The next stop on our tour of this part of the trip was the little town Louisbourg - which we chose to go to because there is a big historical fortress with people in period costume.
The town itself turned out to be really sweet - tiny and on the coast. And we stayed at the Cranberry Cove inn which I can absolutely recommend. It was beautifully decorated - each room with a theme. I stayed in the "Secret garden" room.
And then to the fortress itself. We were very glad to be there in the off season. Turns out they get so many visitors that you have to drive to a visitors centre with a GIGANTIC parking lot from which you catch a bus to the fortress itself.
They really do a recreated historical site well here. Turns out that there was actually no fortress left at all. It was French, after all, and when they lost, they were all kicked out and transported back to French. Then, when the coal mines in the area shut down in the 60's, someone in the Canadian government came up with the idea of rebuilding the fortress as a tourist attraction. All the miners were retrained in traditional crafts, like stonemasonary, and they rebuilt the whole fortified town. It is all based on the original plans, which were still stored in the archives in France. Really a magnificent achievement.
Because it was the off season, there were not as many staff in the fortress in period costume as there are in the summer months. But all of the people we met there were wearing extremely authentic looking costumes and could give you all sorts of interesting facts about life at the time that the fortress was really occupied. Like, for example, that the uniform LOOKS really warm - but is actually too hot in summer and freezing in Winter. Or about what life was like for soldiers in the barracks - who only had a life expectancy of 35. Or how to cook in a kitchen with an open fire and hearth.
Well worth a visit if you ever happen to be in Nova Scotia.
Sunday 31 October 2010
Monday 4 October 2010
The world famous Cabot trail
The Cabot trail is a road around the top of Cape Breton island. the signs say it is world famous. It may well be world famous - but I would have to say I had never heard of it until we started reading brochures about booking a trip here...
We have been very lucky with the weather here - especially given it is autumn - and only struck serious rain on "transit" days rather than sightseeing days. So we left Charlottetown in the rain and caught the ferry from Prince Edward Island back to the main part of Nova Scotia then John did a lot of driving to get us to Baddeck (interestingly pronounced badDECK - more deck less bad) and the start of the Cabot trail.
Baddeck is a lovely town in itself and features a museum about Alexander Graham Bell - who did lots of things with flight as well as the whole telephone thing. In fact, he had a finger in a lot of pies and one experiment that he was successfuL in was transmitting sound using light. Turned out not to be practical at the time - but seems pretty darn clever to me.
The Cabot trail is about 300 k. Lots of people do hiking and bicycle riding and motorbike riding around it. The scenery that we found most appealing was at the beginning where there were little villages in valleys nestled in the forest. But unfortunately didn't really realize how special it was until after we had zoomed past it. The rest is coastline - quite nice as coastlines go - but coming from a large island with lots of spectacular coastline ourselves, we are probably a little hard to impress.
The trail is in a national park. Unlike Australian national parks they give you instructions on what to do if attacked by a coyote or a bear at the entrance. Turns out that with coyotes you should make yourself as big as possible, yell and wave a stick. However with bears the story is that you should just back away, v e r y quietly and not climb a tree - as bears are generally better climbers than we are. You don't want to get mixed up between the two. There were also words of wisdom about moose - but they were mainly to not run into the moose with your car. Not sure whether that was for the benefit of the car or the moose. In any event, we didn't run into any wildlife - in any sense - on our journey.
The other thing we got at the national park entrance was a map. Unfortunately, the people who had printed the map didn't seem to have spoken to the people who put in the signs - so attractions and side trails that appeared on the map weren't necessarily signposted, meaning we zoomed past them (oh that must be the crofters cottage, guess we have also missed the track to the waterfall then), while other things were signposted but not on the map (what does it say about that on the map? It's not mentioned - oh)...
Incidentally, turns out that Canadian for "lookout" is "look off". Makes sense I guess.
So - in summing up - probably underwhelmed by the whole Cabot trail. World famous or not.
We have been very lucky with the weather here - especially given it is autumn - and only struck serious rain on "transit" days rather than sightseeing days. So we left Charlottetown in the rain and caught the ferry from Prince Edward Island back to the main part of Nova Scotia then John did a lot of driving to get us to Baddeck (interestingly pronounced badDECK - more deck less bad) and the start of the Cabot trail.
Baddeck is a lovely town in itself and features a museum about Alexander Graham Bell - who did lots of things with flight as well as the whole telephone thing. In fact, he had a finger in a lot of pies and one experiment that he was successfuL in was transmitting sound using light. Turned out not to be practical at the time - but seems pretty darn clever to me.
The Cabot trail is about 300 k. Lots of people do hiking and bicycle riding and motorbike riding around it. The scenery that we found most appealing was at the beginning where there were little villages in valleys nestled in the forest. But unfortunately didn't really realize how special it was until after we had zoomed past it. The rest is coastline - quite nice as coastlines go - but coming from a large island with lots of spectacular coastline ourselves, we are probably a little hard to impress.
