Our Worldtour 2010 starts beginning of April 2010 in Canada

Start in London: 28. 3. 2010

Tour through Nova Scotia (2 weeks)

week: 29. 3. to 4. 4. 2010

We want to fix London as our starting point for our world tour. The meridian 0° 0´0´´
In Greenwich is the ideal point. We are wondering how many exiting Meridians we will be crossing during the tour.

And we have visited our daughter in London who had the idea to see Greenwich.

Halifax / Nova Scotia:

On 29. 3. We flew to Halifax. The flight was comfortable and fast. The emigration easy and to our surprise the officers extremly friendly - now 6 months Canada is done. We had booked in the 150 year old hotel Waverly Inn - really recommendable.
Halifay is small but nice. The core city only 150.000 people. But a beautiful natural harbour.
What surprised us most are the very very friendly people. If you stop for a minute to orientate you you can be shure somebody offers you help immediately.
Also to take our vehicle through customs was fast (2 hours for 3 different departments).
Everything was still at his place and to our total surprise even our small gift for the driver remind untouched - where are such things still happing nowadays??
Now we had to fuel (Diesel), to fill fresh water and to do the grocery. We were told that the „Irving petrol stations“ have Diesel and offer drinking water. But we didn´t find Irving and the others had no Diesel. Finally we found a small family owned.
They had only industrial water. After they saw our disappointment the owner as well his friend offered water from their private house. We followed his car - got 500 Ltr. water for free and got an place to stay overnight in his backyard, he offered his washing machine - we thought of being not on earth - we can say after being here only three days Canada is special.

Mahone Bay:
We stood in this small and pittouresque village one night. Special are the 3 churches out of which one is very very pretty and on sunny days one can see the mirror picture in the see - the most photographed site in Nova Scotia. The coloured wooden houses are just beautifull.

Lunenburg:
Only 10 minutes south of Mahone Bay lays Lunenburg - a Unesco world heritage. So harbour is stioll used for fishing and the wooden houses are outstanding (colourful, architecture wise) Lunenburg was founded in the 17th century by German and Swiss settlers and became reach because of the Freibeuter and because of fishing and ship building industry. Today they live mainly on tourisme and fishing.
Eating:
Lunenburg lives mainly from fishing and this you see on the menu. Lobster (affordable), scallops, crabs, and all kind of fishes. At Easter we were eating at „Chef de cuisine“ Mr. Konrad (from Germany - Münsterland). He learned his profession from famous cook Wohlfahrt (the best German Chef). We really appreciated this dinner.

Cycling:
At best weather on Easter we tested our new „pedelecs“ (bikes with electro engine support). This bikes from company „Riese&Müller“ are fantastic easy to ride. We rode 50km (without any practise) - partly hilly area and partly strong wind upfront - and we hade zero difficulties. We will enjoy riding more. Especially uphill its phenomenal how fast you can move.

Week: 5. 4. to 11. 4. 2010

Kejimkujik Seaside Nationalpark:
This park is located at the Atlantic (25km south of Liverpool). It is a small penninsula with an excellent hiking round tour. Specially known for his seals, seabirds and the bushes. The beach is partly sandy and partly particular rocky (with special shaped rocks from the ice age).
Normally during high season one cannot stay overnight with his camper but since the rangers were still on holidays we had no problem to have one of our quietest nights.
We were lucky since we saw quite a lot of seals and seabirds.

Digby:
The tour from Kejimkujik Seaside Nationalpark to Digby heads towards West to Clark´s Harbour and than northwards (always along the coast). We stopped at Shelburne (200 years ago it had 16.000 people - mainly refugees from Americas (royalists) and was one time the largest town in Northern America. Today it has only 2.000 people and the main attractions are museums which are all closed in April. So we drove 300km to land in Digby.
A small and beautiful fishing town at the Bay of Fundy. The worlds largest scallop fishing fleet. And the point to start tours to the famous „Digby Neck“.

Digby Neck:
This 75 km long and narrow penninsula (called giraffe neck) with two small islands at the end (Long and Brier Island) has some small fisher villages. Unfortunatelly in April more or less everything closed. We came here mainly to see the famous „balancing rock“. Half an hour hiking and you are on front of the cliffs - than around 500 steps (very safely protected) down and you are in front of this natural phänomena. This very thin and 20 feet hight rock stands in this unbelievable position since 2 million of years. Why is it not falling? Nowbody really nows (or have the Canadiens bolted it on?? Furthermore this quite place offers a nice view of the „Bay of Fundy“ and you can watch the fisherman collecting there lobster traps.

