Saturday 30th June 2012
Milked the hostels wifi internet until we left around 10am. Looked around Pier 21 and the Farmers Market.... tall one knocking the bustling people over with his very wife backpack. Brought very small but nice coffees for $3 each, then brought some breakfast and lunch from the supermarket. Waited at the Halifax train station until boarding started at 11.45am (train leaves 12.15-12.30pm). The station got very very busy, a mother had come to see off her son who was travelling with a pale eyed hissing white cat, which he had in an enormous blue container that would have held ten cats. A family sat next to us and spent half an hour taking very close up photos of each other.
Boarded the train, walking right down the end of the very long platform. Luckily we were some of the first and got a nice single row of chairs, 2 that faced each other over a table. We watched 2 rough large girls take the group of 4 seats facing each other over a table, and then a lot of disappointed family groups see they couldn’t sit together. When the conducter asked the girls to move to a 2 seater, the biggest black haired one said she was having a back operation and so would have to lie down across the two seats??? Strangely the conductor said fine, and for half the journey we had to stare at her rump as she lay awkwardly across to seats sideways (no doubt screwing her back up farther). About a dozen seats were all taped off as ut of order on the train, and then the toilet right by us started making a very large hissing sound, so that was taped off to. The train was very very full, and a few stops up some very disgruntled customers were getting on cursing that there was no seats together and they’d brought these months ago. The conductors also had some strange system of writing everyone’s destination on post it notes and putting them over your chair.
A long 10 hour journey, we survived off a bag of peanuts, a salad and a lot of coffee and a couple of beers brought from the cafe on the train. Tall one was shattered and small one went to buy him a coffee, coming back witha beer each plus the coffee. Small one said some little old woman was behind him in the queue commenting out loud to no one in particular how she would personally have the 2 beers first then a coffee so why would anyone want to buy beer and coffee together?!! As if small one was buying everything for himself, the lunatic.
Tall one read a book and a half, whilst small one watched 2 movies. Outside drove past Truro and Moncton where we had slept outside McDonalds at both a few weeks back, then headed north up through New Brunswick, passing through some quite swampy land, seeing plenty of beaver dams, no bears or moose though (well, small one thought he saw a bear). A young family a couple pf seats back entertained themselves making balloon animals for their kids, whilst directly behind small one some over weight guy was on the phone saying “they come to our fuckign country and they can’t even speak our fucking language, i just had to get the fuck out of there on Canada Day.... hello? Hello?”, sound like even the other person had hung up, perhaps it was the Samaritans? He did have a huge tattoo down one bare arm saying “ Vengeance” so we never got too chatty with him.
Got in to Campbellton (on Quebec/New Brunswick border) around 10.45pm. The place was really really rough, the two big girls (with the bad back) got off together and were picked up by two real red neck men in pickups wearing their cut down vests with long greasy hair. Walked round town trying to find the hostel and it was over run with very loud music and lots of people walking about, it was Saturday night and Canada day weekend so we thought the hostel and dorm were booked into will not be very pleasant. Found the HI hostel in the end, it was on the shoreline road past a giant Salmon statue, the hostel was part of an old lighthouse. The guy at reception said we were literally the only people staying here tonight and had the room to ourselves (thank Christ). Despite having only 2 guests they were still a 24 hour reception. We asked where the bus stop was in the morning and he said “oh, the bus doesn’t stop here anymore”.... “what?!”, thankfully he thought we meant the other bus company that comes up from the south, not the Orleans Express service we were taking to Perce at 10.30am. We went to bed very tired, at a few times after midnight heard loud voices come into reception and thought of late drunk checkins. We started to hide under the covers in our dorm and be prepared for the worst, but they either went away or he put them in another dorm.
Friday 29th June 2012
Awoke at 2.45am, some lunatic had pulled in outside the house and was nosign around, we weren’t sure if it was just Tom however. Sat about uneasy for a while and never did find out who or what it was, and never got back to sleep. At 6.30am walked round to Tom’s house with our backpacks. Tom was up already but first he wanted to fart around finding advert signs, and Jim’s old shirts before we could take the pickup and drive to town with Penny. Finally got going, there was no hugs goodbye with Tom, though he did thank us for the hard work and give us some souvenir cards and magnets. On the way into town a deer ran alongside the truck p the road, we hoped we would not run it over.
