We arrive after a cold but fun day in Halifax, wondering if we’re mad for abandoning our life for mizzle and 3 degree temperatures (we’ve had to dig out all the layers and hats!) but arrive to a fabulously warm welcome and stunning spot in Musquodoboit harbour. Jamie and Jocelyn have a lovely home with their garden backing straight onto the sea inlet. We get parked a couple of metres from the high tide wrack line and after supper enjoy chatting with Jamie, and soon ready to sleep as we’re still a bit jet lagged.
Our first deadline to be up whilst we’re still adjusting to Canada time and we need to be in Lawrencetown provincial park an hour away for 10am start for our foraging tour! We haven’t quite yet established our “pattern” for waking and packing up the van and we’re still carrying waaay too much stuff which we commit to sorting out the next nice day when we can layout all our packing cubes and get truly organised! Anyway back to foraging, I found Fred who is a Belgian living in Nova Scotia and is passionate about great wild food and ingredients and we meet him ready to explore around Lawrencetown and understand the local wild foods!
We’re lucky today is sunny and bright but still brisk and meet him in his cool jeep and are soon stomping out across the forest and cliffs. He shows us 27 things we can find in the woods and coast from shrubs, spices, teas, sea weeds, salad plants and we’re inspired and in awe of his knowledge. Our favourites included myrica gale spice which is a carkin that smells like lemon thyme, Labrador tea which are shrubby leaves that smell like honey when made into tea, fucus seaweed which goes seriously crispy when fried, beach peas which taste exactly like pea shoots and sea parsley which tastes like parsley! Sadly we can’t sample the local oysters due to water quality issues. We leave with bags full of fresh ingredients and lots of ideas. We make the most incredible salad when we get back to the van and have a bag full of seaweed to try boiled and fried!
We head back to our Oceanside parking spot and the sun is lovely and warm and I spot a slinky chocolate mink scampering along the rocks by the seashore. Jaime had said we may see them but I was so delighted to see! Sadly Guy and Alex just missed them. I managed to cook up some chicken Marinated in butter with fresh sea parsley, myrica gale and garlic and some crispy seaweed crisps! Even Alex loved the seaweed crisps - although we do manage to spatter the van with sea-weediness - lesson learned no frying in the van!
We enjoy some more chat with our fabulous hosts who enjoy a drink with us in our compact van. We can’t thank Jamie and Jocelyn enough for their warm hospitality and most beautiful home and garden - we feel very lucky to have spent 2 nights in this gorgeous place.
Next day we wake again to lapping water and to stunning sunshine, warmth and flat calm waters outside our van.
I’ve had a dream for a while to paddle the Canadian lakes and seas on my paddleboard and manage to convince/force mr c to let me take my paddleboard half way across the world! Well today was the day to make this dream a reality… or maybe not because we forgot the hose that connects the pump to the board!! Gutted but Corey (Jocelyn and jaime’s son) saved the day and kindly offered up an adult and child sized kayak for Alex and I to paddle.
We had an amazing time messing about on the water until Alex got a little cold so I headed off to a little island on my own 25 mins or so paddling away. Pure silence and relaxation upon arrival and I managed to find some more beach peas to bring back for lunch!
Paddled home and then had to sort out our packing as we finally had good warm weather! Cue removal of all clothing and contents from van, layout on ground in packing cubes and repack everything! Alex spent his time building sand castles and a “meditation area” and fishing for crabs off the wooden wharf. For us - Feeling virtuous and organised we settled to lunch on Jamie and Jocelyn’s deck and enjoyed our beach peas, a simple lunch and good company with our hosts.
We really didn’t want to leave these lovely people and this beautiful place but we had to pack up to head to Lunenburg next on the list!! Kindly Corey brought out his golf buggy 4x4 and took Alex for a spin - he had the most amazing time and we finally headed off to our next stop.
Emma x
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