Bear River - part of Annapolis Royal:
This idyllic little village (800 people) beside the Bear River is proud of not having mobile phone networks and of not having a fast food chain. Many artists live here and the community is proud of his social focus and integrity. Even as a visitor you can feel this very quickly. Life is very relaxing. A very nice Cafe (on the bridge) and few restaurants give you a pleasant stay. What impressed us positively was the fast and friendly help of some locals when we arrived to find a place to park and stay overnight. They offered a place behind the Dutch windmill and behind the greenhouse in front of the Bear River.
Very fast we discovered that the greenhouse was not for growing vegetable but was a sewage-works. We were wondering of not noticing any kind of smell. We were informed that this is a kind of biological system using plants to help cleaning the sewage (please refer our category „Specialities and Curiosities“).
Not too far from the center is the informations center of the first nation communitiy - unfortunately it was closed (April!!)

Biological Sewage-works with the help of plants:
We got a wonderful and extremely informativ guided tour through the works by Mrs. .......
She runs this plant and also the coventional plant and is extremely knowledgable.
This specific plant (covered by a glass-house) funtions similar to a conventional sewage system but has additionally plants added. This plants helps cleaning the sewage (speed) and makes the system much simpler (less maintanance and less control necessary). The main tank is covered with the plants which absorbe with their roots and leaves the bacterias, the nitrogen, etc. Additionally air is pumped in to support the process. At the end you have sludge which is converted (together with parts of the plants) into compost and on the other hand clear (nearly drinkable) water. Surprisingly to us the water is filtered and treated by ultraviolett light before disposing off to the river. We saw a really revolutionary system and wondered why it is not used more often.
Part of the answer could be: the engineers of the planning componies of sewages-works do not know this technology - very unfortunate.
See here some pictures:

Annapolis Royal:
We were informed about a German bakery in Annapolis Royal. Of course we went there right away. Dieter from Leipzig and his wife are living since 10 years here and have built up a well running business. The coffee, the cake and especially the brown bread were fantastic.
Annapolis Royal in April is still deserted.
The route to the North along the Annapolis River is very nice - a lot farms, apple orchards and forests ( a hilly area).

Scots Bay:
Scots Bay lies directly at the Bay of Fundy. It is well known for his most famous hiking trail. The most used one in whole Nova Scotia. Cape Split is at the end of this narrow penninsula. Here flows the tiddal current from the Bay of Fundy into the Minas Bay and developes daily teh same force than all rivers of the whole world together. The tiddal hight is 16m. This enormes flows ..... The sea floor and the water becomes a golden brown colour (especially at dawn). A wonderful play of colours.
The hiking trail at the end of Cape Split offers fantastic views to the Bay. The nearly vertical fall is breath taking and together with the extrem strong wind has driven us away quickly.

week: 12.4 to 18. 4. 2010

Truro:
After 10 days of „wild camping“ we now try to find our first camp ground. So far all of them were still closed. And we have to do many things on our camper.
We drove in direction North-West towards New Brunswick.
In Truro (an important junction) we filled our groceries, etc.
20km West in Glenholme we found the first open RV-park (Elm River RV Park) beautifully aside a river. We were the only guests in a huge park (in Canada good for more than 100 campers - in Germany good for 500 campers). So we had to do our laundry, clean the camper (windows and especially all the rubber seals) and to pack all teh staff properly. Also the batteries have to be charged fully. The owner (telling us firstly that not full service would be available - at half the fair). 2 hours later he came and confirmed that all the service we be now avalable. He even arranged special adaptor for the water hose at no cost. Th adaptor was picked up by his son (6 years) driving a juge pick-up. He couldn´t look out the window while driving - he had to stand. This is Canada.
We loved the place so much so we stood 3 days.

Malagash:

In Halifax we visited the fish restaurant „the five fishermen“ (one of the best in Nova Scotia). They recommend a white wine from vinery „Jost“ from Nova Scotia (called „eagle tree“ a Muscat). The wine was just excellent. So we bought some bottles in the next liquor shop. And we decided to visit the vineyard which is located at the north coast of Nova Scotia on the „Northumberland Strait“. Family Jost emigrated from Germany (Rhine valley) in 1970 and built up this well known vinery. The son (Hans Christian Jost) has won many prestigous prices in Canada (best wine of the year).

We filled our „wine cellar“. Finally we couldn´t continue driving because of the long wine testing and asked if we could stay at the vineyard overnight. Hans Christian (after visiting our vehicle) offered us to stay at his sommer house - a beautifull place directly at the shore with view to the ocean and to a seal colony - just phantastic. This Canadians are so friendly - thousand thanks Hans Christian.

Here his homepage:

http://www.jostwine.com