Got to town and Penny dropped off her little black car at the mechanics and took the pickup from us later leaving us at the bus station, goodbye Zodiac Ocean Exploration!.... we made it the full 3.5 weeks! Took the 4.5 hour bus trip back to Halifax where the arsehole of the driver had the air con on so cold that we were sat in jumpers and coats when it was 24 degrees outside. At the bus station near 1pm we waked the short trip up to the HI Hostel, they had upgraded us to a private room, though they only had an en-suite. Strangely a room with it’s own bathroom was not connected to it, you had to go out into the hallway and walk down a few doors where we had a private key for our own private washroom.... all very bizarre, like having some executive washroom in some fancy office. Wondered to TD bank and then stopped in an Irish pub (quite nice) for a very cheap and very large beef sandwhich with fries and a much needed beer. Had had a very long facebook message from ‘Jana’ from the Organic Farm, who spat some poision rubbish at us how we were a disgrace to wwoofing and quoted all the things she thought we’d done wrong. On the wwoofing website, the son Louie had also posted a weird review on our profile page and a responce to our original review absolutely full of lies like h asked for our flight number to pick us up but we ignored him and showed in a taxi (absolute rubbish), or as we obviously couldn’t handle hard work he put us on sprout watering but we could not tell the difference between sprouts and brussell sprouts.... ??!!! He must have been stoned when he wrote that. We can’t be bothered responding and correcting everything, we’ve had enough of that God forsaken place.
We popped out to the cinema and found a whole new part of Halifax city. A big long fancy high street up Spring Garden Road. At the cinema a large bunch of plump nattering women in their 50’s and 60’s were all in a titter about going to see the new movie ‘Magic Mike’ about male strippers. We went for Prometheus. There was only about 5 people in the cinema. Walked back via a free McDonalds coffee, quite nice out, quite a warm evening.
Back at hostel on the wifi Bruce had left us a nice review on our wwoofing host page, saying what good workers we were, at least something contradicted the Organic Farm stuff now. Just for the record their emails and reviews will be posted below:
The son Louie responded to our original review on their page with:
We've been asked several times about this story. Here is ours.
First of all let us say that we didn't want to respond to this until these boys had enough time to think about their comments. Many people have asked us about these two so here it is.
Mike and Connor had asked to come stay at our farm several times. When we agreed they told us that they had found somewhere else to stay. A short period of time later they called again saying that they were working too hard and would like to join us on the farm again. At this point in the season we were asking for 6 hrs 5 days. But knowing that they didn't want to work much we agreed on 5hrs. They were told that they may have to stay in a tent at some point which they agreed to. I asked for their flight number so that we could pick them up at the airport and didn't hear from them until they just showed up in a taxi. We did not know where they had come from because they didn't give us a flight number. It was still cold out so we decided to keep them indoors. Most of us were working 10 hr days. Realizing they weren't fond of work we gave them very simple jobs. At no point did they say that they were tired, they just took on the task with a bad attitude. I thought to myself that these 2 boys were going to be delicate, dramatic, and need constant attention. When quiting time, for the 2 special workers that only have to help out 5 hrs, came, I went to tell them the good news only to have been met by them leaving, saying with a bad attitude again 'Melba told us we only needed to work 5 hrs, so we're leaving'. They had dropped everything and just left on a hike. I figured we better give them more simpler jobs like watering the sprouts but unfortunately they couldn't be taught the difference between sprouts and brussel sprouts, they were called moronic by one wwoofer. Anyway the decision had come to ask them to leave, we were going to do this by giving them some 'real' work. But to our pleasure the next morning they came to tell me (again with a nasty tone of voice) that they were leaving, with a pause to possibly see if I was going to beg them to stay or something. I smiled, and said ok, which they didn't like and they turned and stormed out saying something nasty on their way.
This delicate couple has a hatred for work that shows in everything they do or say. Their attitude was always negative, they had absolutely no idea about organic farming, but had an 'inspector' or 'critic' attitude. Anyway, this dramatic couple certainly aren't willing workers on organic farms. They seem to have a habit of abandoning hosts who have gone out of thier way to help them out. We are aware that the accronym has changed, but we certainly can't recommend them for any type of work at all, even if its at a B&B, or Hotel.
His comment on our profile page was:
Beware of Attitude and Abandonment with these two. This delicate couple has a hatred for work that shows in everything they do or say. Their attitude was always negative, they had absolutely no idea about organic farming, but had an 'inspector' or 'critic' attitude. Anyway, this dramatic couple certainly aren't willing workers on organic farms. They seem to have a habit of abandoning hosts who have gone out of thier way to help them out. We are aware that the accronym has changed, but we certainly can't recommend them for any type of work at all, even if its at a B&B, or Hotel.
Then the bizarre facebook message from the confused german girl Louie was shagging was:
Hi,
I hope you’re enjoying your journey around Canada, maybe as „WWOOFers“.
