Leaving Newfoundland

Posted on by merryme

Our time in Newfoundland has come to an end.  Last night we had a campfire to burn up all the wood that isn’t allowed back in Nova Scotia.

Campfire at the Pippy Park Campground in St Johns, Newfoundland.

Newfoundland didn’t care what we brought in, but Nova Scotia didn’t want any fruits, vegetables or firewood.  They didn’t even want the dirt off your vehicle and had a wash station at the ferry in case you were carrying too much of it.  This seemed mostly to apply to the many ATV’s brought in to explore NL.

We traveled from Argentia, NL to North Sydney, Nova Scotia on the Ala’suinu. It was a 2 day affair with us getting to the ferry by 3pm, and leaving at 5pm. It took us 17 hours at sea to get back to Nova Scotia, about 322 miles.
Since it was overnight, we each got a cabin. I looked into my room and saw this and thought “All for me?”.
It was a sad leaving Newfoundland because it is such a wild and remote and beautiful island.

One of the couples who was a part of our tour group had to stay in Halifax, Nova Scotia before we even left for Newfoundland because they had engine trouble with their motor-home.  They got it fixed, but couldn’t rejoin us in NL because the ferries were all booked up and they couldn’t get tickets.  They finally rejoined our caravan when we arrived back at the Arm of Gold Campground in Little Bras d’Or.

We gave them a Screeching-In ceremony. Here’s Carole kissing the cod fish.

Our first stop in Nova Scotia is the Fortress of Louisbourg.  My first question was why was this called a fortress instead of a fort.  It basically a matter of size – fortresses are bigger, but also a fort is usually only military personnel whereas a fortress is more like a town.  It has the protection of a fort but with regular people and houses behind the walls more like a castle.  First, the French built this fortress.  But it has a turbulent history with the British taking over, then back to the French for a bit, then the English coming back again and demolishing it.  Everything at this Fortress was recreated, and only about 25% of the original town was reconstructed.

This was the main building of the town. They had all the government and military offices here. There was also a chapel inside and living quarters for the unmarried soldiers.
When I saw these bunks for the unmarried soldiers, I had flashbacks to my 4 bed room on the ferry.
There were lots of houses and businesses in the town. The time period this represents is French Colonial, mid 1700’s.
They had lots of lovely gardens, and it seems like they are all at their peak right now.
These hollyhocks were over my head.
They even had a summer program for kids to learn about the Fortress.

I hate to admit it, but this Lego representation of the town was as fascinating as the town. I think we all know how long it takes to build anything out of Legos. This took over 2 years and has about 200.000 pieces and is called Louisbrick.

This photo is of the main part of the town, the part reconstructed.  The brown building to the left of the yellow gate/wharf was a tavern downstairs and boarding house upstairs.  The gray building with the red shutters to the left of that has where we had a Colonial lunch.  You can see the main government/military in the upper right corner.
They added about 10 “skeletons” to the project to interest the kids (and the kid in you). Here’s one in the top corner of the garden.

 

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