Texas Hunting Network

After leaving Grey Rapids Lodge in New Brunswick, we worked our way south east toward the province of Nova Scotia.

Saw lots of really interesting and neat scenery, did how ever miss out on stopping of along the Bay of Fundy,  it is most famous for having some of the highest, if not the highest tidal surges in the world, but as with Niagra Falls, we just did not have the extra time.

We arrived late in the afternoon at North Sydney and checked in to a hotel. After freshening up a little, we went down to the restaraunt at the hotel for supper.

We got more than a few looks from not only the wait staff, but other diners as well, becaure all 3 of us ordered the house special for the day, 2 lobsters and all the trimmings.

Evidently to those folks, and just like folks anywhere, a food item that is readily available tends to fall into disdain with the folks living in the area.

Well, we were touristas on a Grand Adventure, and 2 lobsters for 1 person at $10.00 Canadian, about $7.50 American at that time seemed like a great deal to us.

I have to back up a little, as earlier in the day, I had eaten a "Lobster Dog" at a place like a Dairy Queen here. It consisted of a regular hot dog bun with the meat from 2 lobster claws inside.

After supper we went back to our room and turned in, all of us were tired from about 12 hours of driving and top that off with one hell of a supper and we were all about to pass out.

We got up around 5 the next morning and got some breakfast, then loaded up and headed for the port and awaited time drive aboard the M.V. Joseph and Clara Smallwood.

Mind you now, this trip took place in 1996, about 7 years before I began using computers, so this whole trip was planned out and set up via phone and snail mail.

The Smallwood can carry up to 1200 passengers and 340 passenger vehicles. The crossing takes about 14 hours.

We arrived at the docks and got in line to wait our turn to drive up the ramp. Being in a small pick up with a camper and homemade trailer wearing Texas license plates got us lots of glances and several conversations to say the least.

Tina having been checked out of school for the month enjoyed a very special tour of the ship.

Tne of the electives she was taking was Hospitality, she has always been interested in being a professional chef. Her teacher gave her a Letter of Introduction before we left town, and with it her and in some cases her Mother were taken behind the scenes at some of the places we stayed so they could actually see how such places are run.

She got a grand tour of the ship, including the Galley's where the meals are prepared, escorted by the ship's Purser.

I troed resting a little during the crossing, it is approximately 100 miles from North Sydney Noa Scotia to Channle Port aux' Basque Newfoundland.

On the top deck of the ship they even had a Putt-Putt golf course, cannot remember if it was 9 or 18 holes.

About 2 hours out of Port aux' Basque, I got restless and went up to the bow to watch for land.

Finally, I began to see some small lumps on the horizon and warched as mile after mile they begin to get larger. I went and got Lora and Tina to come up on deck with me a while, they did not stay long as it war about 60 degrees or so and the wind off of the ocean was cool to say the least.

As soon as we landed, all passengers were instructed to return to their vehicles for disembarcation.

As we were coming into port, we got to watching the scenerty around the port and noticed several things quite unusual. All of the houses were painted in some of the brightest and in many cases varied colors imagineable.

We later found out much of this was done so that the houses could be seen from the sea and used as guide posts for the local fishermen.

What was so strange to us, was that it appeared that one wall of a house had been paineted with one shade of red and the adjoinig wakll was painted with a shade slightly brighter or duller, to us it seemed like they had painted with one shade and when the next closest shde went on sale they used it.

Another interesting thing that Lora noticed about Newfoundland homes as we were driving around was that on the second floor of the house, and I believe all Newfoundland homes are 2 story, out in the middle of the wall, facving the road, there was a door.

Lora decided really fast that she would never live in a place where people purposeluy put a door that opened out into space because of the anticipated snow fall.

Ws did find out that due to Newfie sense of humor, these doors are referred to as "Mother-In-Law" doors.

Enother thing we learned on the trip, even before we left the mainland is that there are just as many if not more Newfie jokes as there is Aggie jokes.

After leaving the port, we drove up along the southwestern side of the island across a place called Table Mountain, where some of the highest recorded wind gusts in North America have occred.

In fact, several times during the history of the Canadian Railway, when they operated a rail line on the island, trains were actuall blown off the tracks. If I remember correctly, gusts as high as 300 miles per hour have been recorded at Table Mountain.

Our destination was the Gillis' guest cabins in the town of Codroy.

Next time, Exploring the Island.