Map of the Atlantic Provinces
Click here for a calendar view of my trip itinerary.
Click here for a calendar view of my trip itinerary.
2026 Sept 11:
It's been pretty sleepless so far. I got to YVR around 12:30 AM, hoping to get some sleep before
the 7:30 AM departure. I did not get any sleep in the terminal.
I was able to grab some naps on the YVR to YUL (Montreal) flight.
Aeroplan members get free WiFi on the flight, which was a nice bonus (I'm a member).
2026 Sept 12:
Because of the lack of sleep during my travel day, I was pretty sleepy and got a pretty good nights sleep.
I think I've adjusted to the +4 hour time difference (Pacific to Atlantic time zone) already.
Today, I went to the Maritime Heritage Festival and checked out the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.
The replica of the schooner Bluenose, the Bluenose II, was docked and open for tours.
The weather was great, and the museum and ships on display (Bluenose II, CSS Acadia, and HMCS Sackville) were interesting.
It was a very good first day in Halifax for me..
2026 Sept 13:
It was a slow start to the day, as I was still adjusting to the Atlantic time zone.
I visited the Halifax Citadel. It was somewhat interesting, as they had people dressed up
in the military garb of the day depicting daily life in the Citadel.
The firing of the noon cannon was loud!
Located near the Citadel was the Halifax Public Gardens.
After a short walk down the hill, I took a short break there among the flowers and trees.
Next was the tour of the Alexander Keith's Brewery, located on the waterfront.
Established in 1820, it is one of the oldest operating breweries in North America.
It was an entertaining tour, as it included some live music and beer tasting.
As I'm not a regular consumer of alcoholic beverages, the 30 oz of beer samples
left me with a buzz.
To end the day, I stumbled over to the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.
Documenting the arrival of immigrants between 1928 and 1970 during the time of ocean liners,
it was touching to read the stories and the risks the immigrants took to start a new life in Canada.
A rainstorm was on the way, so I got back to the hostel early and picked up a donair (for dinner)
from a place near the hostel called "Kit Kat Pizza".
The restaurant looked dodgy, but it was an awesome donair and decently priced.
2026 Sept 14:
Today, I picked up a rental car for a one week rental (Hyundai Kona).
The public transport system in the Maritimes does not easily take one to many of the destinations,
so I decided that renting a car will make getting around easier.
The destinations today reflect that.
Right after picking up the car, I headed to Peggy's Cove.
There were a lot of tourists there, around the lighthouse and on the granite coastline.
However, there was a sense that there was something mystical about this place.
I then headed over to visit the fishing town of Lunenberg,
a UNESCO World Heritage Site of an example of a planned British colonial settlement in North America.
It is the home port of the Bluenose II.
I visited the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic.
It provided displays and information on Atlantic Canada's maritime heritage,
commercial fishing industry, and ocean ecology.
It also has a restaurant, at which I ate dinner at.
2026 Sept 15:
It is a travel day, as I am moving from Halifax to Charlottetown PEI, using the rental car.
On the way, I made a stop at Burntcoat Head,
to walk the sea floor while the tide was low in the Bay of Fundy.
I then went to the Truro, to the Fundy Discovery Site, to watch the tidal bore wave arrive
and reverse the flow of the Salmon River. There was a good size crowd there to watch the arrival of the wave.
It was actually somewhat interesting to see the wave arrive.
There was also a fellow in the river with a surfboard, attempting to surf the bore wave.
I was planning to take the ferry to Prince Edward Island, but because the tidal bore wave
arrived late in the afternoon, I would risk not getting to my Charlottetown accomodations in time
to check in if I took the ferry.
Thus, I drove over the Confederation Bridge instead to get on the island. It was a long bridge!
2026 Sept 16:
Today, I'll be spending time in Charlottetown, the capital of the province of Prince Edward Island.
I did a walk along the waterfront in the morning.
I then visited the Beaconsfield Historic House.
This house was built in 1877 for shipbuilder James Peake,
and is now a museum serving as a symbol of Victorian elegance.
There were a lot of rooms, and included accomodations for servants.
I visited the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in the afternoon.
For such a large building, the collection was relatively small
and was mostly "modern" in style.
2026 Sept 16:
Being the cultured person that I am, in the evening, I went to see the musical "Come From Away"
at the Confederation Centre for the Arts.
