Rob-n-Hild, Eastward Ho!

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Yarmouth - still! 1 k, 0:17 hours walking. 30 metres climbed.

Another work day today - with a bit of a break after lunch to go for a walk and fill up Mary Jane.

It wasn't exactly enticing weather to be out either - there were periods of misty drizzle and periods of real honest to goodness fog (which started yesterday afternoon) all day today. And then the odd bright spell in between! Very odd. Not sure how common this is, but the hotel staff seemed unsurprised so perhaps that is what you get used to here.

But we still needed a break after lunch (even Rob had got some work done in the morning!) so we drove a few km out of town to a place called Utkubok Trail. This now appears to be called Tkipok Trail on the interpretive signs, but perhaps these are just different ways of saying the same thing. This short trial (just 1 k) is in the Arcadia First Nation and winds through the salt marsh with lots of interesting signs about the flora and fauna as well as more history on the Mi'kmaq people who were already living here when the first Europeans arrived. The path included boardwalk sections actross the marsh as well as some forested bits, but their idea of a "look-off" needs some work: if you are going to build a platform, you could trim the trees so people can see something from it! Oh yes, we did finally get to see a chipmunk and can add the little guy to the species page. It was a bit strange it took until now to see one, but maybe there aren't as many as there are back home in Ottawa.

As we have done on many occasions, we made a slight detour on the way back to take a piccie of Melbourne. Melbourn (no 'e') outside Cambridge in the UK is where Liz lived for many years and where Simon and Matthew (Rob's nephews) grew up. We had to find a sign with the name on somewhere even if they do spell it with an 'e' (Aussie-style). There didn't seem to be much else in Melbourne though.....

Today is June 24 (we are pretty sure) which is our wedding anniversary and we figured we needed to celebrate a bit even if it was a work day. Having really enjoyed the roast lamb butties yesterday, Hild had looked through menus of all the local restaurants, but couldn't find one serving lamb so we decided to cook our own. The hotel provided a barbeque just up from our room so we bought some lamb chops and little potatoes and fired up the barbie. Or so Rob thought. Turns out the barbie was either out of gas or just really poor as after 40 minutes the lamb was barely warm, let alone grilled. So, out came our trusty Trangia, the chops went into one of the saucepans and the frying pan got used as a lid and in no more than 10 minutes the chops were ready to eat! By then we had scoffed the corn (which had been sat in boiling water in the Trangia saucepans while we were waiting in vain for the barbie to do its job. The little potatoes had been started off in the microwave so they were OK off the barbie and with plenty of butter and crunchy onions had dinner sitting outside. Lovely.
Then there was Freia milk chocolate with our tea - but we ate that before we could take a photo....

Coming up: St John (without the 's'), New Brunswick

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