Around the World in as long as it takes.

Kelty (Our tour guide who was all of 18) grabbed my rucksack off me and threw it onto the top of the van (which is no mean feat being that it's up to about 18 kilos now!)

She was pleasant enough and we then headed down to the Hi Hostel (which is much more central) to pick up the remainder of the passengers. There was a good mix of people on the bus (which was full in that there were 12 of us in the back of a minivan) and a good range of ages and nationalities also.

We stopped en route at a Tim Hortons (like a coffee shop chain) or “Timmy Ho’s” as Kelty kept calling it. We were to be popping into quite a few “Timmy Ho’s” over the coming three days.

We stopped at a small park en route to pay Carmen (The Owner) and after the dirty deeds were done… we were off again in out little bus.

We stopped in a small petrol station and some of the guys chose to drive some go karts for a few minutes. I decided to have a go at the batting cage!

There were 2 lanes (one medium and one fast) Naturally I chose the Fast lane, put on my helmet and lined up to hit my first pitch…..

Whoosh…. The ball flew past…. I never even flinched… or swung for that matter… Damn these things go fast. And to think that these things are a bit slower than the real thing in a base ball match. Those pitchers are good !

Second one….miss.

Third one…. Miss.

I was officially Struck out…. However…. I persevered and eventually managed to get the jist of it after a few more pitches and even hit the last few balls before my money ran out!

So that was one more thing I could strike off my list….. I’m not a natural Baseball player!

After a bit more driving we popped down to the beach and had lunch (which we’d bought ourselves…. Salty Bear only provided the transport… no food, no extras, no accommodation!) And it wasn’t that cheap either…. Mind you…. Not a lot is here in Canada!

Cheese….. what the feck’s up with the price of cheesed over here !

One small block of cheese….. $6…… Minimum (And that’s the supermarkets Own brand stuff!) That’s 3 pounds sterling for a small block of cheese! All dairy stuff’s expensive over here…. Apparently there’s a monopoly going on with all the dairy providers….. viva le revolution!
We digress….

So after a hour on the beach (the weather was lovely yet no one braved the waves) we drove to Cape Breton to our hostel for the night. Here we were offered hiking, or kayaking (additional cost for the hire of the Kayaks….but of course!) We chose Kayaking and Steph and I went with a few others down to the waters edge to pick up the Kayaks.

The lake was flat calm and the sky blue…. So Steph and I got into our Kayak (one each and not a double one for the first time in ages!!! He..he….Steph’s gotta paddle this time!)

It was beautiful and we kayaked around a small island along the lake to a small secluded beach. We stopped briefly here…where I got bitten to feck by mosquitoes (whilst Steph didn’t…hmmm ???) and then paddled back past a bald eagles nest.

Back at the hostel, we cooked tea (Spaghetti Bolognese for 10) and then got bitten to feck again by the mossies whilst sitting at the camp fire being shown how to make smoors (not sure how you spell it) which is a Canadian Camp Fire delicacy (Basically it’s a cracker …like a cream cracker… with a melted marshmallow and some melted chocolate on it) the Girls seemed to like them anyway.

Off early in the morning and we headed up towards Cape Breton National Park where we walked along the cliffs on the Cabot Trail where we saw some spectacular scenery and wildlife (we even saw our first (and second) moose, mooses, moosen ….. more than one moose!

We then drove onwards to “Pleasure Point”…oooeeerrr ???

Here’s we jumped into a boat to go and see some whales (which we paid for in addition once again)

They were Long Finned Pilot Whales and they roamed the coast along the North of Cape Breton. There was a rumor that we might have seen possibly a Blue Whale…. However…unfortunately… that’s exactly what it turned out to be…a rumor! The captain reckoned he’d been doing the trip for 25 years and he’d seen 1…once!

We did discover that they still hunted seals up here in the winter… which was quite astounding as the seals were very reclusive when the boat went near (No Wonder we thought!)

After another trip to a beach as the weather was lovely we headed back to the same hostel on cape Breton (which was owned by the Salty bear company and as such only had us there… which was quite good) had tea, got bitten by the mossies (again.. have we learnt nothing I ask!) and then went to bed after a few shandies and smoors around the camp fire.

7am and we’re off again.

Today we headed to catch the ferry to Prince Edward Island. The ferry journey was nice and just over an hour later we unloaded and headed over the island. The scenery was pretty and after a few stops at lighthouses on the way we ended up in Charlotte Town. We checked into the University Campus and after a trip to the local brewery restaurant and then onto to a later bar we arrived back in bad around 1am (a bit worse for ware)

Our last day was a bit subdued (being that most of us were a bit hungover!) and after our Timmy Ho’s Coffee we headed down towards Cavendish (the Home of some chick called Anna of Green Gables who is in a book or something…. Well I didn’t know who she was… apparently she’s quite famous anyway)

So we hung around here for a while before we managed to get some hire bikes together and headed off for a nice bike ride to Cavendish beach which was nice and secluded.

We crossed the Centenary Bridge (across to the mainland from Prince Edward Island) and some 18kms later arrived back in New Brunswick. Here we stopped to get some photos of the bridge (where we were bitten again by mossies…. Massive ones’s…. I even got bitten through my shirt and jeans!!!)

We arrived At Amherst Station with an hour to spare before our train arrived…. Or so we thought!

We got our bags, said our goodbyes to the gang (most of which were stying on the trip for another two days) and then waited for the train….

Suddenly it arrived….. literally only 5 minutes after we’d been dropped off !!! How lucky were we…. We’d messed up the times and thought it arrived later.

Our bags were chucked on, we then boarded and off we went agin on the train…. Off into the big unknown expanses of Canada…….