We got up as soon as it was light on Sunday the 29th, we had a long drive in front of us. It showed signs of becoming another absolutely gorgeous day, but was pretty foggy early there on the seaside. We had some granola bars and room-made coffee, so after we dropped off the keys at around 7:50 we were bound to get as far Southwest as we could before stopping. We had filled up the tank the night before … we got 6.3 on the trip to Cape Breton! What this means is that when we switched the car to metric, it reported gas efficiency in liters per 100km rather than in miles per gallon. So a lower number was better rather than a higher number … I kind of liked this.
Barely anyone on the pink highway early on Sunday, and we set the cruise control and just watched the trees roll by, down 104 towards Truro. Kind of strange to go West to Maine! We finally did stop at a Tim Horton’s (we had to go to one, it was as imperative as going to a Cracker Barrel in South Carolina) to get more coffee and a breakfast sandwich. A bit West of Truro we detoured onto route 4 to avoid the only (sic) toll in Nova Scotia, but then re-joined 104 and soon crossed into New Brunswick, where the road became route 2.
I’m sure parts of New Brunswick are as beautiful as Nova Scotia, but all our time there except for our lunch break was spent on the superhighway … route 2 to West of Moncton and then route 1 down through St. John … and it was kilometers and kilometers of lovely trees, but not much in terms of rolling hills or vistas of the sea. And all road signs there are bilingual, with the non-English language being French this time, as opposed to Gaelic or Mi’kmaq.
Finally got South of St. John and were desperate to find a nice little park or something, stretch our legs and take a lunch break. We still had half our bologna sandwiches left! Signs kept tempting us to detour down to the Acadian Coastal Drive along the South-facing New Brunswick coast rather than continuing on the highway. We resisted because we wanted a “stop” rather than a “drive,” but took one of them eventually and down route 790 we found the lovely little town of Chance Harbour. We continued along the loop and lucked into a small turnoff where we could park, walk around, and gaze out over a marsh to the ocean through the hazy afternoon light.
790 looped back up to route 1, and it was just another hour to St. Stephen and the border crossing back into the USA. We crossed the St. Croix River, gained an hour, and had just a short wait to get through immigration. They barely questioned us, just glanced at our passports and waved us through. Filled up on gas again at the intersection of routes 1 and 9, and hit the road into Maine. As much as we’d liked our trip, it was kind of nice to be back in the States … Canada never seemed abnormal to us, but this was definitely much more normal, or at least familiar. And the Harris signs outnumbered the Trump signs all along route 9.
One last stop. We love the Airport Brewing Company pub in Ellsworth but had never been to their taproom in Amherst ME. So we detoured a bit and got a quick pint there, which was another great stop after having been on the road for almost eight hours. Then one last hour through Ellsworth and back home to Sedgwick, where the cats were very happy to have us back.
How to sum up? We had a great time, and it was an entirely successful, quick foray outside of our comfort zone of Northern New England. We don’t know when or if we’ll ever be back in Nova Scotia, but we definitely concluded that it’s somewhere we’d love to go back to and spend some more time exploring. Who knows?
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