I was staying in a campground right in residential Dartmouth – honestly, you turn onto this street of large houses and well manicured lawns, and two blocks into the neighbourhood, there’s Shubie’s RV Campground. I wonder what the home owners think of the constant to-ing and fro-ing of recreational vehicles all day long?

My next stay was not far way – about 20 minutes outside Halifax. So getting there on a rainy Sunday afternoon should have been easy, right?

I have driven in the GTA for the last 35+ years: on-ramps and off-ramps, narrowing lanes, underpasses, merging traffic, you name it. I’m an expert. But somehow, on a 25 minute drive around the outskirts of Halifax, I managed to get lost at least four times. At least. It’s bad enough when that happens in a car, but it is sooooo stressful in a large motorhome, in the rain.

This screen grab is just my journey around Bedford – getting out of Dartmouth and circumventing Halifax wouldn’t fit on the screen. To get from the lower right to the mid-left of the picture should have taken, at most, 15 minutes. I took at least an hour, and stopped twice to re-group.

(And to be honest, when I did get to the next campground, I really wasn’t all that impressed – I’m guessing that in the RV campground world, customer service starts to wane once we’re into September – miserable gits.)

I had (almost) the best weekend in Halifax. I say almost because it has poured, or rained, or drizzled, or misted the entire weekend. But I lived in Orkney Scotland, so I sneer in the face of rain. Truly, I do not understand people who say, ‘We were stuck indoors the entire time because of the rain.’ In this day and age, a waterproof coat with a hood, and waterproof boots mean it’s easy to get around.

I took the ferry from Dartmouth each morning and on Saturday I spent the day in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, and the Mary E. Black Gallery. I tried to get into the Canadian Museum of Immigration, but there were two cruise tours (I recognised their lanyards) ahead of me and I felt a 40 minute wait was too long.

Loved the main Art Gallery – their main exhibit is the Maud Lewis exhibit including her house. But it was some of the sculptures that I really liked. In the Maritime Museum there was lots about the Titanic and the Harbour Explosion as well as the two world wars.

Dined well too: a Mexican lunch at Antojo Tacos + Tequila (it may have included a margarita – who doesn’t love tequila at 11:30 in the morning?) and appetizers in The Wooden Monkey overlooking the Halifax Harbour.

And I spent the next morning wandering the Citadel.

This is my kind of sightseeing – loved it!

I don’t empty the grey & black tanks at every campground. It’s work, it invites soupsies & poopsies, the tanks are supposed to be at least 2/3 full before emptying to ensure good ‘flush-age’, and I’m one person – it takes days to fill those tanks.

The campground I’m at now, Shubie Park in Dartmouth, doesn’t have sewer lines at many of the sites, so instead, three days a week, they come around and pump out your tanks for you. You don’t even have to be there – they just come along, hook up their truck, and deal with your waste. Nice.

So I booked to be here over one of those days, Saturday. But I hadn’t really thought that out. It will have been quite a few days since the last flush out, and I’m starting to worry that I will have left it too late. Particularly the grey tank. Washing dishes, washing hair, and showering all really add to the grey tank. And you can’t throw dishwater out onto the lawn – that attracts wild animals. So for the past three days, I have tipped the sink’s waste water down the toilet, to at least make sure I have enough space in the grey tank for my showers. But I noticed it was still getting higher (this is a gauge on the wall – I’m not peeking down any drains or anything).

That’s led to a new hack: when it’s time to pack up, I have to turn off the water from the city line (the hose). So first thing I do is open the kitchen faucet, then head out, around the back of the RV, and turn off the spigot from the campground. That results in between one and two litres of water from the time I open the kitchen tap until the hose drains – most of the time it just runs down the sink drain. I am so worried about the grey tank filling up and the shower stall flooding with dirty water, that I have taken to capturing this runoff in an empty bottle, and saving it to use later in my tea, or more likely, just travel along with me until the tanks are finally emptied and I can pour it away. I know have two full 4-litre bottles of clean water sitting in a cabinet.

The dump service comes today while I’m out – thank heavens, as both tanks are registering Full and I’m rationing water like a Californian in August.

Going forward: Must pay more attention to tank flushing!

The day does get better. I arrive at the Waterfront and buy a ticket on the Hop-On Hop-Off tour. $90+ !!! Ninety! Okey doke, inflation.

