Moving on

We were a bit sad to leave the Boathouse with its beautiful views over the river, but it was time to move on.

The main roads across Nova Scotia are not really very exciting. Miles and miles of highway or divided highway (dual carriageway), often with little traffic, doing 100 to 110km/hr. The autumn colours are beautiful, but after two hundred miles of the same scenery even they can get a bit boring!

We broke our journey, roughly half way, at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park. This is a conservation centre where orphaned and injured animals are cared for, and endangered species are bred. The aim is to release them back to the wild wherever possible, but in some cases they will have to remain in the park. These are the animals on display to the public.

Unfortunately we hadn’t realised the park closed at 3pm, so we took our time having a picnic and looking round the visitor centre, where Racheal enjoyed the tactile exhibits on offer. We only set off to look at the animals at 2.30, so we didn’t have long before an announcement came over the tannoy to say the park was closing and we should return to our car. We did manage to see raccoons, porcupine, white deer, elk, beavers, eagles and a bear, albeit very quickly.

The second half of the journey was similar to the first. We did have the excitement of seeing the sea as we started to descend from central Nova Scotia, and could also make out Prince Edward Island in the distance. At Truro we joined the east bound carriageway of Trans Canada Highway, the road that would take us to our final stay on this leg of the gap year.

The final two miles were on an unmade road, over a causeway onto Tracadie Big Island, and then along a track to the end of the island where we found a steep driveway up to the Fisherman’s Cottage, another delightful Airbnb. We made it just before dark!