The houses along the coast are incredible. Huge, real massive castle, where 3 doors garage is the norm.
Hingham, Sictuate and all the little towns along the coast are incredibly rich and beautiful. You drive under a ceiling of green because the trees are so big and old, it’s truly majestic. I really recommend to do that once instead of taking the 3 all the way.

Once in Cape Cod we went to a beach on the Atlantic side. It was superb. Miles and miles of nice sand, big waves crashing on the shore. We took a dip in the 15 degrees water…and it wasn’t as cold as expected! After a couple of hours the tide started to lower, the sun was setting so we decided to go to Chatham for supper, about 20 km south of the beach.

We went to the Wild Goose on Chatham main street. It looked promising but was disappointing in the end. We had a clam chowder (obviously!) and I got then pennes with lobster, clams, mussels and shrimps. The idea was good, but there was way too much oil and cream. It kinda ruined the plate, unfortunately. Bob had swordfish….looked good on paper (as was my plate!) but it was clearly frozen swordfish and it was disappointing too. The place was packed though and service was good. Small consolation…

We drove back to Quincy after this, thinking we’d go to the same motel after all. But by the time we got there, it was sold out! So was the Best Western…And the Ramada…. we were about to think we’d finish the trip as we started it: by sleeping in the car… In the end we found a Holiday Inn Express in Braintree (real city, not making that one up!) with specials on rooms because it was so late at night – around midnight. It was the best hotel we had. Incredibly comfortable beds, super clean bathroom, it was great!

After a good night sleep, we headed home, with a stop at the Harvard Coop for more souvenirs. We had the (terrible) idea to eat breakfast at “Au bon pain”. It looked a trendy chain of fast food to eat “healthy” sandwiches. We’ve already seen couple of Au bon pain that were packed so we figured it wouldn’t be too bad. I had a oven roasted turkey club thinking it as a oven-roasted-turkey-club. Turned out to be a Oven-roasted-turkey, club. Basically slices of turkey, 2 tomato slices and some salad between bread, not even toasted. something I could have made myself for 2$ that I paid 7 something…. Bob got a disgusting tuna crap taht went to the garbage after the first bite. Great last breakfast in the US!

After our shopping we headed home, uneventfully. We had to make a couple of stops for Bob who couldn’t stand his bike’s saddle anymore and once near Montreal we got greeted by a HUGE traffic jam at Pont Champlain. We thought “hey…welcome hommmeee!!!”

At 7PM something we completed our road trip, with 6555.5 kilometers added to the odometer, in 14 days.

It was a fantastic experience…we felt like we left for months. The fact that we never got into any routine, we never slept in the same bed twice, we didn’t see the same scenery twice, all contributed I think. The highlight was really Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. It’s an amazing place that I strongly suggest anyone out there to go check it out.

Last but not least, here is the final full track of our trip

We went directly to Boston downtown with the GPS and navigated randomly in here for about 2 hours. We stopped at a McDo to have wifi and look for Harvard and MIT….turns out we were right in between on Massachussetts Ave.! Finding parking in Boston is just as complicated as it is in montreal, with crazy signs that take you 45 seconds to compile and determine if it’s allowed or not.

We were also surprised by the amount of police there is. we couldn’t drive 5 minutes without passing by one. So we visited Harvard after circling around the block 3 times to find a parking, visited the campus, which would almost make us want to go back to chool. Unfortunately you can’t go inside buildings, they require a student ID. I’m guessing it makes sense if they don’t want to have a gazillion tourists running in the university…

We then moved around Boston a bit more and went for the Apple Store, in the hope they could fix my iPhone. The Store is in Quincy (that’s where we ended to sleep) and to make along story short: after trying 2 new phones, they can’t do anything for me. I need to go to an apple store in Canada…

after this we went back to Cambridge to visit MIT (because we found out it’s much much bigger than we first thought). We went to the obligatory souvenirs shop to get gouge by overpriced items. We checked out the MIT yatching club that were practicing with dozens of derivers on the river in a picture perfect sunset lighting up downtown boston on the other side.

We moved to downtown boston and ate in a english pub, that was very nice, while watching the red sox giving a baseball lesson to the Jays of Toronto. We went back to Quincy for the night and today we’re going to Cape Cod!

