30.9.18 Halifax-Sherbrooke Village-Antigonish

Due to the pleasant 'jet lag' in this direction, we are on the road early and sitting in the car at 9:00 am after a fairly good hotel breakfast, already heading to a supermarket to equip ourselves with drinks and fruit before heading to the coast.

Unpronounceable place names like Musquodoboit lie along the route, and soon we are driving through lots of forest and along some visible coastline. The weather remains nice, but it is not overly warm at 15°C. Our destination is Sherbrooke Village. This open-air museum (https://sherbrookevillage.novascotia.ca) must be really nice, with costumed staff and several original houses that have been left in an actual neighborhood and renovated there, accessible to the public. As always, it closes at 5:00 pm, so we want to be here around 3:00 pm. We waste time along the way with some beautiful views, and then we rush through the area, actually arriving at Sherbrooke Village at 2:45 pm, just above Sherbrooke. The parking lot is yawningly empty, a barrier at the entrance, absolutely no visitors in sight. We are reminded of Alaska and Yukon, where everything was 'closed for the season' as early as September. We avoid the $15.95 entrance fee and cannot enter a single one of the around 80 buildings. Not a single person in costume is walking around here, and there is also no information that this is what we should have expected. There is only the information that the 'full schedule' runs until September 22nd, but not that nothing more is offered afterwards. Nevertheless, we walk along the small streets and simply admire the houses from the outside. It wasn't supposed to be like this, and we're a bit annoyed that we didn't stay longer at other places that were really nice. After a short break on a bridge next to the lake next to the town, we set off for Antigonish, which is described as unexciting in our guidebook and where we actually just wanted to arrive, eat, and sleep.

We arrive there in just under an hour and check into the 'Inns of Canada,' which is right next to a McDonald's that smells strongly of frying fat. The room is spacious. We drive to Tim Hortons right away (100m away) to get some coffee (the first food since breakfast this morning) and then take a little drive through the town, looking for a restaurant. It turns out that Antigonish is a really pretty town, has a university, and would therefore expect some life. But practically every at least second restaurant/pub is closed. Shortly after 7:00 pm it gets dark as we just enter a restaurant and I finally enjoy a lobster roll again.

The hotel is quiet, the night is quite cold.