Cape Chignecto is a provincial park in West Advocate, Nova Scotia, about three hours’ drive from Halifax airport and a three-and-a-half-hour drive from my home in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.
The journey to and from is lovely in and of itself, pastoral farmland is quickly replaced by rugged coastline and the bay of Fundy with its dramatic tidal basins make the ocean look endless with the tide in or as if it is a giant beach when the tide is out. I went during the first week of October, when the entire province seems to be a riot of fall colour and foliage. this also presents some challenges with the weather being generally unpredictable in the fall. Luckily, the weather was great, except for the torrential rain I got caught in on the last day.
My start from the visitor centre was great, the check in process very easy and many of the warnings that are visible on the website are repeated by the staff with great care. This past year in NS, there was a historic drought, so the park had set up water stations and marked them on the updated map. One thing that is important to note, is that even though this is a provincial park and a relatively closed loop and everything is well marked, this is still a “wilderness zone” as such, it is important to bring a compass or GPS system, and some emergency items in case you get lost. One of these items should be a map. If you are like me, you probably hate that at every turn in the Hiking industry there is someone telling you to spend more money for everything, including but not limited to adequate mapping. I am here to tell you spend do not need to spend a tin of money on maps, depending where you are going. In this case, you can download topo maps, and trail maps from the website, in a handy PDF format. Once I had them all downloaded, I printed and laminated them at the library, so all my maps for this trip cost about three dollars. The laminating was a great call, this ensured they would stay dry if I dropped them in the water, or got rained on. This experience ensured I will never take the library for granted again.
My pack weight was 45lbs. not too heavy but not exactly light. Also, do remember dear reader, I am alone, no one to help carry the weight, so keep that in mind when we start ascending 500m up the Fundy cliffs.
Once I had set off from the visitor centre, I was able to walk the first kilometer on the beach, something that is only possible at low tide, this is the only part of the journey that requires tide time knowledge, which seems deceptive considering it’s a coastal trail. But after the rocky beach walk, that when the real fun began. The first 5km, like the entire first day, is uphill and very steep. To say I was unprepared for what lay ahead would only be a small understatement, it was how steep the climb was that took me aback, as it does not look this steep on a topo map.
And yet at the first view spot I was completely out of breath. This is when it was great to be alone, so no one could see me sweat. I made the decision to pull out my neck gator and take my sweater off, and that kept the sweat off my neck as the daytime temp never went above 10C and I didn’t want to catch a cold.
Sadly, the last good view on the day was at KM marker 4 as the path diverges into the forest, the path also leveled out quite a bit and then I was able to catch my breath and start making some progress on the day. A quick lesson I leaned that morning, progress only feels good when you return to your normal speed. I literally at times and figuratively crawled to this point and believed that I would never make it to the end, but of course, I did. As I hiked off into the woods, I felt great, and focused on the birds, the trees and my own breath.
The last 15km of the first day were by comparison, noneventful. The trail was a little awkwardly marked as I approached a marshy area as I came close to the Eatonville bunk house, but AllTrails helped me navigate that bit. Unfortunately, the only water on the map was at the Eatonville bunk house, and as I passed it, I decided not to stop for water, preferring to find my campsite for the night and have a nap. I got to the campsite at around 2pm, at a giant field that could have slept 100 people, but it was only me. In hindsight, I should have stayed at site #7, hidden away from the field, by a little brook which had very little strength given the drought that had been going on and was not a good water source. Which meant hat I had to hike 2km each way to fill up my water, so I set up my camp, repacked my bag and headed off for the cabin. It was closed for the season, but for anyone not interested in sleeping outside, they look nice, and sleep about 8 people.
All in all, it was a long day, the hottest of the three, and the least interesting from a lookout perspective. I got to sleep around 930pm, ready to wake up at 6am to start the next day which proved the most arduous.
The Maritime Adventure 