There was no gate or barrier leaving the US, so I soon found myself in no mans land just before the Canadian side. Realising I was supposed to pull in to the area marked public parking, I decided the easiest course of action would just be to retrace my steps.
In hindsight I can see why they freaked out. I mean they've gone to all the trouble to build the thing and then there's me doing a u-turn and riding the wrong way down a one way road, missing all the hardened security booths that have been set up for folks entering the US. So the guard comes running over and we have a chat. The technique I usually adopt at this point is just to agree with everything the person in authority says. It worked, and he kindly took the green form thing I'd been supposed to hand in and was on my way. It probably even saved me time.
From there I was heading for St John, New Brunswick, not to be confused with St John's, Newfoundland, to get the ferry to Nova Scotia. First stop was one of the tourist information offices, which are really good here. They can't give you enough maps and brochures, and the young lady in this one was kind enough to draw with a highlighter on my map how to get to the ferry terminal. It was at this point I realised the clocks had changed and I'd lost an hour, but still had plenty of time. St John itself feels a bit run down, but everyone I met was either nice, polite, or helpful and sometimes all three.
As ever I hadn't booked ahead so when I got to the terminal I found out that the ferry was full, but I could get on the wait list at number 11. It would have annoyed the life out of me, if after all the tearing around I'd have to wait another day, but again it all worked out and I made it on.
I'd hoped to see a bit of the Bay of Funday, but it was a real pea souper all the way across, which is when I finally got time to load the first set of blog posts.
As I now had a full day before cousin Frank arrived in Halifax, I opted to run around the south coast, passing Yarmouth and then finding somewhere to stop for the night. On the way to Yarmouth I had a bot of a problem in that the peak and visor on my helmet broke. This was due to me fitting a thing called a pinlock to my visor before I left. The pinlock makes the visor, sort of double glazed so it won't fog up during heavy rain, but in fitting it, I'd broken one of the retaining screws. The second screw had just worn lose, I guess with the buffeting as I'd mostly had it up due to the heat. I'd looked for spares on the way, but no-one seems to stock Shoei helmets, so I had no choice but to stop and dismantle the remaining screws and take it off completely. In a comedy moment I dropped one of the clear plastic screws and couldn't find it, so I packed everything up, in the hope of making it scared to be left behind, feeling like a parent telling their kid, that's me going now. Anyway it worked and I found it, so just two I need now rather than three.
A chat with another nice tourist information lady had suggested that Shelburne was nice, so I headed off there. I checked into a motel, where I think I must have been the only guest based on the lack of other vehicles. The owner was clearly in need of a chat as he kept me for about 30 minutes telling me about his life in the Canadian navy. His ship was apparently the first that could take on supplies from three other vessels at the same time. One of his favourite memories from his service was his ship breaking down for a month in Newcastle. As they were due to go ashore they were forbidden from drinking Newcastle Brown Ale, which is of cou
rse what they immediately all did.When I finally got free I went out to take some photographs. Continuing the nautical theme i wandered down to the waterfront, where I immediately noticed the Admiral's flagship looked very lightly defended.
Sure enough, some pirates had noticed the same thing, and despite the heavy patrols by the British, it all kicked off.
At times is was a little hard to work out what was going on, even with the announcer randomly shouting things.
Part of the confusion was down to a local in a sportsboat, who had pulled his outboard up until it was almost out of the water then proceeded to rev the engine like a lunatic, all the while doing a slow bypass in front of the period boats, waving like the queen.
It got more interesting still when the shore based troops opened up.
I'd read about Shelburne before I left, but forgotten most of the detail. It was at one point the fourth largest city in North America, and it has the third largest natural harbour in the world, after Sydney and Halifax.
It's where all the people still loyal to the British crown landed after America won it's independence, including some 2,000 freed slaves who stayed to farm, then left when they found the soil was poor. The agreement they reached was to be shipped back to Africa where they formed Freetown in the new country of Sierra Leone.
In the end, with all that ordinance going down, i'm sure you can guess what happened to the flagship.
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