Nova Scotia/PEI planning & camping tips

[silverbeauty]

It is too bad that we missed each other, Mike. Would have liked to see you again!
I wish that I would have remembered to point out that our Canadian Atlantic Unit would be in Lunenburg at the time.....it is a strange coincidence that we would end up in the same site.
Lunenburg is such a great town. I didn't realize how great it is until spending the rally weekend there. And, the park was a great base, walk downtown in 5 minutes, yet quiet!

[silverbeauty]

I hope you guys are having a great time Dukester.
I made a small mistake on the Lobster Supper recommendation, It is New Glasgow Lobster Supper in New Glasgow, not St. Anns. You can't really go wrong with a lobster supper though.........
We just spend the weekend in the Airstream. Back to work tomorrow for a few days.

[chaimemet]

Great view and quiet

[pmclemore]

We're in the middle of our trip - left Levis, QC on Monday and then an overnight at Cap-Can on the Gaspe' last night. That was a surprisingly pleasant cg on the beach. For the next six nights we are an Tete d'Indien near Perce'. Another beautiful place and we're pleased as punch to be here. Bayside on PEi is almost next, then NS.

Pat

[dukester]

We wanted to thank all who provided such excellent suggestions on this thread. We thoroughly enjoyed the Maritimes. Everyone we encountered was a pleasure and the sheer beauty of the region was more than picture perfect. Here's a quick (yeah, right...) synopsis of our travels in case it helps anyone else.

We took I95 in ME and crossed over at Woodstock. The border was a piece of cake with friendly agents. Our first night was near Shediac (NB) at the Camping Plage Gagnon Beach RV park. Excellent family oriented CG on the shore. Great views and super nice fellow campers. French was the primary language as many were from Quebec. There's a commercial fishing pier down the road (the CG will recommend it) that retails fresh lobster. Shediac claims to be the lobster capital of the world. Pick them out, have them cook'em, crack'em, and then take'em back to your rig for an amazingly cheap meal at your picnic table overlooking the Bay. There's also a good farmers market in Shediac with all the fixings and live entertainment. Our next stop was Digby (NS). Nice but no big deal here. We were killing time before our next stop. Just north is Anapolis Royal which is nice scenic area with a quaint downtown and lots of galleries & shops. If you want to do this area of the Bay of Fundy, there is a nice CG that has big level sites right on the water. Very nice & super clean. Can't remember the name but it is between Digby and Anapolis Royal.

Our next stop was one of our favorites which was Lunenburg on the Atlantic coast. Would highly recommend the Lunenburg Board of Trade Campground. It is owned and run by the visitor's center which is right there. The best thing is that you can walk to town and it sits on a hill surrounded on three sides by water. By all means, hit the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. It's one of the best and most informative places I have ever encountered. The tall ships were there in port at the time and docked next to the museum. Most could be boarded and explored. We thought we would be there for an hour or two but easily whiled away most of the day. The town is both a tourist spot and a working port and they do a good job of integrating the two. We kept walking by an old historic storefront called Adams & Knickle. We couldn't figure out what they did or sold so we finally walked in and asked. They are a scallop fishing company with three commercial boats. After BS'ing with one of the owners for the good part of an hour, he mentioned that they had a boat coming in on a Thur and that they would be selling a small portion of the 20,000 lb catch to the locals at 8am sharp that next morning. We lined up with fifty or so locals who all knew each other and true to his word they were selling 5 lb containers for about $7 per lb. They were the best scallops we've ever had even after freezing the majority of what we bought. Another scenic town just north of Lunenburg is Mahone Bay. These two towns are supposedly the most scenic in NS. Hard to disagree.

The rest of the month in NS was spent in Antigonish and Cape Bretton. Cape Bretton was what I have always heard about in NS. Uncomparable raw beauty. Be prepared for tiny narrow roads. Local advice is to do the drive from west to east to afford you the inside lane. So much info is available regarding Cape Bretton that I'll fast forward to the next leg of the trip.

