Thursday - a longish drive

On Thursday, we drove from Broad Cove Campground in Ingonish, in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, to Wayside Camping Park, in Glen Margaret, near Peggy's Cove, and outside Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

We had been concerned about the drive out from Broad Cove to Trans Canada Highway 105 - it took about 90 minutes to make that part of the drive...

... this was a relatively straight section, but you can see that the edge of the road surface is in pretty rough shape, and the shoulder is even worse. Carl said that he was prepared to use the road as a one-lane road if necessary, straddling the center line as long as no one was coming from the other direction, stopping if there was someone coming and the road surface was too bad to use to be able to make use of the oncoming traffic lane. The good part about the trip "out" was that the falling-away part did not fall away to a multi-foot drop into the water, as was the case going out to the campground last Sunday.

But then, there were beautiful views at times too. We had a little bit of blue sky for the beginning of our trip.

We stopped at a shopping center with a Canadian Tire store and had lunch. One of the challenges that we have found on the highways in Canada is that there are no rest areas or pull offs -- or at least, none marked. Sometimes we'll see a likely spot as we are driving past it, too late to turn into it. I had checked out a couple of locations as potential overnight stops in case the weather made it not feasible to make the whole trip on Thursday, so we used one of those - at the mall with the Canadian Tire store - for our lunch stop. Although it was rainy and a little windy, we were able to continue on, eventually making it to our campground outside of Peggy's Cove by mid-afternoon.

We are hoping to visit several sites around this area while we are staying here.

Preparing for a longish drive

We were planning a longish drive for Thursday, from Cape Breton Highlands to south of Halifax, a little over 300 miles, and we know that the first part of it will be challenging as it is the road that we drove on Sunday which is narrow and curving and had deteriorating edges. 

One of the inner duals (on the driver's side) is losing air at a slow rate - so we decided to air it up on Wednesday evening...

Carl checking the current pressure in the tire.

Adding air from the onboard air from Gracie.

Thankfully we can use air from Gracie -- we did need to start her up and let her reach air pressure, which I'm sure our campground neighbors appreciated (not!). The onboard air works pretty well for Gracie's back tires as our desired air pressure is about 80-85PSI. It is harder to put air in the front tires as we run about 100-105PSI which is pretty close to the max pressure that Gracie's air system will maintain. We got the tires at appropriate pressures ready for our drive on Thursday.

A hike in Cape Breton Highlands National Park

We had picked out a couple of hikes that we wanted to do while at Cape Breton Highlands National Park, but due to the weather, we only had one day that seemed nice enough to do a hike... so on Wednesday we drove over to the east side of the park (about an hour away from our campground) to do the Skyline hike.

We drove north from our campground around the north end of the national park. This was an overlook just a short distance from the campground, and looking back down the coast toward where the campground's beach area is located.

It was a gorgeous day, and we were a little concerned that the parking area for the hike might be full, but it turns out that Parks Canada allocates a LOT of parking, including parking for big rigs (we could have parked Gracie there).

Information about the park at the trailhead.

Information about the trail at the trailhead.

A map of the trail at the trailhead - note that the trail is a loop.

It started out very broad (nearly as wide as a two-way gravel road) but then narrowed to about 4' wide - still nice and a good surface.

Some pretty ferns with the sun on them under the pines.

An orange dandelion that we saw along the path - I've never seen an orange dandelion. (https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/agoseris_aurantiaca.shtml- the range map on that page does not include Nova Scotia, but I think that's the plant that we saw)

When we got to the split in the trail to do the loop, we elected to go right...

... as we were going the part of the loop that is the "top" in this picture, pretty much everyone else just did the bottom part of the loop and to the spur out to the south end.

There was quite a bit of information about the area with the spur off the south end of the loop -- it was made up of a boardwalk...

This is hard to see, but it explains why the winds are so strong in this area.

The boardwalk is provided to prevent damage to sensitive plants that could be killed by being walked upon.

Again, hard to see, but tells about the building of the boardwalk.

The boardwalk started in an area with trees, but quickly proceeded into the open and down the headland.

We decided that this bench was as far as we wanted to walk down the boardwalk, as going down would mean we'd have to climb back up again.

It was very windy even in this upper area, to the point that it was not enjoyable to sit and see the view, so we did not stay long. We saw folks further down the boardwalk who laid down on the boardwalk to avoid being buffeted by the wind. Note that we both removed our hats -- others were having their hats blown off.

Carl coming back up the boardwalk along the headland.

We proceeded back on the part of the loop that we had not taken on our way out -- it appeared to us that the people "in the know" used the southern part of the loop and went out and back the same way. The other loop had some views, but it made the trail about 50% longer and didn't add a lot to what we would see... but we're glad we did it to get about a 5 mile hike completed.

