Chapter 5.  Nova Scotia

Day 21 – June 19 – Truro

(Shari) Getting lost or making a wrong turn is part of the adventure. Judy starts out at Sobey’s and cannot find street names on road signs. Kay and Doug put tonight’s campground location in their GPS and it leads them the shortest way: to the Nova Scotia ferry. Jim makes a wrong turn. Bert and I almost make the wrong turn since the roads do not have signs. “TURN RIGHT on Hwy 1” means nothing when the highway is not signed. Personally, we luck out and do everything right arriving at our destination at 11:30. Tonight 10 of us go out to eat at a local fish-and-chips place. For $15.95, Bert and I get 4 pieces of fish, one salad and one order of fries. Can’t beat that price! The best part of the evening, however, is the company. Our chatter made our wait go faster.

(Bert) At a quick birding meeting I hand out a spreadsheet of our pelagic sightings and times for the Madeleine Island ferry and a complete list of the birds we have seen to date. With the Ring-necked Pheasant seen today by Ron on the New Brunswick side and another seen by Pat C. on the Nova Scotia side, our trip list comes to 160 species thus far. Province totals are 141 for Quebec, 89 for New Brunswick and 87 for Prince Edward Island.

Day 22 – June 20 – North Sidney

(Shari) “We need to check out a campground we will visit on the second part of our Maritimes trips”, I tell Bert. “It is only 3-4 miles off Exit 37”. We find Exit 37 and follow the campground sign pointing to the right. However, at the next fork in the road there is no sign. I know I am supposed to stay on Hwy 4 so we take the more obvious and better road to the right. After 3 mi. we think we took the wrong way. After 4 mi. we know we did. After 6 mi. we still have not found a place to turn around our 60-ft. train. Finally after another mile, we see a road with two entrances, forming a triangle. Bert turns onto one side of the triangle, but says we better unhook since he doesn’t think he can make the acute angle turn to the second side. We are getting good at this and complete unhooking and reattaching the car in less than 5 min. We retrace our steps, turning the correct way and find the campground. After informing the owner of our plight, he says he knows there is no sign at that intersection. Well….. Anyway, now in five weeks we will know how to get to the campground. However, since we have used up at least 45 min. of our travel time, we forgo lunch. We pass Ray and Nancy on the road and figure they are first in the caravan and maybe we have 15 min. to stop for fuel. Apparently not, since both Ray and Nancy and Bill and Ginny beat us into the campground. I tease them that now they can chip in to pay for the sites. We unhook our car again, and while Bert stays back to help caravaners park, I drive to the ferry dock to scope it out. After obtaining the needed information, I return and can impart all my knowledge to the group. Wouldn’t you know, someone has a question to which I did not find an answer. It will have to wait until tomorrow when we board. After our meeting, Bert and I grill oysters in the shell. Bill sees us and we tease that we were hiding them from him. We eat the delicious morsels outside and retire for dinner at about 7.

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