Woke up to another wonderfully sunny day. Had a tasty breakfast in the dining room and after taking care of checking out business headed off to catch the ferry at Wood Islands on the south east point of PEI. 
We took Hwy 2 to Hwy 4 and then took Hwy 315 down to Wood Islands. It took us about an 45 minutes to drive to the ferry and we got there early enough to have a nice look around the ferry terminal which was a located in a large bay with lots of flowers blooming on the banks and with a little light house on the point. 
The ferry was interesting with Unsinkable emergency craft on it. Made me think of the titanic and the unsinkable Molly Brown. The trip took about an hour and the weather was calm enough that the crossing was very pleasant. We landed in Nova Scotia and proceeded to disembark in the middle of nowhere. There was no town only industrial buildings and woods, but the highway was clearly marked so we were not worried.
We were planning on driving directly to the the Grand Pre area located on the Minas Basin off of the Bay of Fundy. Our motel was right on the Minas Basin and we figured that it would take us about another two hours after the ferry ride. We took the 106 to the 104. We stopped for gas and a bathroom break at Salt springs and we picked up our lotto tickets... who knows, we could be winners someday and not just people with a hobby of giving our money away to other people who won millions of dollars. Then on to Truro , well actually around Truro and onto the 236.
We took the 236 across the Shenacadie River ,where they advertised river surfing on the big tidal surges that go up the river. It looked scary to me. We went into south Maitland and then up the 215, also known as the Glooscap Trail, following the Shubenacadie River back up the coast, We followed the Glooscap trail which would take us winding around following the coast and to what we hoped would be pretty with big views of the bay of Fundy. We did not see so many great sweeping views of the bay but it was still very pretty.
We stopped for a break outside Maitland at the Mudslide Cafe. picked up a couple of sandwiches and drinks for lunch and continued on to the majestic Fundy Shore Drive. We ate our lunch at a roadside pullover by a large bay with lots of great info on shorebirds and the history of the area. Another hour of driving brought us to our Motel in the Grand Pre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a rich agricultural area steeped in history of the Mi'kmaw, Acadian and Planter cultures. The drive ended up taking us longer than the original 2 hours we had planned, but it was worth it for the scenery.
When we got to the motel there was no one there. There was a note on the office door letting us know which room was ours and that we could just go ahead and get comfortable there until the managers came back. So we located our room, moved our luggage in, got changed and went for a walk on the beach. The red soil and sand was amazing! It was great. 
The motel is right on the bay with great views. The weather was cooperating and as we found our way down to the beach in our bathing suits and sun hats we saw that the tide was in and there was really not much beach there. The water was pretty warm and so we waded around and looked at rocks and beach things. We hoped the low tide would surprise us with more beach. We would not be disappointed. 
The community was made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Evangeline. A tale of Acadie is an epic poem written in English and published in 1847. The poem follows an Acadian girl named Evangeline and her search for her lost love Gabriel, set during the time of the Expulsion of the Acadians. Well, we drove across the great meadow and saw the dykes. It was very cool and Now that I have looked up the poem and seen how epically long it is, Homers Illiad has nothing on Evangeline, I realized that I will probably never read it.
Then back to our motel and more wandering on the beach. The tide was going out and you could seriously watch it going out. There was now a huge beach in front of the Motel. The Sunset was incredible. The sand/mud of the beach being reddish and wet with the water that was running off, it was really lovely. We walked along the beach and onto the rocks by the shore and then out onto the sand. But the tide was just starting to come in by that time and it comes in very fast. So we did not want to walk too far away from the shore, just in case! We planned out our next days activities. the Annapolis royal botanical gardens and what ever was in-between us and that destination.
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