Posts

Day 8 (August 22, 2020): Two last sights, and then homeward bound!

Image
Vacation Day 8:  Homeward-bound day!  But there are still two ferry rides and two key sights to take in before we make it home:  The Balancing Rock on St. Mary's Bay and Burntcoat Head Park on the Minas Basin. As accommodations go, the Brier Island Lodge is nothing to write home about.  But the restaurant has a great chef, and the food is quite excellent.  Pam's blueberry pancakes and my omelette contend for top-prize among our seven breakfasts on this vacation.  Sufficiently fed, we headed down the road to make the 10:25AM ferry from Westport on Brier Island over to Freeport on Long Island.  The channel between the two was socked in with fog, which made us concerned that The Balancing Rock would also be fogged in.  The fog hugged the coastline all along the journey from Freeport up-island.  Throughout the 1.7KM hike out to the coast, we were convinced we wouldn't be able to see a thing.  Lo and behold, as if by some miracle when we bro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 7 (August 21, 2020): Ferries and Whales

Image
On the road again... PEI - check!  NB - check!  NS - here we come!  Up before sunrise again today, a necessary evil, as Covid screenings required us to be at the ferry terminal 75 minutes before our 8AM departure from Saint John to Digby. With few passengers for today's crossing, we were all boarded by 7:20, and the ferry actually pulled away five minutes early.  We got a light breakfast onboard, Pam slept much of the journey, and before we knew it, we were passing through the entrance of the Annapolis Basin and into Digby, arriving 15 minutes early.  What a smooth crossing it was.  And it sure beat the alternative:  a seven-hour drive. We were headed to a part of Nova Scotia we had never visited:  Brier Island. It is perhaps the most isolated part of the province, as you have to take not one, but two ferries to get there.  Brier is located at the end of a long finger of land jutting into the Bay of Fundy.  The elongated St. Mary's Bay ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 6 (August 20, 2020): Good Bye, St. Andrew's! Hello, Saint John!

Image
Vacations are supposed to be at least partially about sleeping in.  Well, there hasn't been much of that on this trip, unfortunately.  We were up before sunrise and out the door at 6:45AM in order to get to Minister's Island, the summer estate of Canadian Pacific Railway mogul, Sir William Van Horne.  To get to Minister's Island, you have to literally ride the low tide: you drive across a sandy roadway that is only accessible during low tide.  (The roadway is covered in 16 feet of water at high tide.)  We drove across just after 7AM and hiked almost four kilometres to see the buildings on the estate, which are quite amazing. Back at The Algonquin, we had one last meal (breakfast) at the resort, followed by an hour poolside and another look at a few sights in St. Andrews, before heading out of town around 12:30PM.  We rolled into Saint John an hour later, and made our first stop Wolastoq Park, then explored Reversing Falls.  We then headed to the truly...
Post a Comment
Read more