"Come From Away" tells the true story of 7,000 airline passengers grounded in the small town of Gander, Newfoundland,
following the September 11 attacks, and the extraordinary hospitality of the locals who welcomed them.
My seat was in the third row from the stage, near the middle, so I got a really close up view of the performers.
It was entertaining and the singing was really good. It's nice to see a Broadway musical set in Canada.
2026 Sept 17:
It's a travel day. Today, I drove from Charlottetown to the town of Cavendish.
On the way there, I checked out the Covehead Lighthouse, located on the north shore of PEI.
I visited the Green Gables Heritage Place, which preserves the home that served
as inpiration for the home in the book "Anne of Green Gables" (AoGG).
This was a very popular spot for tourists, and a pilgrimmage destination for fans of AoGG.
This place and area had everything you wanted to know about AoGG,
including the location of the home the author L.M. Montgomery grew up in,
the trails around Green Gables, and the location of her grave in the Cavendish Cemetary.
I had a COWS ice cream at the location of the very first COWS Creamery location (in Cavendish).
COWS is the beloved PEI ice cream shop, famous for its world-class premium ice cream,
served in handmade waffle cones.
I got a 2 scoop Cowconut Cream Pie ice cream. Delicious!
2026 Sept 18:
It was another travel day, as I had only stayed one night in Cavendish.
My next destination was Moncton, New Brunswick.
It was a rainy windy morning for the drive across the Confederation Bridge.
The sun came out in the afternoon, so I visited the Magnetic Hill Zoo.
The zoo had a modest collection of animals, and is the largest in Atlantic Canada.
Something I had not seen before is the Watusi, a breed of cattle with really long horns;
this caught my eye at the zoo.
Magnetic Hill is an optical illusion where what appears to be hill,
but when you stop your car at the bottom of the "hill" and put the car in neutral,
the car rolls up the hill instead.
It doesn't look like much of a hill, but my car did roll "uphill".
This is a bit of a silly tourist trap.
2026 Sept 19:
It was a sunny, but noticeably cooler day today.
I visited the Marché Moncton Market in the morning.
It was busy and housed food vendors, farm produce, and local artisans.
I then headed over to see the Resurgo Museum.
This museum has two main sections: artefacts & photographs documenting Moncton's past,
and a transportation section documenting shipbuilding, railway and aviation in Moncton.
The reason the museum is called "Resurgo" is because it is the first motto for the city of Moncton,
and means "I rise again" in Latin.
Next, I visited the Musée acadien de l'Université de Moncton,
a museum that preserves and showcases the history, culture, and material heritage of the Acadian people.
Inspired by my visit to the Musée acadien, for lunch I had poutine râpée,
a dumpling made of potato on the outside with salted pork on the inside.
For dinner, I had chicken fricot, a hearty chicken and potato stew with a dough dumpling in it.
These are classic Acadian dishes.
In the late afternoon, I watched the tidal bore wave come up the Petitcodiac River.
2026 Sept 20:
It was a relatively cold morning and a cloudy day, and it didn't really get warmer than 15°C in the daytime,
so I was wearing long pants the whole day. Today, I'm doing a day trip to Fredericton,
the provincial capital of New Brunswick.
The 176 km drive to Fredericton was uneventful (as was the drive back to Moncton). Using GPS made things really easy,
though I feel somewhat disoriented as I don't know what direction I'm travelling many times.
I was at the Legislative Assembly of New Brunswick, but it was closed.
I visited the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Surprisingly, it actually has pretty good collection of art.
The premier piece in it's collection is the large (4 meters tall) painting "Santiago el Grande", by Salvador Dali.
This painting didn't have too many surreal qualities to it, but the style was still that of Dali.
The museum featured many of the known Canadian artists such as Emily Carr.
I had planned on visiting the Fredericton Region Museum, but it appeared to be closed.
I was looking forward to seeing the premier piece of the museum,
the legendary 42 lb taxidermied "Coleman Frog".
2026 Sept 21:
Today is a travel day, as I have to head back to Halifax and return the rental car before noon.
It was a cool sunny start for the 278 km drive from Moncton to Halifax.
The picture is my last look at Downtown Moncton as I left town, with my lobster buddy on the dashboard.
However, it ended up being a rainy drive for the last 200 km.
As the weather was a bit crappy, I just took it easy today, hanging out at the hostel
and having three awesome donairs from Kit Kat Pizza (special price for 3) for dinner.