The tour was so-so. Obviously the tour company cannot help the weather, so the damp seats and fogged windows in the pouring rain were not their fault. The tour guide was very upbeat & chatty, and I do prefer a live tour guide to the audio-headphone style. But, I felt his content focus was a tad off. Lots about the Titanic – check. Lots about the 1917 Harbour Explosion – check. Some info about Africville and the black diaspora – I found that very interesting, as I had assumed most of the black history of Nova Scotia was as a result of the Underground Railroad; I hadn’t heard of the black Loyalists who moved there after the American Revolution (and who were subsequently treated dreadfully by the local settlers). Lots about the various traffic intersections and round-abouts and what Haligonians thought of them – odd. Next to nothing (and I do mean NOTHING) about the Citadel – disappointing. We drove up to it at 11:58 and the tour guide told us to plug our ears because of the noon time cannon (windows of buses have been blown out if they park too close to the cannon!). We never did hear the boom (guide thinks we were upwind) and at 12:03 we left the Citadel and he hadn’t said one word about it – that seems wrong.

The tour was 75 minutes long and I really don’t think it was worth it. It reminded me a little of the Hop-On Hop-Off in Reykjavik – over $70CAD, 90 minutes long, and at three of the stops we just sat for 10 minutes before moving on. I mean, what is there to say about smaller cities like Halifax, Reykjavik, etc…. It’s like trying to imagine a 2-hour bus tour of Guelph. Ah well.

The waterfront was great and I walked one end to the other in spite of the rain. Checked out the Basilica, and had a fab lunch at The Bicycle Thief.

So the day ended much better than it started.

It’s 9:32 a.m. 

Here’s how the morning was supposed to go:

• 8:00 am: oil change at Rhino Truck Lube (no appointment needed, I was just to get there by 7:50 and they’d have a spot for me)
• 9:00 am: car wash at WashX Truck & RV Wash (no appointment needed, according to website)
• 10:00 am: Cruise Terminal outdoor parking lot (best lot for large vehicles along the Halifax Waterfront)
• 10:15 am: start the day’s sightseeing (probably start with Hop-On Hop-Off)

Here’s what really happened:

• Let’s start at 1:00 am.  Downpour starts (the tail end of whatever wrath-of-God storm the GTA had the day before)
• 6:15 am: Alarm goes off, I have cup of tea and get dressed to the sound of the skies dumping on my fibreglass motorhome
• 7:20 am: Run out in the rain and un-hook electric & water, and remove levelling blocks and stow in compartments
• 7:35 am: Pull out of campsite and drive through Dartmouth rush hour traffic in absolute downpour (windows keep fogging)
• 7:50 am: Pull up to Rhino Truck Lube service bay & wait
• 8:00 am: Get oil change from two absolutely delightful and helpful young men, who also do a cursory inspection of brakes (which still look brand new to them – yay)
• 8:20 am: Sit in Rhino parking lot and wait for WashX to open.  Spend that time determining that driving into the Halifax waterfront and hoping that there will be space for a large motorhome may not be best plan.  Determine that there is parking at Dartmouth’s Alderney Ferry which will then take me directly to Halifax’s waterfront.  Excellent.
• 8:55 am: Drive to WashX, which is nowhere to be found.  No signage, no open wash bays, no answer on phone
• 9:05 am: Drive to another local Truck/Car wash, only to be told that they are appointment only.  Give up on idea of a car wash (which was prob not the best plan on a rainy day anyway)
• 9:07 am: Drive to the Alderney Ferry Parking lot. Get stuck in a tiny 20-car lot that is half full.  Do a 10-minute 21-point turn to get out of parking lot, with only one witness
• 9:18 am: Give up on the idea of the ferry.  Sit at the exit to the parking lot and think
• 9:22 am: Set directions to return to campground with a stop at what turns out to be the only Tim Hortons in Dartmouth without a car park.  Squeeze past the cars & trucks lined up for the drive-thru (think the Tim Hortons at Thompson & Steeles) and give up on a bagel
• 9:27 am: Pull into my campsite as the heavens re-open, and hook everything back up
• 9:32 am: Sit down to write this and re-think today.

More to come.

When I started RVing, I bought a little whiteboard to hang by the door.  Each day, as I arrive at a new campsite, the first thing I do is write down the address of the campground and my site number.  That way, if something should happen, if I ‘fall and I can’t get up’ (yes, I’m getting to that age), I will be able to tell 911 where I am. 

When I left for the summer, I enabled the tracker setting on my phone so my sister can always check and see where I am – I may have watched one too many British crime dramas, but this seemed like a really good thing to do.

