On August 10th, we left PEI. We were thinking about taking the Wood Island ferry but in the end we decided to take Confederation Bridge back to the Mainland. The vehicle toll was $46.50 and $8.00 per axle for the trailer. So for the grand total of $62.50, we were able to leave the Island. I guess that they have to pay for that billion dollar bridge somehow….lol…
A short time later, we crossed into our 8th province of this trip, Nova Scotia. Motoring along on highway 104, we pulled into the Nova Scotia Tourist Information Centre. It is one of the best ones we’ve ever encountered. As we were looking at the views, what did we see…..nope not people from Calgary but Fort Beausejour off in the distance.
Travelling south on Highway 104, we came across a sign that indicated that we were going to be on a toll highway for Cobequid Pass. Now we didn’t know if this was a short toll road or if Highway 104 was going to be toll for the entire length. So throwing caution to the wind and not wanting to take any side roads we kept going. Turns out that the toll is only for a 48 km stretch and cost us a whopping $5.25: $4.00 for the truck and $1.25 for the trailer. It didn’t break the bank…….lol
It was a long day for travel as we had left our PEI campsite at 0945 (9:45 am) and arrived at our Baddeck campsite on Cape Breton Island at 1700 (5 pm). Our neighbour is named George and is a retired RCR soldier. We had a relaxing evening with some adult beverages.
Friday August 11th, Betty and I drove into Baddeck to visit the Alexander Graham Bell museum. The exhibits were quite amazing. Not only was Bell a communication and transportation pioneer but his work with deaf was truly spectacular. As his mother and wife were deaf, he spent a lot of his time working on methods on teaching them to speak. As his father had worked on visible speech for the deaf and on a system of phonetics, A.G. Bell continued on with the work. There are various articles on-line that can be checked for more detailed information. He had 18 patents and 12 shared patents.
We walked along Baddeck’s main street, had lunch and drove along the waterfront. The waterfront was quite busy and finding a parking spot was impossible so we plan on walking along the waterfront later in the week.
Once we got back to the campsite, George invited us to share his campfire. Later in the evening, we went over and met up with George, his wife Heather and their friends Tracy & Kevin. It was a typical night around the fire: drinks and conversation….life doesn’t get much better.
On Saturday August 12th, we headed to the Fortress of Louisbourg which is the largest fort in North America. The construction of the fortress was started in 1713 by the French and developed over the next few decades and subsequently destroyed by the British. It lay in ruins for two centuries. One quarter of the National Site has been restored. One of most interesting facts that we discovered is that when the restoration project started in the 1960s, the main workforce were coal miners from Glace Bay. There was a bad recession on at the time and a lot of coal miners were out of work. It was the perfect time to retrain workers from being coal miners to being carpenters, stone masons, iron workers etc.
Walking through Fortress of Louisbourg, is like going back in time. There are so many people participating in the reenactment of mid 1700s life as soldiers, farmers, housewives, town folk etc. We witnessed a public punishment whereby a young man was found guilty of stealing a bottle of wine was sentenced to be fastened to the public punishment pole for a period of 2 hours per day for 3 days. It drew quite a crowd. We also watched a lady make lace. The strip of lace was about an inch wide and it takes about an hour to make a length of one inch…..
Just Google Fortress of Louisbourg and you can read all about it. We left the Fortress and were heading to the truck when it started to drizzle lightly. Eight kilometres down the road, we stopped and after filling the truck with gas, it started to pour down rain. We were indeed fortunate that the rain didn’t start while we were at the Fortress. It rained all the way back to the campsite, a journey of over an hour. No fire tonight….lol
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