Windsor, NS - August 15 to 19, 2012 Our Current Location
After leaving Glenholme, a stop at Shubenacadie is in order to see a hardware store museum and an old tinsmith museum. The tin shop was the major producer of milk cans in Nova Scotia. And it was all done by hand. The hardware store museum had a "What is it" table and it was fun trying to guess which was the candle snuffer and which was the gun powder measurer.
In keeping with our routing idea, we're heading west. Unfortunately it's still too warm for the cats to go all day without air conditioning so an electric outlet is a priority. We find a relatively inexpensive place to camp at the Expo Park (Fairgrounds) in Windsor. There are about 36 sites with electricity but all except for 5 are 15 amp connections.
On Thursday we head to Falmouth for an early lunch and discover a downtown covered in Christmas decorations and people with winter coats. Say what? As it turns out, Hallmark is filming a movie and it's centered around Christmas. We talked to one of the crew but he didn't know much as it was his first day on the job.
As it was now after noon, we didn't feel too self conscious about visiting a winery. Sainte-Famille was deserted when we arrived, partly because they were adding a new building and the place didn't look open. But there were signs saying "Enter Here" so we did and we had the whole place to ourselves. After sampling 8 different wines we made our decision and selected two to take away with us. We visited two more wineries today and found one, Luckett, to be too expensive(it cost $7 each to find out if you even wanted to buy their wine), and the last, Muir Murray, to have somewhat tasteless wine.
The Covenanters’ Church proved to be somewhat elusive and we passed by it three times before we saw it. It looked like a house. The third time we drove by we finally saw the steeple. It's the oldest existing Presbyterian Church in NS. The inside is very stark and business like which made it obvious, you were there to listen to a sermon not be dazzled by a pretty interior.
Frank was interested in learning more about the Acadians and why there seemed to be concentrations of them here and there in the Maritimes. The Grand Pre’ National Historic Site(yay, we get to use our pass) is all about the Acadian heritage. There we learned how NS was originally named Acadie before the English renamed it New Scotland. The Acadians are famous for diking the low lying land next to the Bay of Fundy and turning it into fertile farmland. Although the Acadians were French they attempted to remain neutral while England and France fought over Acadie as it was an important strategic military location. The final straw seemed to be when the Acadians just wanted to sell their produce to any and all buyers which included the French and the Americans. That seemed to be “just cause” for the British. Even though the Acadians had signed an unconditional oath of loyalty to the British Crown and made it known to all that they just wanted to be left alone, the British seized their property and deported all the Acadians they could find from 1755 to 1764. In the 1770's Acadians were allowed to return to NS but by this time all of their lands were now occupied by New England Planters and Loyalists. Acadians were forced to settle on non-fertile land and so had to turn to fishing and Forestry instead of farming for their livelihood. All in all it was a sad story.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Poem “Evangeline” is a story about the Acadians. The Church and the grounds were really nice. Including the resident cat named…Evangeline.
We also found two creepy critters as we wandered through the gardens.
On Friday, we thought a drive to Cape Split was in order. To get there you pass one of the highest points in the area called the Lookoff. Here you can see farmland and pastures as well as Minas Bay which joins the Bay of Fundy.
We continued driving until we reached the end where a 10 mile round trip hike would take you to the tip of the cape.
Frank was interested in an all concrete house museum that was supposed to have some neat concrete sculptures and we made this our next stop. It was the Charles McDonald Concrete House Museum and while the man certainly had a passion for concrete, his work lacked a certain finesse.
By this time we had worked up quite an appetite and the Lonely Planet suggested Hall's Harbor Lobster Pound for lunch. So we go tearing off for the coast once more and find a quaint little picturesque town. The only business in this town, besides B&B’s is the Lobster Pound restaurant. We ate lunch(yeah, another lobster roll), wandered the docks (low tide again), and then went for a walk on the beach. By the time we were done playing tourist it was time to mosey back to Big Guy.
One of the nice things about this area is that we can go exploring using the old highway and taking our time. When we're done, we jump on the new highway and we can get back to the RV in no time at all.
As always there is maintenance to do and things to be fixed. The RV’s day/night shades usually work pretty well, that is until a string breaks and then they are useless. Frank has gotten really good at restringing them and getting them back in working order. He got to use his expertise once again.
On our last full day in Windsor we decided to take a drive along the a section of coast that we had bypassed and stop at another winery along the way.
This was the Avondale Sky Winery and not only did it have good wine, it was housed in an old Anglican Church that had been moved. The story was that the congregation had dwindled to four families and they could no longer afford to maintain the church building. They had to sell all the pews to pay for a years worth of insurance and after that there was no more money.
They were faced with either burning the building or paying to have it demolished. Burning it was all they could afford. Stewart, the person who had dreams of starting a winery heard about this and made an offer on the building which was accepted. Then all he had to do was move the building to it's present location. The building was moved to the beach where it sat for a year while the new owner built up his finances and organized the move. It was finally loaded onto a barge and relocated just two years ago. The building was in surprisingly good shape and all that was necessary was to clean the interior and replace a few floor joists. The stained glass survived the move with no damage.
As we continued our drive we came upon another lighthouse and a gypsum and baryte loading wharf. The wharf was almost destroyed by fire but the lighthouse area had been turned into a nice park and lookoff.
Our final stop was Burncoat Park near Noel. Burncoat park is the site of the worlds highest recorded tide. It had a nice walk down to the beach (red clay and rocks) which we took and discovered another island. Except at low tide it was completely out of the water.
Dark was falling and we had an hour drive to get back home.
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