We had a nice lobster roll for lunch, bought from a shack on the road. It was a good surprise. And then it was highway alllll the way. Fortunately it goes quite fast, people are speeding to 120/130km/h.

500km later we ate, completely by chance, at the best burger place of new england. Not our say, but something that has been voted on…whatever: the burgers were indeed delicious. The place was overpacked and obviously for good reasons!

We then continued toward Boston and stopped at Denver to find a motel, which was a bit laborious because the town is split on 2 by a road that you can’t crossover… We eventually made it to something not too shady…

Oh and i don’t know what happened, if it’s bed bugs or whatever but I have more than 30 bites on the left leg alone and it’s itching pretty badly…. I have no idea how I got them….

And thanks to everyone who thought about my birthday, it’s much appreciated!

The day started pretty badly: rain woke us up under the tent, after having a rough night because of the sea that was so close… sleeping on the beach sounds awesome in theory but in practice it leaves to be desired…
We packed the tent after a shower of 30 mins, with about 4 billions mosquitoes hungry for breakfast, was greeeaaaatttt. I have a bout 15 bites on the legs so far, loving it.

Anyway,shortly after we were on the 209 West and this was amazing. about 80 km of roads in the middle of nowhere, we saw maybe 3-4 pick ups on the other way during this stretch. It was 8:00 in the morning, the rain had stopped a while ago and we blasted through this road like rally drivers.

we then visited Cap Enrage, that they advertise 30km in advance only to tell you right at the gates that there is an admission fee of 4$…we didnt appreciate that at all but like Bob said it cost us more of gas to get there anyway…so we paid it only to have time for 3 pictures before it started raining again.

we stopped for lunch at Sussex, nothing exceptionnal and then we drove to St-John, which is another hour away. we got a motel early and just crashed here to shower, read and just relax before supper we treated ourselves with the amazing lobster Subway. And it was great again!

Now it’s time for a good night of sleep, we’re passing the border tomorrow, we want to be less than half a day away from Boston to have a full day and a half to visit it and Cape Cod.

The morning started with a little chat with a couple from Halifax in the hotel’s restaurant. They came to Sydney for a conference and they were very nice to talk to. So much in fact that we missed the check out time…without any problem in the end. The breakfast was crap, but the company made up for it.

We then proceeded to Zellers to buy boxers for Bob and a map of NS. And then we left Sydney and the Cap Breton Island for good, with a little tear, by the Eastern coast. We absolutely loved our experience there. This Island is magnificient, a true gem. So far if you had one thing to visit in eastern canada, it would be it.

The weather was awesome again for us today. Our arrival to the Cap Chignecto reserved us some twisty road that we had not anticipated at all. It was really nice and the view great. Camping next to the sea is gorgeous. We feared we might hit some rain but it seems it’s clearing up.

I also started a fire (without paper….but honnestly it was pure luck: I had given up and 5 minutes later there was a flame lol) and then took the entire evening to figure out how to make bigger flames, being jaleous of the superb fire of our neighbor. Nevertheless, we got our Chunky soups hot and it was delicious! (always better when it’s eated by your own fire!).

When we arrived the tide was low but it quickly raised and is almost up now. The waves are only a few feet away from our faces!

I don’t know how they have network here, it seems so remote and in the middle of nowhere….I guess the middle of nowhere is going to be harder and harder to find…

We had a fantastic sunny day today. it was perfect: 21 degrees, blue sky and just some white sheeps in the sky to make it prettier. We did the trail from Whycocomagh from the west, in a clockwise motion, all the way up Cape Breton and tonight we’re sleeping in Sydney (yes, yes!)
we did the top part of the trail in the Parc 3 times over because it was so awesome. we didnt anticipate the eastern the side of the trail to be as long and intensive… and so it made us arrive at Sydney at 8pm, after 6 hours of driving. There is an Acadian village right before the parc, Chitecamp. It has some gorgeous panoramas and with Caraquet in NB, Bob and I felt that those acadians know where to sttle!
after an ordinary lunch, we did thetrail, then took all the must-have pictures. That’s maybe my only grief about the trail: it’s very busy with tourists….not as much as the Effeil tower but still. And picture spots are specially made to take pictures…i guess it’s better, security wise…

I’m out for tonight… i need to sleep! We’ll be heading back to Halifax tomorrow and then, on our way to the US!