The trail is in a national park. Unlike Australian national parks they give you instructions on what to do if attacked by a coyote or a bear at the entrance. Turns out that with coyotes you should make yourself as big as possible, yell and wave a stick. However with bears the story is that you should just back away, v e r y quietly and not climb a tree - as bears are generally better climbers than we are. You don't want to get mixed up between the two. There were also words of wisdom about moose - but they were mainly to not run into the moose with your car. Not sure whether that was for the benefit of the car or the moose. In any event, we didn't run into any wildlife - in any sense - on our journey.
The other thing we got at the national park entrance was a map. Unfortunately, the people who had printed the map didn't seem to have spoken to the people who put in the signs - so attractions and side trails that appeared on the map weren't necessarily signposted, meaning we zoomed past them (oh that must be the crofters cottage, guess we have also missed the track to the waterfall then), while other things were signposted but not on the map (what does it say about that on the map? It's not mentioned - oh)...
Incidentally, turns out that Canadian for "lookout" is "look off". Makes sense I guess.
So - in summing up - probably underwhelmed by the whole Cabot trail. World famous or not.
Friday 1 October 2010
Anne of Green Gables and lighthouses
Today we visited the real home of an imaginary figure and the imaginary home of the author who created her. Anne of Green Gables and her author (LM Montgomery or "our Maude" as they call her here) are really big news on Prince Edward Island. Today we visited Green Gables, which is sort of a real place. L M really lived on the island and was al sot an orphan.and the cottage on which she based green gables really exists - it's Anne herself who is fictional.
The green gables property is presented as it would have been - IF Anne had lived there. Kind of a bizarre concept really. It is a very pretty cottage with nice grounds. Glad we are here after the real tourist season though. The car park at green gables is HUGE - which. I fear may be indicative of the number of summertime visitors. Much quieter for us in the early autumn.
From there we went to visit the SITE of the home where "our Maude" actually lived with her grandparents after her mother died. Unfortunately no one lived there for a while and it fell down - so all you can actually see is the remains of the cellar. Kind of ironic that Anne has a real house but Lucy Maude doesn't.
We then tried to go on a scenic drive. It is kind of hard to avoid a scenic view on the island pretty houses nestle in green fields near little coves with fishing boats. And Lots of little white churches that look as though they are straight out of the pages of a picture book.
But all the souvenir shops show lighthouses and that is what I really wanted to see. But in spite of the many models of lighthouses in souvenir shops, the poster of "lighthouses of Prince Edward Island" and the mini lighthouses in peoples front yards we found it difficult to locate an actual lighthouse. We drove around all over the place- but only managed to locate one. I took several photos for good measure.
In the process of looking for lighthouses we did find a beach and John and I dipped our toes in the Atlantic Ocean.
It is nice to be able to cross a p,ace off hour list and feel that you have definitively seen enough of it. Must say - I feel that way about PEI. It is u deniably very pretty and if it was a little closer, would probably be a fun holiday destination (equivalent of Batemans Bay from Canberra) but I feel I have seen it now. Tomorrow we attempt to catch a ferry back to nova scotia and go on to The Cabot Trail onCape Breton Island.
The green gables property is presented as it would have been - IF Anne had lived there. Kind of a bizarre concept really. It is a very pretty cottage with nice grounds. Glad we are here after the real tourist season though. The car park at green gables is HUGE - which. I fear may be indicative of the number of summertime visitors. Much quieter for us in the early autumn.
From there we went to visit the SITE of the home where "our Maude" actually lived with her grandparents after her mother died. Unfortunately no one lived there for a while and it fell down - so all you can actually see is the remains of the cellar. Kind of ironic that Anne has a real house but Lucy Maude doesn't.
We then tried to go on a scenic drive. It is kind of hard to avoid a scenic view on the island pretty houses nestle in green fields near little coves with fishing boats. And Lots of little white churches that look as though they are straight out of the pages of a picture book.
But all the souvenir shops show lighthouses and that is what I really wanted to see. But in spite of the many models of lighthouses in souvenir shops, the poster of "lighthouses of Prince Edward Island" and the mini lighthouses in peoples front yards we found it difficult to locate an actual lighthouse. We drove around all over the place- but only managed to locate one. I took several photos for good measure.
In the process of looking for lighthouses we did find a beach and John and I dipped our toes in the Atlantic Ocean.
It is nice to be able to cross a p,ace off hour list and feel that you have definitively seen enough of it. Must say - I feel that way about PEI. It is u deniably very pretty and if it was a little closer, would probably be a fun holiday destination (equivalent of Batemans Bay from Canberra) but I feel I have seen it now. Tomorrow we attempt to catch a ferry back to nova scotia and go on to The Cabot Trail onCape Breton Island.
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