28 September 2019, Saturday
Today we plan to hike to Seal Cove. It’s a hike suggested by the warden at Cape Chignecto Provincial Park Visitor Centre and a section of the loop we had planned to backpack. We can drive across the cape to Eatonville and take the trail from there. The hike is 6 km each way, a 12 km round trip. O and I get a bit of a slow start this morning. The sun doesn’t rise until well after 7 on these fall days.
After breakfast we drive towards the provincial park and turn right on Eatonville Road, the obvious and most direct way to the start of our hike. The road begins as a wide, relatively smooth unpaved road. After a few kilometers it deteriorates into a rough, single track road without pullouts or any place to turn around. Soon we pass a road sign reading “Unmaintained Road. Proceed at own risk.” As there is no place to turn, we proceed. It’s the roughest road we’ve driven in Vincent, although there actually aresome signs of maintenance. The drainage ditches on either side of the road appear to have been dug out recently. We also traverse three rather new looking wooden bridges over streams.
After 18 km we both breathe a sigh of relief as we finally reach the Eatonville parking area. There are three other cars in the lot, none of which are covered in red road dust as Vincent is. We look at our road map and realize there is a longer route to this parking area, but with better roads, and one of them is paved! We are on the trail just after noon, and almost immediately run into a lovely couple from Halifax who are returning from a short hike on the Seal Cove Trail. We talk about hiking and travelling and my broken ankle and canoeing. By the time O and I resume our hike it is 12:30.
The Seal Cove Trail is rugged and steep in some places (but not as steep as the Fundy Footpath) and very muddy in others. We walk along a beautiful stream for awhile and then climb along a ridge overlooking the Bay of Fundy. We can hear its roar below and feel the cool breeze. After about 4 km we arrive at a look-off from which we can see a rock formation known as the Three Sisters. We realize that we will be getting back to Vincent near sunset if we continue all the way to Seal Cove, so we have a snack and turn around here. By 4:30 we are back at our van. On our windshield is a note from the Nova Scotia couple in which they express the hope that my ankle held up well (it did) and that we enjoyed our hike. They also offer a trade of a few days at a lakeside Nova Scotia cottage in exchange for the use of our van for a few days. It’s a very nice offer, but we will decline.
We climb into Vincent and proceed along Eatonville Road towards the paved route. It soon becomes Apple River Road, still unpaved, but wide and much smoother than our route this morning. We drive by expansive red beaches on our way back to Route 209. The great Fundy tide is out. We pass another road sign, this one warning to expect road flooding. I’m glad we are here at low tide. Soon we are back onpavedRoute 209. It’s a longer drive distance-wise back to camp, but much less nerve-wracking.