Today we went from Halifax (it looks like a nice city! The biggest since Montreal) and we proceeded on the road 7, on the South East coast line of NS. The road was amazing: twisty, hilly, curvy and almost empty. Its a superb mix of rivers, lakes and sea shores. You can check google map to see!

We stopped at a small restaurant that smartly advertised ‘45 min before the next restaurant’….it got us (and indeed there was nothing for more than 100km after that) i got a lobster roll (still not as good as Muv Box!) and it was a really charming and well decorated little resto.

The weather is completly crazy in NS. It did that to us just before Halifax: it seems the clouds are landing on us. Its a bit like fog but from the sky rather than from the soil. Its quite bizarre! And then in litterally 2 minutes its a bright blue sky again….Even the locals seem resigned: one told us ‘well they say sunshine but you know, it’s the Maritimes’, indeed….

After an exhausting session on the 7, we ended up at Cape Breton, near the Cabot Trail. And we forgot it’s the weekend already and all motels are full…. So we’re camping. We setup the tent like pros this time around with about 2000 mosquitoes who seemed very intersted by the process….or our blood, not sure…

For supper there was just nothing nearby so we drove 50 km for a god damn tim horton…. 100km total for a tim, thats a record…

Now we’re gonna head back to the camp site (writing this from the tim) with the hope we wont find the tent drenched… And try to sleep, i’m exhausted.

im writing this on Bob’s smartphone and since i’m not used to it i’ll be quite brief…today was uneventful anyway.
we drove around PEI for a good part of the day. straight linnes (albeit hilly) bored Bob to death, i found it fun to burst the speed limit with absolutely no one in sight for kilometers… the highlight of the day was our lunch: we went to Subway and got a footlong double portion lobster sandwich. 25$ of awesome. it was delicious, the best lobster we had so far. There was easily 2 lobsters worth of meat. It was ‘marvelous’!! (bob’s favorite word ).

We then headed to the COnfederation bridge (that’s when the iPhone went poof), so we decided to modify our planned route to go straight to Halifax in the hope of fixing my phone for the Cabot trail.

2 things about Nova Scotia so far:
-People know how to drive
-Road markings are awesome.

but really what impressed us the most is how people used the left lane exclusively for passing. it was a constant for 250 kilometers. We thought Quebercers could learn 2-3 things from Nova Scotians on this one!! we also ran (not just us, most of the vehicules) between 120 km/h to 130 km/h. it was great. (Ps: on a remote road somewhere i broke the speed record i had with the Mazda: 180Km/h … and i wasn’t even in 6th gear :p)

tonight we’re in a motel (fortunately because the Heavens opened 15 minutes after we arrived. we’re in the outskirts of Halifax and it seems there are lot of lakes around. Seems nice!. hopefully tomorrow ill have my iPhone fixed and will be able to upload the track as well as pictures.

today we did around 650Km, we are just few clicks from the 3000 mark! tomorrow will be a ‘relaxed day’ of 400ish up to the beginning of the Cabot Trail.

See you soon, hopefully from my iPhone.

In Mocton we wanted some seafood for lunch we went to a fast food that basically takes everything living in the sea, deep fries it and serve with french fries. We saw couple of those in Gaspesie too…So we thought we jad to try one. We had lobster rolls (obviously) that were the same price of what I pay next my office in Montreal and it was nasty. The mayo looked more like jelly (if possible) and if the lobster was more like fish purée pressed into the form of lobster claws with a dash of artificial colorant I wouldn’t be surprised… It was nasty.

So while we were eating this subpar lobster roll, we decided that for supper in Charlottetown we’d go to the nicest seafood restaurant recommended on Tripadvisor.com… But more on that later.

Before leaving Mocton for PEI (prince Edward island, like they say) we went to the ‘magnetic hill’. I’ll let you wikipedia that. It’s basically a tourist attraction where you drive down a hill, and a ‘magnetic field’ pulls the car back up. It works (the optical illusion that is )!