2026 Sept 22:
It is yet another travel day.
Today, I catch an intercity bus from Halifax to North Sydney.
There were plenty of empty seats on the bus.
However, the bus had mechanical issues and we had to change buses,
adding 30 minutes to the scheduled 6 hour 20 minute journey.
Inspired by my visit to Green Gables Heritage Place in Cavendish PEI on September 17,
I downloaded the audiobook "Anne of Green Gables" (by L.M. Montgomery) and completed listening
to the whole book during the bus ride.
It was actually a pretty good book, and I have a better understanding now
of the places that were referenced in the book at Green Gables.
Even if there were no mechanical issues, I still would've arrived in North Sydney at night.
The bus dropped me off at the Ultramar gas station (which was closed for the night)
near the ferry terminal around 10 PM,
and because city bus service ends at 9 PM, I had to walk 2.2 km to my motel.
Sections of the walk were on dark streets with no sidewalks (thus, I was walking on the road).
Because I was wearing dark clothing, I walked with the flashlight illuminated on my phone
so to make myself more visible to cars.
I was going to stop off at a local fast food restaurant for dinner, but they all closed at 10 PM.
I even stopped at Walmart and Sobeys to get food, but they were also closed for the night.
Luckily, I had instant noodles in my backpack, so instant noodles was my dinner for tonight!
2026 Sept 23:
Today, I was checking out the Sydney waterfront.
There is a scenic 1.2 km boardwalk, with the "Big Fiddle" at the north end.
The Big Fiddle is 17 meters tall and weighs 8 tons.
This steel sculpture was erected in 2005 to celebrate Cape Breton's rich Celtic musical tradition.
I then visited the Jost Heritage House.
Built around 1786 in Sydney's historic North End,
it is one of the city's oldest surviving wooden residential buildings in the city.
Now a museum, rooms were set up as they may have been back in 1786,
with various artifacts of the time on display.
Because there was no indoor plumbing and thus no washroom, a spittoon (for spitting)
and a chamber pot (for pooping and peeing) were deployed in the bedroom.
To empty the chamber pot, one opens the window and flings the contents outside!
I have yet to stay at any accomodations that provided these.
2026 Sept 24:
It's yet another travel day.
Today, I'm taking the 6 hour ferry ride from North Sydney to Channel-Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.
After checking out of the motel, I walked to the ferry terminal,
passing through old downtown North Sydney.
I stopped off at the North Sydney Heritage Museum.
It was a small museum, with it's feature piece being an old Fire Engine from 1919.
The ferry ticket said check in time is 2 hours before departure,
so when I went to check in 1 hour 40 minutes before departure, the terminal had no passengers
waiting as they had already shuttled all the foot passengers onto the ferry and it seems I was the
"missing" passenger. They said if they can get everyone on the ferry early, they can depart early.
Indeed, the ferry departed 15 minutes early.
So, the adventure really began after getting off the ferry at Channel-Port aux Basques.
I was planning to walk to the hotel from the terminal.
I asked some of the ferry staff what the route is to get to the hotel, but no one seemed to know
exactly, as everyone drives. So I started my hike and ran into fenced off areas.
A guard at a security gate gave me somewhat good directions, and I eventually got to the hotel.
You can literally see the hotel from the ferry terminal (600 meters away), but due to secure areas all around
the ferry terminal, I ended up going on a 2.2 km hike along the side of the road and via trails to get to the hotel.
If one uses Google Maps to calculate the route, it comes up with a 4.8 km route,
and looking at the route it suggests, the route goes through secure areas.
Don't trust Google!
There were only 4 foot passengers on todays ferry ride.
2026 Sept 25:
Today will be a long travel day, with a 13 hours and 40 minutes bus ride scheduled.
The bus departs at 8 AM from the Channel-Port aux Basques ferry terminal,
with the final destination being Memorial University in St John's.
So I had to get up early and retrace my steps from the hotel to the ferry terminal by foot.
It wasn't a bad walk before sunrise, now that I know the route.
The bus makes 22 stops along the way, but only 4 stops are breaks where one can use the washroom
and get some food and drinks. The dinner stop was at Gander International Airport.
Upon arrival at Memorial University, I caught a city bus to get to my hostel.
2026 Sept 26:
For my first full day in St John's NL, I decided to utilize the services of the Hop On Hop Off tour bus.
