Graves Island Provincial Park, Nova Scotia

June 27, 2024

Thanks to the incredibly helpful service we received at a trailer repair shop in Moncton, NB (read all about it in Rick's Corner below), we were able to reach our next destination (including a stop for grocery shopping) in Nova Scotia well before nightfall.

Our first introduction to Nova Scotia was under a heavy sky laden with clouds and mist.

Graves Island Provincial Park is situated on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, not far from Halifax. We had a very nice private campsite with peak-a-boo views of the ocean through the trees. The following pictures were taken on fairer weather days:

According to the weather report, there was to be only one nice day out of the four we were staying at Graves Island. Tough choices had to be made on what to do when. We opted to spend Tuesday afternoon, one of the cloudy (but less rainy) days, at the tourist hot spot of Peggy's Cove. Peggy's Cove is a very scenic fishing village with an iconic lighthouse. Since crowds are not usually our thing, we first explored the adjacent Polly Cove trail and nature area.

If the path taken looks a little helter-skelter, it's because the trail was difficult to decipher at times

The trail consisted of slabs of granite and seemingly random narrow paths through the bog

Even though it was cloudy, the scenery was still stunning

We were enthralled with these odd-looking flowers

We later found out they were carnivorous pitcher plants. Fun fact: they sometimes "eat" small salamanders!

Pretty little orchid-type flowers

The sea was shrouded in fog

One of the boggy (and sometimes soggy) portions of the trail

There really was a trail here

Lots of interesting random boulders (technically, "erratics") strewn about

We couldn't see the ocean all that well, but we could certainly hear it!

There was an almost mythic quality to the scenery

More pitcher plants!

The Polly Cove trail was fun, but it definitely was a kind of "choose your own adventure" trail in that it wasn't really defined on a map, and there were all kinds of branches that looked like they could be the trail but turned out not to be. Or they might have been the trail, but they went through big bog puddles. Driven by the desire lately to "make a loop" whenever we go hiking, the way back was a bit more "interesting" than we initially bargained for. But, we made it to the parking lot in one piece.

Next on the agenda was Peggy's Cove, only a few kilometers from the Polly Cove trail. It's the kind of place we refer to as a "fly paper" attraction--a place that pulls the selfie crowds to itself, leaving other nearby sites relatively crowd-free. These places are on every tourist "must see" list and there is always ample bus parking. But, being tourists ourselves, we couldn't very well not go there. Here is a bit of info on the town of Peggy's Cove, courtesy of Wikipedia:

From its inception, the community's economy revolved around fishery. However, tourism began to overtake fishing in economic importance following the Second World War. Today, Peggy's Cove is a major tourist attraction, although its inhabitants still fish for lobster, and the community maintains a rustic undeveloped appearance. The regional municipality and the provincial government have strict land-use regulations in the vicinity of Peggy's Cove, with most property development being prohibited. Similarly there are restrictions on who can live in the community to prevent inflation of property values for year-round residents.

The town of Peggy's Cove

Not too long after we got to Peggy's Cove, it started raining and we (and most of the other tourists) left.

The next day, our one and only sunny and non-rainy day, was a busy one. Early in the morning we had an appointment with a local auto repair shop to see if they could re-plug/patch our now-leaky tire that had been plugged back in North Carolina or Virginia or wherever (we sometimes lose track of where we've been 😉). Luckily, they agreed to pull the tire off and do an internal patch and plug it for us--a win! Afterwards, we rode our bikes on a portion of the Rum Runners trail. The trail was built on a former railroad right of way and was named after the fisherman who traded in fishing for the more lucrative occupation of smuggling alcohol into the United States during Prohibition. The trail passed through forests, lakes and picturesque bays, ending in the historic town of Lunenburg.

Graves Island Provincial Park in the early morning hour

Fragrant wild roses were everywhere along the path 🙂

This was an art installation created by an artist-shipwright entitled "High Tide"

Narrows Basin--one of the many scenic coves in this part of Nova Scotia

Downtown Lunenburg

Riding through some of the neighborhoods

Overlooking the town of Lunenburg

Back on the trail

The quaint town of Mahone Bay

On the drive back, we rode through Chester, another picturesque town with pretty waterfront.

This war memorial reveals the significance of Scottish descent in the province population (unsurprisingly)

This little park was adjacent to the local yacht club

We were quite tired out by the time we finally returned home. The next day, the cold rainy weather encouraged us to spend a quiet day inside, drinking tea and hot chocolate.

The weather cleared up after dinner, and we figured since we hadn't really explored the provincial park that had been our home for the past few days, we should at least make an attempt to see more than our campground loop. The island is quite small, so it didn't take us very long to walk around most of it.

Random sign along the trail. Poor Noah.

Rick's corner:

Campers just are not built that well and always seem to have something breaking, but I really didn't expect this chunk of metal to be next on the list!

I happened to be under the camper greasing the suspension, when I noticed that this bracket had broken. This bracket holds the springs in place (so it basically holds our camper up). Of course it was a Saturday afternoon. Because campers always break on a weekend.

I called around to some local parts stores that were open (local being about an hour away), and no one seemed to have anything even close. When I reached the largest parts place in town and spoke with the "old guy who knows about suspension parts" he let me know of a trailer place in town that would be "the one" to have the part I needed if anyone would. He also knew off the top of his head that they already had closed at 1pm and would not open again until Monday morning. We were due to leave Monday for our next destination, so we weren't sure what to do.

I had a conference with my local Mechanical Engineer (Julie), and we decided that this had probably been broken for a while, as the remaining broken bits were covered with grime. That give us a little bit of confidence that we probably could make it to the trailer shop without the other bracket of the suspension assembly breaking.

So on Monday morning, after driving on some of the bumpiest roads we have encountered so far in Canada, we just showed up on the doorstep of The Trailer Store in Moncton and begged for mercy with camper in tow. After a couple of calls around, they concluded that the proper part was not going to be found and something else needed to be done. One of their lead mechanics said, "Well, we have a plasma cutter and I think we have some flat stock . . .", to which I replied, "I don't care what it looks like -- if you can make anything that will get us down the road, we'll take it!" They had us back the trailer into the shop so they could remove the broken part and the remaining "not quite broken part" to use as a template.

Never a fun time to have the trailer in the shop!

Not only did they make two replacement parts (one for the broken one, and another for the other side which was bent and soon to break), but they made us 2 spares just in case another one breaks (or their replacements break). And they did all of this in the span of only a couple of hours since we set foot in the door. They suggested checking all the rest of them (8 total on the camper) when we get to Florida. They felt pretty good about their replacements making it through the rest of the year!

Brand new "hand made" parts!

There is a google group email list which can send you an email when there is a new blog post. Instructions for signing up here: Subscribe OR directly join here: Google Group