Lets Go Wanderers!

We sat in ‘The Kitchen’ to watch the game, sadly Halifax Wanderers FC lost 3-0 to the mighty York United, from Toronto. It was a noisy and fun affair however, getting down with the locals as the kids say, thanks to our amazing Airbnb hosts Greg and Joanie who invited us along. I should say that ‘The Kitchen’ is the name of the stand where the most active and fun loving fans sit, way more enjoyable than the Premier League that’s for sure, not that we’ve been in a while! Drums, megaphones and the 2-4-1 drinks all contributing! Afterwards, a micro brewery pub visit and a neighbours bonfire topped off a super day! We are certainly experiencing the best of Canadian hospitality!

Very close by is York Redoubt, a National Historic Site. The York Shore Battery being named after the Duke of York by his brother Prince Edward. Built in the late 1800’s, it was a defensive fortress over the narrow stretch of water and was readied as a WW2 defensive position for the harbour at Halifax. Abandoned in 1956, it has been taken over by graffiti, some fun ones, but the walk there is lovely, the views spectacular and the birds, songful. The whole area around us was great, good for biking on the quiet roads and the customary coffee and cake at a cafe, and wonderful waterside views. It ticked all of our ‘location’ boxes that’s for sure.

We had to move on or we’d have still been there next month so we headed to Fundy National Park, moving from Nova Scotia to New Brunswick. It’s very close to a town called Alma, which was just starting to wake up for the season. Family run Kelly’s bakeshop, is by all accounts home of The Sticky Bun and yes, we had to, would be churlish not to eh?! The Bay of Fundy is known for having one of the greatest tidal reaches in the world and the water flow in and out is equivalent to the flow of all the worlds rivers for 24 hours. At Hopewell Rocks we witnessed this in action, the water came in at 1 foot per 10 minutes. Hopewell Rocks are a spectacular sight. Eroded over millennia, the sea has created elaborate shapes, carving precarious looking stand alone forms in the red, muddy, rock. All of the sea stacks have trees and shrubs growing out of them hence being known as The Plant Pots as this is what they look like at high tide, floating plant pots.

Returning back to Alma, the drive was interesting, lots of space and houses of all kinds of design on plots us Brits could only dream of (or get Lottery funding!). Architectural styles we’ll no doubt learn as we go. Some looked like they’d be well placed in a Stephen King film, others, Little House on the Prairie, and lots in between. That included the dwarfing overlanders from France and Germany. We do wonder if there is a business opportunity to be had though, as it seems scrap merchants who pay for lifeless cars as in UK, don’t exist and they are just left in fields to decay into the long grass? Having said Alma was waking up, the museum to the local doyenne, Molly Kool, wasn’t out of bed yet. Isn’t that just the best name for a female hero and role model? She was the first female Sea Captain in the whole of the Americas.

As the weather started to improve, we got out on the bikes. Wondering where my leg muscles had gone we did a short but tough in parts, ride out to a waterfall in Fundy NP called Dickson Falls. Some parts of the park to the north are still closed as a result of Storm Fiona last year, including one of the campgrounds. We’ve seen its devastation everywhere and it’s no doubt hindering the current wildfires, the dead fallen trees must be literal matchsticks. We have seen a fair few covered bridges, built early last century, to protect them from bad weather on key road routes. Our second bike ride took us high up into the park on trail we’d not attempt without electric. Having the park to ourselves though, was bliss and there’s something to be said for hot pine aroma and shade when the temperatures are soaring. Back near the campsite we spent time wandering around the Maclaren Pond, watching a sculpture being floated out as part of the NP’s 22 piece art installation trail for visitors. We were treated to our first sighting of a groundhog, then again the following day, and the following day…. 😉

It pains us to say it, but we are not that unique after all! Jigsaw did her usual, introducing us to anybody who happened to walk past our van at the campground, so much so that we have already met a German couple and a Swiss couple doing a similar thing to us. And there we were, ignorantly thinking we’d be the first European settlers for a while…. She of course, is the first travelling cat anyone claims to have seen, just typical, she’s always the star and us, the mere bit players. She continued to hound the squirrels, some of them getting far too close for our liking.

Having had a long chat with the lady at the post office about the area, and her husbands business interests, on our way out of Fundy we swung by and came away with a plastic bag of fine powder… maple syrup powder to be exact, yeah I know what you were thinking! Discovering that he is a maple syrup producer, we had to indulge in the real thing! Stopping in Moncton on the way to Shediac, for supplies, we discovered our new favourite shop, Canadian Tire! You’ll recall we’ve raved about Leroy Merlin in Spain and Biltema in Sweden, this is the Candian version and it has everything we, with our simple life could need. A bit like Ikea, it’s difficult to come away without spending on something ‘practical’!

Shediac is the self proclaimed Lobster Capital so, with the inevitable B52’s Rock Lobster earworm, we headed out in search of why. Cycling along an old railway line, past the superb, town mural, we were lucky not to get caught in the claws of a giant lobster…. After no doubt a few too many wines and a shellfish supper, the Shediac Rotary Club commissioned a 50tonne Giant Lobster to take centre stage in the town. Quite bizarre, the resultant concrete form was unveiled in 1990 after 3 years in the making, and now brings tourists in their droves….. 🙂 Actually, its most likely the real thing that does that! Even so, it still has it’s own Google Maps icon!