And, I use What 3 Words.  Do you know it?  It’s an app that assigns a unique combination of three words to every 3 metre square in the world.  So if you don’t know your exact address, you can use W3W to pinpoint your location.  Halton Emergency Services has used it more than once to locate people who have gotten lost up on Rattlesnake Point and Kelso.  So after I’ve written down the campground address, I look up W3W and write that down, as well as texting it to my sister (she finds this whole process quite entertaining and has sent back some rather rude 3-word combos herself – she thinks she’s hilarious – we humour her).

Well today’s three words seemed less like a location marker and more like a bleak, minimalist, existential poem:

Oh my gosh, Cape Breton is beautiful.  And the campground I’m staying at!  The New Harris KOA is tucked under the tallest, the reddest, the most dramatic cliffs – and it overlooks a spectacular bridge spanning the equally spectacular Great Bras d’Or Channel.

I checked out Sydney & North Sydney – both cute towns.  The boardwalk along the waterfront in Sydney is absolutely lovely – I had great weather and thoroughly enjoyed that afternoon.  (Lunch was so-so – I ordered seafood chowder at Flavor on the Water – meh – why do people put flour & cornstarch in chowder? – I left most of it.)

And . . . . I completely forgot to take a picture of the Big Fiddle!  It was massive and I was sitting right behind it at lunch – I am so used to travelling with people who take lots of photos – it’s made me lazy & forgetful.

I was talking to my sister yesterday and mentioned how stressful I found mountain driving and how, as a result, had decided against The Cabot Trail, and had just stuck to going straight up and straight back through the middle of Cape Breton, sticking to Hwy 105.  And she said the nicest thing:  “Elaine, that’s weird.  Because in the entire time we were driving around Eastern Ontario in June, you always looked like driving the RV was a breeze and that you weren’t bothered at all.”   

Two things come out of that statement: (1) I really am more comfortable behind the wheel of this thing than I sometimes realise; and (2) Abe Lincoln was right, you can fool all of the people some of the time. 

Let me preface this post by saying: I’m outsidey, not outdoorsy (important to know). 

The plan had been to take the ferry from North Sydney to Port Aux Basques (the shorter 8-hour ferry), work my way up to Gros Morne, across the island through Gander, east to the Avalon Peninsula, then back from Argentia to North Sydney on the longer 15-hour ferry.  It was to be a 12-day trip.  I’ve been to St John’s several times (and loved it), and toured the Avalon Peninsula a few years ago, but the rest would all be new to me.

In New Brunswick I started digging into the campground bookings and overall plans for Nfld.  Okay, I ask this question (and I am being neither sarcastic, nor facetious): what is there to do in Newfoundland?  I don’t mean in St John’s, which I do hope to visit again some day.  I mean, what does a single woman travelling across Newfoundland do with herself each day? 

I like going for a walk, but I wouldn’t say I’m much of a hiker.  So after I’ve watched the sunset at Wreckhouse Brook, hiked the trails in Gros Morne, and visited the Aviation Museum in Gander (which I really had been looking forward to), what else would I do other than drive from point A to point B each day? (Oh, and L’Anse Aux Meadows, while that would be extremely interesting, is a 5 hour (one-way) detour off the Trans Can.  And remember, I lived on Orkney for 2 years – I visited Viking settlements several times a month while walking Scout.)

I know there are those who consider this blasphemous, but I really didn’t see the point in spending 23 hours (8 + 15) on choppy water (I couldn’t get a berth on the ferry either way), then driving through repetitious (albeit beautiful, I grant you) countryside with nothing to do but go for walks.

So I cancelled.  I called up the ferry and got my money back, added 3 days to my stay in PEI, and an extra week in Halifax (I like towns and cities, so sue me), and slept much better that night.

Steps before 9am: 7,111. Chips: 1/2 a small bag of Covered Bridge Dill Pickle

The plan upon arrival at Little Bras D’Or was a day of housework: laundry, cleaning, topping up windshield washer fluid, changing beds, emptying the fridge, a real re-set; followed by a day of sight-seeing.

Woke up so sick this morning – it was a good two hours before I could even leave my bed (I don’t think it was food poisoning – is this just what happens as we get older – random mysterious attacks that come and go without warning?). So laundry was out of the question, as was any cleaning.

I just lay wrapped in a blanket, binge watching The Great British Sewing Bee for hours, ignoring the glorious sunshine outside. By about 2 o’clock in the afternoon I no longer felt that I was going to die, so decided to install the dash cam that I had bought months ago, with the intention of capturing some beautiful pictures of the scenery as I drove through Canada. I think I’ve done it right, but next week’s drive bck through the centre of Cape Breton will be the proof.

So not a complete waste of a day. (But still no fun)

Steps before 9am: 6.