Camped in Antigonish NS, then on to North Sydney

Whidden Park campground

 Sunday Jun 16

Another early getaway today, off about 5:50 ADT on a clear 6C morning. 

Some trailer scraping noise was audible in the morning stillness, but after checking things again we decided to press on. Where would we get service for an unknown problem around here on a Sunday? 

We stopped at the Fredericton Costco for lunch, one of their tasty Montreal smoked meat sandwiches. The trailer noise was getting a little worse, but still no heat buildup or obvious damage. The day stayed sunny, up to 21C.

We tried to make it to North Sydney tonight, so we could make our Monday ferry reservation. As the day wore on though, it became clear we weren't going to make it. We were going to have to get the trailer fixed before crossing to Newfoundland. So I called the ferry people and changed our reservation to Tuesday, with fingers crossed.

A campground (Whidden Park) right in the town of Antigonish looked good for an early stop today, and hopefully finding service in town Monday.  

Camped at Whidden Park

With lots of working room and using levelling blocks, I was able to get one trailer wheel at a time off the ground, and determined that the right rear wheel was the problem. There was even a piece of spring poking out of the brake adjustment port! Yep, this was the problem. Now to find some service. 

With nobody at the campground office, I walked the campground looking for local license plates. I found a 30-ish fellow at one of the sites, and asked him if he was from "around here". No, he replied, he was from New Glasgow (almost 30 km up the road!).

Anyway, he didn't know of any actual service locally, so took me over to a fellow camper that had stayed here regularly for the last 25 years or so. That fellow knew there was a NAPA dealer just outside the campground, that worked with tires and general repairs. That sounded promising, as the replacement brakes had come from a NAPA in Flesherton. The NAPA place was closed, this being Sunday, so we just relaxed for the night, planning an early morning tomorrow.

 

Sunday's drive:

 

Monday Jun 17

In the morning the NAPA place couldn't work us in, but pointed us to nearby Eastern Auto, and called ahead for us. Thanks to NAPA and Eastern Auto, we had the trailer in being worked on by 8:30 this morning. 

Once the wheel was pulled I expected to see some damage, but we were real lucky! The brake adjusting wheel and spring had come off for some unknown reason (this was one of the 4 brand new NAPA pre-assembled brakes I installed a couple of weeks ago), and the loose parts were rattling and dragging inside the brakes. All the loose parts were still in there. Some cleaning up of the adjustment bolt, reassembled and good to go. No damage to other brake parts. Whew!! And no further brake problems this trip. 

 

What a relief! An hour of expensive mechanic time, a good tip for their coffee fund, and we were underway by 9:30. The manager said they often get tourists with problems there, and we were the first this season. What an honour!

(A note from the future: A little more expensive than I thought. Partly because of things like this, we decided to change from a car and trailer RV to a Sprinter travel van. We ordered a new van in September, and sold the Tahoe and HiLo. This change had been a long time coming.)

 

After all this we got to the Arm of Gold campground near North Sydney by 12:15 ADT, a common staging campground for the Nfld ferry. Lots of big rigs, and daily turnover so no problem getting a site, especially arriving at noon. In places en route, lots of lupins were blooming in the countryside.

 

Before settling in there we made the mistake of touring the town of North Sydney with the trailer still on. Don't do that again! Tight roads, even for our relatively small rig.

It was a "soft" day, drizzly but still mild, and little wind. Some fog interfered with our Cape Breton views though, so we're glad to see it clearing up now. The forecast for tomorrow sounds good for the ferry ride.

 

Camped at Arm of Gold

 

To prepare for the ferry ride, I removed our spare tire off the rear of the trailer. Without it we're about 1 inch shorter than 40 ft. Over 40 ft (up to 50 ft) would have cost us about $65 more each way, although we later found out they can use discretion for up to 1 ft over the 10 ft incremental rates.
 
Here's one of the ocean-going ferries, I think the one we got on next day.

 

Monday's drive: