Days 47 and 48 Kejimkujik National Park

Sunday, July 28th 2013

The laundry pile has been steadily growing, and my hiking pants were soon going to be able to walk on their own, so I decided to get right up and do the nasty chore before moving on this morning to Kejimkujik National Park ( pronounced kedge-i-mi-koo-jik or just "kedgy" as the locals call it ).

God, I hate these campground laundromats!  I had beaten everyone there, so managed to take the 4 washers I needed.  When it was time to dry, that's when the trouble began. The machines just kept gobbling up my precious Canadian coins, and not delivering heat.  After waiting for the repair guy, the job was done about 3 hours later.

Norm and I then moved on, this time south, to the middle of Nova Scotia to Kejimkujik. This is the only national park in Canada  in which it's entire area is also designated a National Historic site.
It is named after Kejimikujik Lake, the largest body of water in the park, and it has many other lakes and rivers that were important canoe routes between the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic for the ancestors of the Mi'kmaq Indians. They have quite a few campsites here that are only accessible by canoe.  I would LOVE to do an overnight on a deserted island, but the weather forcast for our days here are not too promising.  Oh well, another item for the Bucket List.

Site # 177 At Kejimikujik National Park

We left the rugged coast behind and replaced it with lots of hardwood, fir and pine trees as well as lakes, streams and brooks.  Nova Scotia must be incredible in the fall!

As we arrived in the park and started our way down miles of roads to the campground, our poor RV pitched and rolled through the maze of potholes.  Everything in the upper cabinets came crashing out! I had learned last year to only put lightweight items on the shelves of these cabinets, just for this reason, so no real harm done (we think).

Our campsite is wonderful.  Set back about 75 feet from the road, and very rustic.  This campground does, however, have too many children running around. Norm and I still have the belief that children should be seen, but not heard. We like to hear the birds, not the screeching of ill mannered children. Perhaps when we have our own grandchild our tolerance for the little ones will improve?

A lone and camera shy loon 

It was a little after 1 PM, and the day was young. We decided to take advantage of the lack of rain and take a kayak trip out to the huge Kejimkujik Lake.

 A loon ( type of aquatic bird ) suddenly appeared a little off the boat, and every time I got my camera out it would duck under the water and swim in some unknown direction for many minutes before it again popped up and taunted me!  Norm was very patient, paddling the kayak around and listening to me curse when I missed it yet again.  After a half dozen misses, I finally got it!

Then I saw my own little "loon" testing the waters!

Monday July 29, 2013

Norm and I got to break out our bikes today, because there are miles and miles of lovely trails here.  Many, I hear rumored, to get lost in.

We studied the possiblities, and chose a trail that would give us about a 10 mile ride, and hopefully a lot of views.  It was all that.

A perfect bike trail for old farts. Wide and smooth.
Although it does give you a chance to look around,
it does not give you the excitement of a little danger.

The roads were perfect for us old farts.  Nicely leveled with crush gravel, but narrow
enough so it didn't lose that wooded feeling.

I once again would stop to marvel at the dead trees, and various types of ferns and moss, giving it really beautiful colors and shading.  Norm peddled on, wondering what in the world I found so attractive about a bunch of dead trees.

Now I think this is really beautiful!

The river that ran beside it ( is there a movie or book by that name? ) was flowing pretty fast, with some "rapids" in many areas.  I wondered how scary it would be to kayak down it; Norm wondered what day we could schedule it in. We probably wouldn't drown, it looked pretty shallow but did have quite a few large boulders..........

After the ride we hung around the campground and enjoyed Norm's perfect campfire.