Day 3 - Wednesday, April 26th, 2017 - Annapolis Royal to Bridgetown 25km

It was just starting to rain as we finished breakfast and got ready to leave. Kathy is joining us this morning and walking to Tupperville where she left her car yesterday.

Never mind the weather!

The motel was on the outskirts of town and we soon found the start of the trail but not before I made a short detour to take a photo of the place I'd lived in the summer of 1977. It's a beautiful old house. We lived on the top floor in the attic apartment and the rent was $127 per month. I vividly remember lugging a chubby 10 month old baby Daniel and stroller up and down three flights of stairs every day! The man who owned the house used to play with Benny Goodman in the forties. He was an odd duck with an elderly mother in the back room. I never saw her and the place always smelled like old cabbage.

The top three windows

Directly across from my old house - Annapolis Historic Gardens - it was a private house when I lived there

Just one more aside and we'll go back to the walk. I used to get on the Dayliner from Halifax in Annapolis and travel down to Smith's Cove to visit a friend. There was no station there but this was a different time and Daniel and I used to ride up front near the driver and he'd let us off at the crossing there. I still remember the thrill of crossing the old iron bridge at Clementsport in that train.

Train station- Annapolis Royal

We headed off down the path and we were soon out of town and walking beside the Annapolis River. It wasn't long before we came to the first challenge of the day - another bridge out.

Not as steep as the ravine yesterday but slippy with the rain

We scrambled down and up with no incidents and onward. Soon we were in lovely rolling farm country with apple trees just ready to leaf out.

Apple trees

Sisters

Just a sign

We marched on through the rain, it wasn't the most interesting path. Kathy was happy when we came across this friendly girl.

Kathy providing a snack

Annapolis River

We kept on along the path until we came across a man doing ditching work. He stopped to let us pass and for the next couple of kilometres we had to walk along the ugly mess the machine had made. I'm not sure what the point of it was but the path has been widened into a road. Very muddy and slippery underfoot. All the trees and bushes by the side of the path had been slashed and left there. Not pleasant walking.

Kathy's on a mission

The next obstacle was a bridge that had definitely seen better days. We hesitated about crossing it at first but figured out if we stayed to the edges we should be fine.

Needs a bit of work

It was a bit disconcerting to look down and see the river rushing beneath your feet. Finally the rain stopped and we walked on a little farther and then stopped to have lunch sitting on top of a pile of rocks. Kathy left us at Tupperville having completed about 18km. I think she was tired but pleased she'd made it with no problem.

The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

I think the two and a half days of walking with not much training ahead of time were starting to hit us. Our pace definitely slowed after lunch and we took a number of rests. There's no doubt we'd make it but it might be a bit painful.

Sometimes you just have to stop and it doesn't much matter where.

Jen's favourite resting position

Someone asked me what we talk about as we're walking and I made some offhand comment that didn't explain much of anything. The talking is in fits and spurts and there are periods where we don't talk at all- both are good. As to what we talk about....well I've realized that we are almost intellectuals as we talk about such a vast swath of things. Just today we talked at length about what level of pain we were  feeling -  that covers anatomy, medicine and pharmacology. We talked about what we saw as we walked so that takes care of botany, ornithology, meteorology, geology and archaeology too. We talked about where we were so that covers cartography and geography. We had a very interesting discussion about the plethora of ornamental stars we've seen attached to houses and what the real meaning of them could be so that covers social anthropology.

After all that talking we reached Bridgetown around 3pm and we were very happy to see the welcome sign of the the old train station, now the local pub and yes, it was open!

Day 3 - done!

It certainly was.

Later Jen called her friends Eric and Bruce who have kindly agreed to put us up for the night and Bruce picked us up. They have the most beautiful old brick house right on the river, filled with fabulous antiques and artwork. We were treated to hot baths, lovely food, wine and great conversation before we turned in for the night.