It is absolutely ok to give constructive advice or hints on the wwoof-website/-network, but it’s a DISGRACE for all WWOOFers what you were doing.
First agreeing to stay with your hosts, than say no to the arrangement, change your mind to ask for the place again – no and yes again – So regardless this, Melba still gave you the opportunity to stay at the Organic Farm. You arrived but just stayed for 2 nights, then left abruptly (which is ok if you are absolutely uncomfortable at a place), but then the top: start to criticize and blame the hosts on the Internet as you were criticizers or hotel testers.
Melba did her best to organize from far away while she was taking care of her 2 ill brothers, but as she finished the plan, she heard that you’ve already left.
So, you stayed 1,5 days and are complaining about not enough days off??? Hello? Is everything right with you?!? We got an adequate time off, (of course, you had to pay attention that you did not agree to other work during your free time, but that would have been your own fault), with free rides to town etc. I was taken to an expo, to several concerts and bar nights in town, got a lot rides to see icebergs and much more. I never had to pay anything, not for climbing nor any admission fees.
Of course, cultures of countries and families are different, so there is always the risk of a little “cultural shock” but you have to be flexible if you want to experience another lifestyle, even if it is different than what you are used to, that’s what wwoofing is also made for. I can’t help if you are too old and “experienced” to get information and tasks by other (younger) wwoofer. Hosts don’t have the time to give every single wwoofer an individual welcome presentation, so you have to watch or ask sometimes. So I also can’t help if you are not able to work self-supervised without an instructor watching you all the time - a lot of other workers really knew the value of this freedom and enjoyed being their own chief. Same with the flexible time to start working, also very appreciated by all other people I met on the farm, except you.
Mike&Melba might never had so many woofers at one time before, so they had to learn or try as well, which might have created some discomfort, but it seemed as you just expected a perfect place that agrees with all your special personal needs right there. They gave you several changes to visit the farm, but you refused to give them a single one to improve the situation and show their real farm life.
There are a lot wwoofer really appreciating the advantages of the network and cultural exchange, that are enough open minded to handle situations/lifestyles they are not used to, but if you are too uptight to do so, stay away from wwoofing. Moreover, if you don’t like it, first try to solve the problems on-site with a conversation with the hosts before you carry them out on the Internet. It doesn’t help if you complain and cry out yourself and scream out your discomforts after you left, it neither helps you anymore nor other wwoofers which are just perplexed about this nor the hosts.
Nice that you found a better place for you to stay in NL after that.
Jana
I hope you’re enjoying your journey around Canada, maybe as „WWOOFers“.
It is absolutely ok to give constructive advice or hints on the wwoof-website/-network, but it’s a DISGRACE for all WWOOFers what you were doing.
First agreeing to stay with your hosts, than say no to the arrangement, change your mind to ask for the place again – no and yes again – So regardless this, Melba still gave you the opportunity to stay at the Organic Farm. You arrived but just stayed for 2 nights, then left abruptly (which is ok if you are absolutely uncomfortable at a place), but then the top: start to criticize and blame the hosts on the Internet as you were criticizers or hotel testers.
Melba did her best to organize from far away while she was taking care of her 2 ill brothers, but as she finished the plan, she heard that you’ve already left.
So, you stayed 1,5 days and are complaining about not enough days off??? Hello? Is everything right with you?!? We got an adequate time off, (of course, you had to pay attention that you did not agree to other work during your free time, but that would have been your own fault), with free rides to town etc. I was taken to an expo, to several concerts and bar nights in town, got a lot rides to see icebergs and much more. I never had to pay anything, not for climbing nor any admission fees.
Of course, cultures of countries and families are different, so there is always the risk of a little “cultural shock” but you have to be flexible if you want to experience another lifestyle, even if it is different than what you are used to, that’s what wwoofing is also made for. I can’t help if you are too old and “experienced” to get information and tasks by other (younger) wwoofer. Hosts don’t have the time to give every single wwoofer an individual welcome presentation, so you have to watch or ask sometimes. So I also can’t help if you are not able to work self-supervised without an instructor watching you all the time - a lot of other workers really knew the value of this freedom and enjoyed being their own chief. Same with the flexible time to start working, also very appreciated by all other people I met on the farm, except you.
Mike&Melba might never had so many woofers at one time before, so they had to learn or try as well, which might have created some discomfort, but it seemed as you just expected a perfect place that agrees with all your special personal needs right there. They gave you several changes to visit the farm, but you refused to give them a single one to improve the situation and show their real farm life.
