Signs of spring - swans heading north

 

Every year about this time we look forward to the Tundra swans passing through the area on their way to northern breeding grounds for the summer. They started to arrive last week. 

So on Monday we took a drive to our regular viewing area, on Greenway Road <Info and Map link>. While not yet at their peak, at least several hundred swans were in the area, resting up on their journey to the southwest. 

The swans used to congregate right beside Greenway Road, close to the road. This was in a field planted with corn usually, and runoff and rain collected in a large pond beside the road. Last year and this year the pond did not happen, so the swans are further away. There is lots of water elsewhere in the area though, so maybe the drainage was improved for that field.  

Most of the water in this picture is overflow from a creek on the left, kind of behind the trees: 

Creek on the right, flooding on the left

If you look carefully you can see swans spread out over these flooded fields:

 

A number of swans were visible from the north side of Greenway Road, opposite of where they used to hang out. I tried to get closer, with some success:

Then they got nervous and many took flight:

 

Here's short video of the mass takeoff: 

 

Guess I looked pretty scary...

  

Some other spring birds were in the area too:

The first Robins we've seen this year

A male Redwing Blackbird

 

It was just a beautiful day to be out and about. On the way home we dropped by a view of Lake Huron near where we live. The visible ice pack varies with the winds, but ice is on the way out:

 

 

Going home, END of East trip

Nova Scotia Welcome Centre is still open

After our overnight in Amherst NS we set out towards Ontario. This was a really good trip, everything had gone well. The weather was much better than we've often had in other late-summer trips to Atlantic Canada, always a bonus.

We did think about some side trips along the way home, but just couldn't get too interested. We felt like we had our holiday and were ready to head for home. Not many pictures from this part of the trip.

Day 1 - Wednesday 

A highway travel day from Amherst to the "de la Republique" provincial park in New Brunswick. We often stop at this park on our way to or Atlantic Canada, and spent 2 days here on the way east this time. 

Map trivia: The park is hard to search for via GPS or Google Maps. We found that you have to enter the exact "de la Republique" name to find it. You can add "provincial park" but not necessary.

 

The main de la Republique washroom.

Our nice woodsy site. Most of the serviced sites here are woodsy.

I did mention we had few pictures today. :))

 

Day 2 - Thursday

Another driving day, this time to get through Quebec. We never enjoy this drive, but the drive coming east was quite tame this time, and it's quite pretty east of Quebec City. We have learned to not come west through Quebec on or near a weekend, so are hoping today would be light.

The drive started with some fog soon after leaving the campground:

and turned quite scenic in the early morning light

The fog ran along nearby valleys

then cleared up after a while

There has been construction for years on the Trans Canada route in eastern Quebec, and it's still going on. This isn't resurfacing, it's often major rerouting and expansion of the highway. No major delays today though:

At one point we decided to take a highway exit to a nearby Irving station for a break. The offramp led to a left turn under the highway to get to the gas station. The ramp intersection was blocked, we thought from an accident, but no options but to wait until the intersection was open.

Eventually the source of the problem came by. A truck was hauling one of those gigantic windmill vanes. and the police were blocking other traffic:

The camera lens was not wide enough to get the whole vane

 

In the end there were 3 trucks, each hauling a vane through this back road. Other support vehicles and more police too, all moving very slowly as the trucks manoeuvred around corners. 

This was really the only delay on the drive today, until we missed the turn to Autoroute #30, which is the Montreal bypass. Recovery from that was way trickier than it should have been, as our GPS had decided on an alternate route without us noticing. Heavy traffic and French signs didn't help, but we did recover.

We thought we'd try for a campsite in the Long Sault parkway area for the night. No reservations, but it turned out that the Mille Roches campground had lots of room. The Long Sault campgrounds are managed by Ontario Parks but retain a different feel than most Ontario provincial parks..

The Long Sault Parkway runs along a string of islands linked by bridges and causeways, a very pretty area. Mille Roches is the first campground when coming from the east. There are a fair number of waterfront sites in the park, lots of water access, a good place for a canoeing vacation:

The apple crop made us think of PEI, as Pat (our Brother in law) likes wild apples 

This site even has its own dock for boating

as does this occupied site with its aluminum boat pulled up

We had some strong winds come through in late afternoon and overnight. The fellow in the above site was happy no trees fell on his trailer, although he said a limb came down and broke his roof vent cover. 

 

Some Long Sault pedestrian traffic

This Parkway is a real nice break from the Quebec highways of yesterday and the Ontario highways today. 

 

Route note: We usually have gone north of Lake Simcoe on the way east or back, to skip Toronto traffic (ie Barrie to Orillia, and back south to hwy 7 east). This time the GPS really wanted to take us south of Lake Simcoe. We encountered quite a bit of traffic but no problems, and likely shaved an hour off the more northern route home.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

Leaving PEI, for now. We will be back, someday.

Along the NB shore, near Cape Spear

We sadly bade farewell to PEI today. We always enjoy our visits here, and this trip seemed extra special. Great weather for the most part, much better than we've come to expect in PEI this time of year. There's always a dark cloud for the silver lining it seems, as PEI farmers could really have used more rain in this latter part of summer as crops mature.

We were away about 8:30, running into some fog soon after we crossed the bridge from Stratford into Charlottetown, and took the Charlottetown bypass road:

The fog cleared away as soon as we were further from the shore though, and we saw no more of it today. 

Likely just a coincidence that the fog started just before the sewage treatment plant, and ended soon after. :)) 

 

Crossing the Confederation Bridge (aka the Link) was nicer than usual, with the reduced flat fare of $20. Traffic was light and moved along quickly through the toll booths: 

It was a bluebird day crossing the bridge:

A view of the bridge from the New Brunswick side

Soon after we crossed the bridge we departed from the main road to route 955 and 960, which follow the shore quite closely. Somewhere around Cape Spear we stopped at a pulloff and browsed the shore a bit. 

Some herons were looking for breakfast in the rocks

Empty shells clustered on a rock about 3 inches across, covering the whole rock

Along the way we were trying to decide where to go and when. We don't want to transit Quebec any day from Friday to Monday inclusive. After going through some options we decided to visit Deanne Fitzpatrick's shop in Amherst Nova Scotia, and go on to see some more of NS from there.

So after a lunch stop that's what we did: 

Picnic lunch at a roadside park in Pugwash 

There is more to Pugwash than we knew before, including the largest salt mine in Atlantic Canada :  

The salt mine here is similar to the one in Goderich Ont

Likely loading salt 

There's a Yacht Club

The Yacht Club docks (all of them)

 

Nearing Amherst we stopped at the Winegarden Winery, nicer inside than it looks from the outside. After some sampling and discussion with the staff and a visitor, Cathie came away with a couple of bottles:

 

 
And we got to Amherst, where Cathie met Deanne again:

After leaving Amherst we headed along #6 towards Tatamagouche, looking for a campsite. After trying a couple of campgrounds that didn't appeal to us and looking for reasonable boondock stops, with no success, we had a relax in Tatamagouche and decided to head back to Amherst, where there is one of the reliable Walmarts. This will position us for carrying on west to Edmundston NB tomorrow. We usually enjoy our Walmart stops, and this one was good too.