Just how do you say that?

Then it's onwards across the 'down-east' corner of Maine through a land of lakes, forests, moose and spelling challenges. We don't quite make the border that night, but find a great camp site next to a gravel pit. It's another one of those overnight spots that sounds awful, but is our favourite type. We are away from the highway, with lots of space for the dogs to run, no one else about, and it comes with a fabulous sunset and spectacular stars.

Our border crossing the next day across St. Stephen's Third Bridge into Nouveau Brunswick is lengthy but successful. Curiously, we spend time waiting for an immigration officer with Jane Halliwell Green - a rug hooking instructor from Maryland on her way to teach in Truro so our time is filled with interesting conversation at least. We speed through Digdeguash, Nauwigewauk and Quispamsis into Nova Scotia, through woods of white barked birch, struggling pine forests, glittering lakes, beaver dams, and past more and more warning signs about moose on the highway. 

Tonight's camp site is at the Stewiake & Shubenacadie visitor center - not on our top ten list, but we're grateful for a level spot to park. It's a sort of Mastodon-Olympic combo experience. The Olympic sized crowds are courtesy of the next door Tim Horton's, at which there is a constant queue of people and cars. The concrete Mastodon is the visitor center's attraction, along with a concrete Fred Flintstone house, and concrete Barney Rubble car, all viewable only through a tall chain-link fence - just like the Olympic flame in Vancouver.

Fortified with Horton-food in the morning, we take a detour to the South Shore of Nova Scotia to visit Mahone Bay and the UNESCO World Heritage site of Lunenberg, the home of the Bluenose sailing ship.

The architecture is wonderful, lunch at Fleur de Sel is great, but the Bluenose is under blue tarps, being remade, again. There are several Economusee businesses in Mahone Bay and we stop at two - Amos Pewter and Spruce Top Rug Hooking Studio. They are good models for what we could be working towards on Fogo Island. Heritage houses converted to working artist studios.

We turn east again, winding along the eastern shore through small fishing communities and beautiful bays. We pick up some fresh scallops for dinner, and also make a stop at the J. Willy Krauch & Sons fish smokery in Tangier for some of the best smoked mackerel and salmon we've ever had. Sadly they were all out of smoked eel - the eel supply was described to us as 'erotic' (sic) -  but that gives us good reason to go back!

There is a distinct chill in the evening air now we are in the Maritime provinces, but it keeps the voracious blackfly at bay. At Spanish Ship bay the road turns inland and the soil turns red. We drive through Scottish farmland with names like Mackenzie on the mailboxes, and lakes by the name of Lochaber. A big black bear ambles across the road and turns to look at us for a moment before disappearing into the woods as we screech to a halt, fumbling too late, for the camera.