There are a lot wwoofer really appreciating the advantages of the network and cultural exchange, that are enough open minded to handle situations/lifestyles they are not used to, but if you are too uptight to do so, stay away from wwoofing. Moreover, if you don’t like it, first try to solve the problems on-site with a conversation with the hosts before you carry them out on the Internet. It doesn’t help if you complain and cry out yourself and scream out your discomforts after you left, it neither helps you anymore nor other wwoofers which are just perplexed about this nor the hosts.
Nice that you found a better place for you to stay in NL after that.
Jana
Thursday 28th June 2012
Well, at last, it’s finally here! Our last day of work for Ocean Explorations! And little Tom was a cunt right up until the very end!
We started at 8.30am cleaning the flat, but Tom soon moved us outside scattering grass seed, hosing it down and then grinding down rust off that old trailer again and painting the fenders white. Then he left other jobs such as stitching on new zips onto the yellow jackets, sanding down some rusted electrical clamps etc etc, he caught the 9.30am ferry and told us to come after we were done.... he’d left us a whole days work at least, and we still had to clean the flat.
After the 11.30am ferry had left we were still not finished on that trailer, and had not even started the sewing or the pebble picking in the new lawn. We phoned him and asked what he wanted us to do, should we just stay and finish this work was it worth us coming over? He said definitely come over..... this was despite him already having the other 2 wwoofers on the island and big Jim. So we went over, he had us do a couple of tiny jobs and then sent us up to the retreat with the oxes of human shit we scooped out a ditch yesterday, and told us to spread it out on the new lawn area we had cleared, and then to carry on chopping down plants. This was at 1pm, and we asked Philip and Nicholas what time they had started, they said 11am... compared to our 8.30am. Nicholas then went on the boat trip, and so it was just us original 3 wwoofers. Tall one quickly spread the shit about whislt small one got his wifi fix up the road, they then rushed and got the 2pm ferry as Tom had now gone on the tour, leaving Philip on his own precariously dangling over the cliff edge chopping branches that were blocking Tom’s dream view from his hole of a house.
At least we got a lift up the hill from the terminal by the same girl in the blue car as we’ve had 3 time snow. We had much needed showers and then happily binned our rough work clothes used at 3 different wwoofing locations (4 if you count the Organic Farm). Wondered f Tom would stop by later, or even the other guys to catch this other semi final, hopefully neither. Though we are also reliant on Tom’s wife Penny driving us into town to catch this bus on time, if we miss it we’re fucked, and they aren’t too good at time keeping (or much else for that matter).
Wednesday 27th June 2012
As arranged with Tom, Penny picked up small and tall one only at 7am and dropped us at the Centreville house. At least we had a chance to finalize the lift to the bus station this Friday with her. At the Centreville house Tom had asked if we could un-screw and wrench open the back basement doors, get the freezer out and clear out and sort all damp and dry wood for burning. Tom picked us up at 9am and was happy enough, drove back to staff house and dropped us off to get the 10.30am ferry, whislt he rushed over on the 9.30am ferry with Philip and his bags. We were finally shot of young Philip as he was very unhappily moving into that moused infested, run down wwofing house on the island with the other 2 guys. Over on the 10.30am and we worked with the new Belgium guy Nicholas on the retreat house for a couple of hours. Back to the office for 12.45pm and Tom said for Tall one to fart around removing benches form his new boat and small one to dig out a ditch full of human shit infront of the wwoofing house. Small one asked what Nicholas and Philip were doing, Tom said he didn’t know, maybe nothing. That was a little annoying, as now we missed the 1pm ferry, we were the ones still working and had started at 7am compared with everyone else at 9-10am, and we were the only one’s who worked yesterday messing about with his chocolate dolphins and curtain rags and sewing Tom’s shirt buttons on that he’d burst out of. Still, we last day of work tomorrow. Got back on the 1.45pm ferry (they did an extra trip), said goodbye to the big bald guy on the boat again, and made it back for Spain/Portugal semi final it the Euro.... Though we think Philip is coming over to watch it later as they have no TV on the island house, so still not shot of him yet.... at least he can have his old ‘spot’ on the sofa (literally spots as that’s where he picked and flicked them all).
Well they turned up in the end, and the game went into extra time and then penalties.... so they didn’t leave until the 7.30pm ferry. At least small one got to watch the re-run of Coronation Street just after they left, but only after enduring some God awful skateboarder show after the football ended.