Just a quick post

No pictures today -- we had hoped to take a hike, but it rained much of the day, so we just took a walk around the campground. Met a couple from Arizona (Buckeye) who came in to the campground today. Hoping for no rain and hiking on Wednesday. We leave on Thursday heading to Halifax.

Broad Cove Campground, Cape Breton Highlands National Park

We are camping at Cape Breton Highlands National Park, in Broad Cove Campground. The campground is on the western coast of Cape Breton Highlands.

The campground is not very crowded -- we are here the week preceding Canada Day -- so it will probably be full by this weekend, but we'll be moving on toward Halifax by Thursday. The sites are large and have full hookups -- wish the US National Parks campgrounds were like this! (We generally cannot fit into the campgrounds in US National Parks - built 50+ years ago, they are not configured for big rigs.)

We walked about 1/2 mile down to the coast from our campsite -- looking south down the coastline.

That's the Atlantic Ocean out there -- Newfoundland is a little to the north.

Some of the sites in the campground are equipped with oTENTiks - rental camping accommodations (https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/ns/cbreton/activ/camping/oTENTik).

On the way back to Gracie, Carl saw an amateur radio antenna on a neighboring site. The Ham was outside his rig activating this park for Parks on the Air (https://parksontheair.com/). He got a total of 13-14 "hunters" who found him; ten are required to consider the park activated. He had hunters calling in from Michigan, New York, Ontario, Pennsylvania, and as far away as South Carolina. Carl got to chat with him (in person) for a little while.

Back home! We have our sign in our front window rather than putting up the signpost outside -- it is a little easier to just put it in the window when we're just stopping for a few days.

It is cloudy and cool, but no rain currently and no strong winds, and temperatures in the 50Fs, for which we are grateful!

Leaving Newfoundland, Arriving back in Nova Scotia

On Saturday, we left Pippy Park near St. John's, Newfoundland, on our way to the Marine Atlantic Ferry port at Argentia.

On our way, we saw a few "Potholes Ahead" signs (the fellow who makes those signs is ensured of full employment in Newfoundland) or "rough road" pictures...

...it may not be clear in the pictures, but the roads were often *very* rough. Just requires slowing down a lot especially when your household goods are bouncing around with you!

I had made separate reservations for Gracie and the Jee-rage (and for Carl and me) on the ferry. It is slightly cheaper for a motorhome at 41' and a regular vehicle, than for motorhome+regular vehicle at 60' or so, whatever the total length is when Gracie and the Jee-rage are hooked together (I knew at the time I was making the booking). Also, Gracie is more maneuverable without the Jeep attached (we cannot back up when the Jeep is attached) - and when we took the ferry from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland 3.5 weeks ago, the folks directing parking on the ferry had asked Carl to back up, so it was good for that crossing that we were separate.

We stopped at the Argentia Visitor's Center to have lunch and while there, disconnected the Jeep from Gracie -- so I was driving behind Gracie -- not a common view for me!

We were hoping that we could tell the ferry folks that we were caravanning together and that they would then let the Jeep park on the same deck as Gracie, but they didn't want to do that as cars would be parked on a different deck.

When leaving Newfoundland, there is an agricultural check station where they question you about what you're carrying. You're not allowed to bring back root vegetables from Newfoundland to the other parts of Canada as there is some root pest or issue in the soil that they don't want to be transported. I guess Gracie was super dirty, because they sprayed her down as she went through the agriculture check -- so any dirt that she was carrying wouldn't end up in other parts of Canada. Carl was hoping for a good wash, but it just pretty much smeared the dirt.

The Jeep and I were placed in a car line -- we happened to be right behind a Tesla SUV. I had never seen their doors open. The driver's and passenger's doors open "normally" (like other cars), but the back doors open like bat wings.

We had arrived a couple of hours early so walked around...

... the Atlantic Vision was the ferry on which we would be traveling.

We checked out the ferry terminal...

... we had already gotten our printed tickets when we drove into the terminal area, but there was a ticket counter for walk-on customers and to get changes done to the tickets. While we were sitting there using the free WiFi for a little while, my phone rang, and the ticket counter person wanted to talk with Carl -- they needed to make a change to his room card keys -- so we were able to do that right across from where we were sitting. You may not be able to read it, but there are two clocks - one on Newfoundland time and one on Atlantic time. We would be leaving Newfoundland time and arriving in Nova Scotia on Atlantic time.

"Driver's, start your engines!" (Doesn't it look like we're about to start a race?)

Motorcycles boarded first, then cars for folks who had booked as handicapped (I think they parked near the elevators), and then the rest of the regular vehicles, so the Jeep and I were soon heading onto the boat. We boarded on deck 3, but used an internal ramp to go up to deck 5. It was odd though -- we boarded from the back of the boat and were heading to the front, but, I guess because the ramp is just on one side of the garage deck, they took us around the center partition and the first half of the cars parked facing backwards from the way we would eventually need to get off. I figured that meant I would be one of the last cars getting off the boat.

