The Canadian Maritimes

And now all can be revealed. Jenny and I have been on a 10 day guided tour of the Canadian Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island). After that we spent a few days in Montreal, as Jenny wanted me to see what she thinks is a wonderful city.

One defining feature of the Maritimes is seafood - muscles, oysters, scallops and lobster in particular. Vegetarians are still unusual and Bernadette, our tour manager, worked hard to provide adequate veggie meals wherever we went.

There's pretty spectacular scenery too, especially on the Cabot Trail in Cape Breton Island and on the Fundy Trail in New Brunswick. The trees were sporting their amazing autumn colours - yellow, brown, red, orange.

The Maritimes are still thickly forested, with little sign of the commercial interests like mining and fracking that are threatening much of Northern Ireland's natural beauty. And there are lots of unspoilt little fishing villages.

We learnt about some of the indigenous communities that fought for their survival against invading English and French forces - such as the Acadians, the Mikmaq, the Inuits and the Glooscap. They refused to be cowed into submission.

At the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck, we discovered that Bell not only invented the first practical telephone, but invented many other things like metal detectors, the hydrofoil, the audiometer and the wheat husker.

We learnt that New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada, and many of the inhabitants speak both French and English. Jenny and I soon realised that our pathetic grasp of French hardly mattered as English is spoken everywhere.

The residents of the Maritimes are keen on lighthouses, with over 160 in Nova Scotia alone. They also like model lighthouses, which pop up in people's front gardens and other unlikely spots.

Like our guided tour of New Zealand in January, this tour gave us a great overview of the area and what makes it distinctive. We more than satisfied our nagging curiosity.
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We were hoping to meet up with Wise Web Woman. But like most people, I confused St John's Newfoundland (where www actually lives) with Saint John, New Brunswick. So we never met up. Maybe some other time....

The guided tour

Jenny and I are just back from a 16-day guided tour of New Zealand. We wanted to visit New Zealand, as everyone kept telling us how beautiful it was, and the best way seemed to be the guided tour. We didn't fancy driving thousand of miles and we didn't want to visit only the major cities, we wanted to see as much of the country as possible.

We were a bit hesitant about signing up for a tour. Suppose we loathed all the other people on the tour? Suppose the long daily drives were hell on earth? Suppose the arrangements were chaotic, the hotels sub-standard and the coach driver a heavy drinker? We decided to take the plunge anyway and assume all our worries were groundless - which as it turned out they were.

The tour was a wonderful experience. The other people were all very interesting, the hotels were superb, the daily drives didn't seem that long at all, and everything went remarkably smoothly.

The plus points:

1) Michelle was a brilliant guide. She lives in Wellington and knows New Zealand very well. She gave us constant commentaries on the native wildlife and plants, local characters, the history of New Zealand, its volcanoes and earthquakes, its economy, Maori culture and lots more.
2) We visited all the major towns and beauty spots and saw absolutely stunning scenery in the mountainous South Island.
3) It was a great overview of New Zealand, from the big cities to sleepy villages and remote townships.
4) Hotels were all four and five star, and we had delicious food wherever we went.
5) At some places we could also pick from a range of great outings.
6) The coach seats were rotated daily, so we all had good and less good views.
7) Michelle was always helpful with any problems, like catering for vegetarians, allowing for disabled passengers, finding new camera batteries etc.
8) Everything was organised impeccably, from outings to hotel check-ins and meal times.
9) The long distances travelled went by very quickly because of Michelle's commentaries, stops for toilets and food, and stops to look at beauty spots.
10) Reece, the coach driver, always drove safely and was never reckless.

The minus points:

1) We were always on the move and didn't stay anywhere for longer than two nights. We would like to have spent more time in Christchurch.
2) The morning starts were very early - usually 7.30 or 8.00, with suitcases collected an hour earlier.
3) We were always in the company of other people, and would have liked more time on our own to explore the cities.
4) We thought some of the hotels had a lack of awareness around catering for vegetarians, which surprised us.

But the plus points so outweighed the minuses, we thought this particular company (APT Touring) did a fantastic job. If you want to see the best of an unknown country, we'd definitely recommend a guided tour.

Pic: Mount Cook, South Island