Once again we awoke with the sound of rain. Rain falling on the trailer always reminds me of Eddie Rabbit and “I love a Rainy Night”. Rather than get up, I decided to roll over and catch a few more z’s. The next time I woke it wasn’t raining, so I got up and this time very, very quietly went to the loo and vacated the trailer to make my coffee on the outside kitchen stove.
Shortly after Connie emerged from the trailer to make Zach a special breakfast consisting of French toast with icing sugar and geniune Quebec maple syrup along with crispy bacon and fresh raspberries and black berries. She asked if I’d be partaking and I said yes – I guess one day off from the intermittent fasting isn’t going to kill me.
I helped by attending to the bacon, while Connie prepared the French toast. It was a pleasant but cool morning at 14 celsius and the only downside was the mosquitos. The nasty things were everywhere. As they buzzed around me to bite every bit of exposed flesh, I was reminded of the signs outside the surrounding churches near our campsite. The Wesleyan stated…I wish Noah had swatted those two mosquitos. The Anglican stated, even the mosquitos know there is power in the blood.
As an aside, there are a lot of churches per kilometre here in Nova Scotia, so no one is without excuse for not finding a church of their choosing on Sunday morning. On our way to Peggy’s Cove, we drove by the William Black Memorial United Church which was established 198 years ago!
Zach offered to drive again today, which was another nice break for me. The road to Peggy’s Cove was winding but the drive was a very scenic 35 minute trip from our campsite. When we arrived, we were not dissapointed. This little community is everything you’ve heard about it and more. I chatted with a Nova Scotia Parks employee who told me that the parking lot and visitor’s centre were provincially owned and operated, the lighthouse federal but everything else was privately owned. I can’t imagine how much this little piece of real estate is worth.
We toured the shops, walked to the lighthouse and on the rocks surrounding the cove. It was stunningly beautiful. After returning to the truck we ate our packed lunch and then headed out to Lunenburg, the home of the Blue Nose II. From Peggy’s cove this was about an hour drive. Along the way, it rained off and on but when we arrived, it was warm and dry.
Lunenburg is a cute little town with very narrow streets, most of which are one way. It took us a while to find free parking. At one point, we climbed a street with about a 20% grade. Zach was out of practice on steep hills and nearly gave us whiplash as he stopped at the top and then gunned it to pull onto the one way street. We eventually parked in the recreation centre parking lot, which was mostly empty, and then made our way along the Harbour Walk.
As chance would have it, the Bluenose II (Bluenose I sunk off of Haiti in 1946) was on her way to Toronto for the Tall Ships Festival. However, there were a number of other boats in the harbour and I snapped a few photos.
We then made our way back to Mahoney Bay. We had thought we’d have dinner but after parking in the downtown and walking through the rain, we decided to head back to the campsite.
On the way we ran into some heavy rain, which intensified as we got closer to the campsite. I had a sinking feeling in my gut that we were about to find our site drenched from the downpour. Sure enough we rolled in and the water was rolling off the awning into the outdoor kitchen (Yes, yours truly decided to leave it open rather than take the 2 minutes to close it up before we left). There was about 4 inches of water in the stove and it was slowly dripping through the screw holes into the drawer below and from there onto the canvas director’s chair, which was strategically placed directly beneath the kitchen unit. Fabulous!
Connie and Zach went inside away from the rain and I stayed outside to clean things up. I had to take the stove top off, and methodically soak up the water with a cloth, squeeze it out on the grass and repeat. It took me about 45 minutes and then I lit the stove to dry everything out. Connie prepared burgers for dinner, and I lit the barbeque – ah more heat. The rain stopped briefly so I quickly ran to the truck to pull out the propane bottle. I then pulled out the campfire in a can from the trailer storage and soon the area under the trailer awning was warm. It rained on and off until about 8pm at which time I decided to call it a night and head into the trailer.
While I’m not a fan of the rain, I can see the benefit of it – it is so green and lush here. It is supposed to stay dry until about 6am tomorrow morning, which is perfect timing for us as we will be packing up in a downpour. C’est la vie!
Tommorrow we head to Cape Breton, another relatively short drive. Here’s hoping for more dry than wet!
PS Zach still didn’t find a Nova Scotia license plate today. One merchant at Peggy’s Cove had one but it was a bit too pricey. Fingers crossed we find one tomorrow.
Mal and Connie's Cross Canada Adventure 2.0 