One thing we noticed is that people are very nice and orderly in NB. A pedestrian sets foot on the road and Mocton freezes to let the dude pass. On the way to PEI, one of the two lanes of the highway was closed for construction. You could see of course the arrow flashing 3 km away because the roads ARE SO DAMN FLAT (did I mention that already?) and drivers pulled on the right lane immediately, 3 km away. So you had 3 km of bumper to bumper traffic before the actual construction and no one on the left lane. Bob and I thought the same thing: if it was Quebec, there would be a war on the left lane up until 1 meter of the arrow to try to bypass everyone. It really struck us!

And then finally, the confederation bridge, the longest bridge in the world. It was quite impressive really. I could feel the engineering feat of building this, its quite humbling. 12 km of road above water, was nice!

On to PEI, we drove directly to Charlottetown, stopping on the way to get a motel since they are forecasting rain for tomorrow. We almost thought we’d be out of luck but we found a Korean motel with a vacant room. And not only the tenants are Korean, but the word Motel is also translated lol. It’s quite unexpected. We thought it would be pretty shady but its more than decent.

PEI is pretty nice so far. It’s a bit hilly, nice green vegetation, fields of potatoes… In many regards it looks a lot like the french country side, what you would expect between say Paris and Tours. Tomorrow we’ll do the complete tour of the island before leaving for Nova Scotia.

Our supper in Charlottetown was okay, but we really expected more. Supposedly the resto is quite renowned (and it was packed, with reservations. At one point we even saw guys who drove all the way from British Columbia!) we where really lucky to have a table.

We got some chowder (was quite good) and a plater of mussels (moules), half lobster and deep fried (again!!!) scallops (coquille st jacques). For dessert we had a lemon jelly with whipped cream. It was decent. But for 60$ all in each, we expected better. I’m convinced we can find something better in Montreal for that price…I guess the saying that Montreal is the one of the best table of north America isn’t quite unfounded.

Tomorrow we should be sleeping in Nova Scotia, right before the Cabot trail. We are thinking that we could maybe do it 2 times over, since we’re moving quite fast on our planning. We might go down the US too, if we have time…

Bob had the bright idea to buy rain boots at the Canadian Tire in Paspébiac. Although rain wasn’t forecast until tomorrow, we did had a few showers.
The road until Caraquet (capital of the Acadie) was boring and uninteresting. New Brunswick has slow speed limit and straight lines… Not exactly a driver’s dream.

The fun started really when we got in Acadie. Their are at least 22 acadian flags for each Acadians! They are crazy! I saw more flags in 6 hours than in the last 6 years lol. They even paint it on telephone poles that are in their terrain… A lot of them also have their family name (I presume) written in the white of the flag. You can tell they are very very proud of their nation. I didn’t know it was so intense!

We drove all the way to Miscou, to the top of the island, the most remote place of NB. There is a lighthouse at the end of the road and the lighting was just perfect… we really had the feeling that we reached the end of the world. Before that we had some BBQ just before Miscou! We had chunky Soups… Cold and not very good… But whatever. The place was great and we were inspired to make some ‘concept shots’ !

After our little visit in those isles (Lameque and Miscou), we decided to sleep to Shippagan, since it was already late (and that’s another thing, we’re not sure when we are on the maritime timezone or EST…). That would have been too easy!

There is a festival of Acadie for the first 2 week of august apparently and the motels were packed. So we drove all the way to Tracadia-Shia for the one motel there is there. Once there it looked a bit shady… Bob didn’t feel comfortable so we decided to wing it to Miramichi (yes I know it does sound Japanese!) the GPS got us through a ’shortcut’ (Aurélie knows well how those GPS shortcuts often pan out LOL) but it was fun in the middle of the woods, with warnings about mooses…. At that point we were really tired.

The night had fallen completely since Tracadia (at least there was no rain) but we really wanted to sleep in a comfy bed…
Once near Miramichi we decided to try a random motel…. Closed.
Checking out google, we see another motel at the other side of town closing in 15 minutes…at 11pm(or so we thought according to the website) so we rushed to get one of the last two remaining bedroom.
Relieved to have the room (which btw isn’t as nice as the one of Day2) we went out back to town to eat at McDo because we were famished (the Chunky soup didn’t cut it…) when we came back, a Big Mac later, the motel management was still open so we’re STILL not sure in which timezone we are lol. I presume we could google it…

In the end we did about 640km in 14 hours today, breaking the 2000km for the trip. We’re kinda burned, a good night of sleep is in order!