It was a bit expensive ($65 plux tax) and only had 10 stops, but the key stop was Cape Spear,
as that location is somewhat far away and there are no city buses that go there.
The Cape Spear Lighthouse, built in 1836, is located on the easternmost part of North America (* excluding Greenland).
One of the stops I hopped off at was Quidi Vidi, a picturesque fishing neighbourhood in northeast St John's.
I decided to have lunch here.
Five of the stops were well within walking distance from my hostel.
Before I even got on the bus, I passed through Jelly Bean Row,
colourful heritage row houses on the steep street section of St John's,
painted in bright colours including red, yellow, orange, blue, and green.
Apparently, the reason the houses were painted in these bright and different colours
was because these were homes of fisherman, and as different fishing companies painted their boats
a different colour from each other, the leftover paint for the boats were given to the fisherman to paint their house with.
Also near my hostel, was a monument to Terry Fox,
located at Mile 0 where he dipped his prosthetic foot in the Atlantic Ocean
to begin his Marathon of Hope.
2026 Sept 27:
I started the morning off with a hike on a section of the Sugarloaf Path, part of the East Coast Trail.
I started from Quidi Vidi and hiked up to Bawdens Highlands (and back).
There were really nice views of the Atlantic coastline and St John's
from the Bawdens Highlands viewpoint.
The trail was rocky and rooty in some sections, and there were steep sections.
The trail difficulty is rated "Moderate to Difficult".
In the afternoon, I visited the Johnson Geo Centre, a geological science museum located on Signal Hill.
The museum is actual cut into the rock of Signal Hill, with most of the museum underground
with the walls being that of the surrounding rock.
2026 Sept 28:
Today is my last full day of my Atlantic Canada trip.
I am scheduled to fly back home tomorrow.
I went to check out Kilometer 0 (KM 0) of the Trans Canada Highway,
located in front of St John's City Hall.
From here, the Trans Canada Highway heads west, ending in Victoria, BC, 7821 km (4860 miles) away.
I visited "The Rooms", a facility that houses Newfoundland's Provincial Museum,
Art Gallery, and the Provincial Archives.
It is named "The Rooms" as a reference to traditional wooden "fishing rooms",
with the architecture reflecting the gable roofed sheds and stores where families
processed and stored their fish.
The premier piece on display in The Rooms collection is that of
a preserved 29-foot giant squid.
The squid was found in Hare Bay, Newfoundland, in 1981.
It was so long that I could not frame the squid in a single photo.
Is this the legendary Kraken?
2026 Sept 28:
In the evening, I attended a Newfie Citizenship ceremony (known as a "Screech-In"),
to become an honourary Newfie.
It first involves responding in the Newfie language; when asked, "Is you a Newfoundlander?",
one has to respond, "Indeed I is, me ol' cock! And long may yer big jib draw!".
This was actually the toughest part of the ceremony, as I had to learn the native Newfie language.
Next, we had to eat a piece of Newfie steak (a piece of baloney),
then a hearty kiss of the cod, and then drinking screech.
Once this was completed, I became an honourary Newfie!
I have a certifcate to prove it.
2026 Sept 29:
Today, I fly back home. I checked out of the hostel,
but hung around as my flight was scheduled until the late afternoon.
Two city buses would take me to the St John's International Airport (YYT).
It was not busy and I was able to clear security pretty quickly.
I think this airport only has 11 gates.
I'll be flying from YYT to YYZ (Toronto), then a connecting flight
from YYZ to YVR (Vancouver).
2026 Sept 29:
This is an unexpected entry. My flight back to YVR on Air Canada flight AC125 was cancelled
due to mechanical reasons. I've been rebooked onto flight AC129. The problem is,
this flight departs 2 hours later and is scheduled to arrive in YVR at 00:26, and the last airport Skytrain
leaves at 00:39. There is a night bus that leaves at 03:37 and after transfering to a couple of other night buses,
it'll take about 3 hours to get home. I was thinking of doing a sleepover (again) at YVR and catch the
first Skytrain at 05:59. Luckily, I was able to arrange to have a buddy drive me home.
2026 Sept 30:
I'm back in Vancouver. I collected my luggage (a backpack in a well worn plastic bag)
at the baggage carousel, signifying the end of my trip! It was a very nice Canadian trip.
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