After a month in NS, we spent most of the next month over in PEI. PEI is accessable by bridge (to NB) and ferry (to NS). You can use either for free coming to the island. Fees kick in when you leave. The ferry is considerably more expensive than the bridge so a good plan is to take the ferry from NS to PEI and then leave on the bridge for NB. The ferry will also save considerable time vs. driving from NS. PEI was a nice laid back kind of place in a seductive way. We stayed at a CG called Holiday Haven which also had super nice sites right on the water. This is a popular CG with locals who drop an RV there for a month or two as a summer getaway. The other attraction to this CG is its vicinity to Charlottetown (several miles away) and other popular attractions like Rustico and Cavendish (Anne of Green Gables fame) which are both about 20 miles away. If you're an Anne fan, then there was a highly recommended (by locals) CG near Cavendish called Marco Polo. We're not Anne fans and found Cavendish too touristy BUT just down the road is Rustico which is a whole different story. N. Rustico has a commercial pier where we spent an evening BS'ing with some folks. Turns out we were there on the eve of Tuna season (which lasts one week with another week in Oct). It's a big deal in town. All fish are purchased for the Japanese sushi market. One 1,000 lb tuna can translate into $100K by the time it is sliced and diced in Japan. They were hoping for half a dozen or maybe a dozen fish the first day. The town gathers to celebrate at the pier when the fish come in. Although we were back over on the other side of the island the next day, we heard on local radio that they caught 25 tuna on the first day! PEI is home to the famous lobster suppers. One excellent place is the Fisherman's Wharf in N. Rustico. The lobster was of course excellent, but a nice side perk was the unlimited mussels which comes with the salad bar. They get crowded but its well worth it.

We wound the trip down by taking the 8 mile Confederation Bridge back to NB. The bridge is the longest in the world and one of Canada's top engineering marvels. Our next stop was St. Andrews. Thanks to Pam's recommendation (here on the forum), the Kiwanis Oceanfront Campground was an excellent finale to the trip. Fantastic water front sites just minutes from scenic downtown St. Andrews. There's a great farmers market there on Sat with food from all around the globe. If you like middle eastern (baba ganouj, stuffed grape leaves, etc), there is a couple that makes everything from scratch. They will insist you try everything they offer which is a meal in itself. Don't hold back, it's all well worth it. St. Andrews is also a great spot to hit just before crossing the border (30 min. from Calais).

It's a bit impossible to sum up a couple of months in a few paragraphs but perhaps some of this might be useful for those in the planning stages of a trip. Feel free to contact me if you have specific questions. Thanks again to all who helped us have what was one of our best trips to date!

[Brainy]

Dukester,
Can you please share with us where you stayed in Cape Breton?? We didn't make it there this trip, and I had a few options for cg, but no recommendations. Thanks! Hope to make it back to the Maritimes soon!

[pmclemore]

Brainy, Page and I stayed at the KOA in Cabot Trail/North Sidney and found it to be very nice. The folks were friendly and we had a great view of the water. Too windy for our kayaks, though.

As the campground is very close to the NF ferry, we met several folks who were camped there waiting for their jump-off to Newfoundland.

Pat

[dukester]

Hi Brainy - If you want to stay in the Baddeck area I would recommend Bras D'Or Lakes Campground and Baddeck Cabot Trail Campground. We also ran into some people who liked the KOA that pmclemore recommends as well.

[369goose]

To Silverbeauty & all...what kind of information is necessary for US travelers taking an Airstream into Canada? Info in general and specifically traveling from Maine, US to Halifax & other areas in Nova Scotia? Trials/tribulations we should know about arriving/departing, driving, camping restrictions, etc? Ferry information that will accommodate a 25' AS or even recommendations if we were to camp in US (Maine) and drive or hotel for couple of nights in NS? Would that even be a wise decision?

Thanks