air and diving back down and disappearing altogether. Apparently, these are not the most sociable of whales and are solitary as opposed to belonging to a pod so they kept screeching off every time we came near. Next we came across an entire pod of about 20 whales all coming up simultaneously to breath. These were called Pilot Whales and in the pod there were two amazingly adorable calves bobbing up and down with far more enthusiasm than the rest. It was a truly breathtaking experience and would recommend it to anyone. The last thing we saw was a curious 750-pound seal. She kept popping her head out of the water to check us out probably trying to figure out what the hell that odd looking creature was. We were out there for a total of two hours but it felt more like 5 minutes in the company of these beautiful creatures in such an intimate setting.

So we will be heading on to Halifax tomorrow to check out the city and sample the nightlife. I look forward to filling you in about our experiences there shortly.