I went up to a top outer deck and watched until Gracie started leaving the staging area before heading down to deck 3 to catch back up with Carl, Gracie, and Miss Kitty.

This was Carl's view as he took pictures entering the ferry. You may be able to see that it was getting very foggy.

Carl was heading straight down by the center partition...

... ending up pretty near the front of deck 3.

We fed Miss Kitty, told her we'd be back as soon as we could, and then headed to our cabin. Since this is an overnight ferry, and scheduled to be 16 hours long, we figured we'd be in better shape if we had a cabin for sleeping rather than trying to get sleep in chairs.

We went back onto the deck to watch the casting off...

... this boat came out to release the front line -- the line was on what looked like a tethering ball. The other lines were to the docking area and released by people on the dock.

The ferry schedule indicated that we were to leave at 5pm,

... but it was past 5:30pm when the engines kicked in and the lines were released. Maybe we were scheduled to leave at 5pm Atlantic time?

Once we got going, the damp foggy air was too chilly to stay outside, so we wandered around inside...

This was the "Panoramic Lounge" at the front of the ship...

... a lot of people there -- I guess some stayed there overnight. Glad we didn't have to, the chairs did not look comfortable for sleeping.

A schematic of the ship. There were 2 full decks of "garage" and then two half decks below deck 3 of garage space too. I don't honestly know whether there was anyone parked there or not.

We packed sandwiches for our supper, so we headed to our cabin and ate, then watched some videos that Carl had downloaded to his iPad. On the other crossing, I think WiFi was available on the ferry, but there wasn't any available on this crossing.

Although the schedule indicated that the crossing would be 16 hours, we were notified at about 7:40am (Newfoundland time) that we would be arriving in an hour (about 15 hours crossing time). We were up and ready, and headed out on deck a little bit before the arrival time...

... we were studying the port area, trying to find a spot where we thought we could meet up with Gracie and the Jeep and hook them back up. We decided on a potential location on the exit road. We were pretty sure that Carl and Gracie would get off first based on where each of us were parked.

Thankfully, our phones were working and we were able to be in touch with each other as we were waiting on our separate decks for the go-ahead to leave. The occupants of the pickup that was the only thing in front of Carl's ability to get off were late to get back to their vehicle, so he was stuck for a longer than expected, but eventually got off and got stopped on the exit road where we had planned.

This is on deck 5 -- I was waiting for other vehicles that had already been released before I proceeded to loop around the center barrier and head out.

We wanted to get fuel, and had planned a stop at the Petro Canada station about 4 miles from the ferry terminal. We drove separately to the station, and then I ran inside to see if we could fuel at the "Petro Card" pumps (card locked) as retail customers. We could not and there was no diesel at the front pumps, so we decided to hook up the Jeep to Gracie, and proceed onwards toward our campground. We still had about 1/2 a tank in Gracie, so it wasn't "urgent".

While our phones were working for phone calls, data on our phones was not working, so I used the Garmin and routed us to an Irving Oil station near our campground on Cape Breton Island. I didn't know for sure that it had diesel, but I was hoping. Although I had downloaded the map for this portion of Nova Scotia from Google Maps, the downloaded view does not provide details about stops (like whether the Irving Oil station had diesel), and, in general, the Google satellite views are not very good where we've been in Canada, and particularly not good on a downloaded map, so I didn't have good information about whether we would be able to fill up there.

The road (Cabot Trail) was VERY rough -- the edges are in particularly poor shape and a lot of times, Carl would need to use part of the opposite lane to try to avoid dropping off the road surface on curves. Thankfully, the traffic was not heavy. Eventually, we got to the Irving Oil station, it *did* have diesel and pumps that we could get to with Gracie, and got Gracie filled up with diesel...

...CAN$325.00 for 216.669 liters at CAN$1.50 per liter -- translated to a total charge on our credit card of US$247.31, for 57.23 gallons, or US$4.321/gallon.

At this Irving Oil, diesel is CAN$1.500/liter, and regular is CAN$1.585/liter (US$4.321/gallon diesel and US$4.571/gallon regular).

We were paying CAN$1.61-CAN$1.64/liter in Newfoundland for diesel (US$4.64-US$4.73/gallon). We use a fleet card in the US, and just recently -- since we have been in Canada -- Irving Oil (in the US) has been added to the program. I just checked the prices near Calais, Maine (where we'll be in about 3 weeks when we drop back down into the US) and it lists the pump price as US$4.349 and our fleet card price as US$3.425. So... the prices we're seeing are not horrible compared to retail prices in the US... it sure would be nice if our fleet card expanded to this part of Canada!

We'll be exploring Cape Breton Highlands the next few days.