Tuesday 26th June 2012
Rain rain and rain all day. Tom stopped by late morning and got us to cut some old curtains into rags and brought an enormous box of chocolate buttons along for yet more chocolate dolphins to be made. Philip helped with nothing and wondered about dressed in bright yellow trouser, bright orange hoody and a bright yellow jacket taking photos of the rain. Tom had said he’d be back after 12pm to take us to the centreville house to work in the basement (even though it supposedly floods during any rain). Tom never came back and we phoned him at 1.30pm to be told he was going to have a sleep and may come by and pick us up at 3.30-4pm. We went for a walk in the rain over to the island (just as we were going stir crazy in the house). Over on the ferry the big bald guy with the big ginger goatie was there, pointing out one of the local teachers in a big blue 4x4 opposite us who kept smiling, told us how he’s always running the young boys over here from the school, never the girls. Over in the office it looked like someone had thrown a fit, the hoover was thrown over on its side and Tom’s crappy old laptop had a huge crack across the screen. We caught thr 4pm ferry back stealing two of Tom’s big yellow rain coats.... walking back up the hill like a pair of bananas in the rain. Back at the house Philip hadn’t moved from the sofa, and Tom was still parked round the corner at his house. We started cooking dinner at 4.30pm, so we had a good excuse to not go with Tom if he turned up this late.
Monday 25th June 2012
Start work ourselves at 8.30am, chopping more branches and picking up more stones. Philip joined us around 9am. Tom phoned and said to mow the lawn and come over on the 10.30am ferry. The two new woofers had arrived, one Belgium lad here for 2 weeks and Jim half Irish/Ottawa back for his 3rd year now. Tom had us fart around for half an hour then sent the 3 of us up to mow the lawn and cut branches at the retreat. Sent Philip back t 2pm whilst we used the wifi at the info centre then walked back for the 3pm ferry.... another thrilling day. Jim was running the shop now it was peak season, and had erected an inflatable woman doll and an inflatable child, tied them to the lamppost in the life vest jackets.... it was all a bit creepy, but Tom had said they do this every year (don’t know why). Tom reckons there’s a storm the next two days so may be cooped up indoors. We only have another couple of days here anyway. Thankfully we are not moving to the island now, but tonight are supposed to cook pasta for the 2 new ones as there wwoofing house on the island is still a bit of a hole.
Big Jim and Nicholas the Belgium came over at 6pm, small one put on a spread for them. Big Jim ate a huge bowl of pasta plus 2 big hotdogs. Turns out he was born just outside Athlone and new Shines and The Shack well. This was Jim’s third year working here, he’d answered an online ad whilst visiting Ireland, and spoke to Tom who told him the pay is bad and the accommodation worse, he didn’t care. He runs the shop during busy season from 11am till 6-7pm. He said he’s found that even if Tom tells him he plans for a shitty job for him to do, he never argues about it as he knows in the end it will never happen....
Sunday 24th June 2012
More rain and grey skies. Tom didn’t come until 10.30am. Had us poncing about in the lawn, still arsing about with that rockery and the turf, with tall one getting the scrubland lawn ready for grass seed (which he insisted he’d be doing himself). Over on the 11.30am ferry, still no real work to be done, just stupid jobs like “bring that chest of draws down the stairs..... see if you can un-do that for me..... can you ifnd any children’s paintbrushes....”. He was constantly moaning how he couldn’t find anything as none of the tools are where they should be.... well Tom it’s your shithole of a place not ours. We then started to mow the lawn at the back of the office whilst he had sa group of 7 very over friendly people get ready for the tour in the mist and rain. Whilst we were mowing he came round the corner stamping his little feet and shouting “WHERE ARE YOU! I NEED MORE SUITS!!”. Small one wondered around and asked what he needed, Tom said he needed 2 more mediums. Small one walked past Tom into the office to the back room and got 2 suits, Tom followed him and watched him do this, then brought then outside to the customers and walked back round to the mower. Not sure what Tom accomplished shouting and stomping infront of his customers when he was right by the suit room himself....
Tom set off, we finished the lawns in the rain and then Philip raking whilst we borrowed Tom’s jeep to drive down the other end of Long Island to see Freeport and the view of Brier Island.... Not much to write home about, more sparse wooden houses and fuck all else. 3pm ferry back and up the hill in the drizzle to watch England vs. Italy in the Euro semi finals.
Saturday 23rd June 2012
Awoken through the night by loud thunder and lightning, small one hung over from only 4 cans of beer made a cup of tea for himself at 2am. In the morning it was still raining very very hard. We watched Penny go past driving Tom’s pickup, so we presumed her car had broken down and so wondered how we would make it to the island in this pissing rain without a working car. We phoned Tom at 9.30am to ask what was happening, he was looking for rainy day work for us and would be over at some point, he seemed in good form at least. Small one started making chocolate Dolphins and shells, tall one re-packed his backpack and Philip spent 15 minutes washing pebbles he’d picked up from the foot of the lighthouse.
At 11.25am Tom phoned and said Philip is off today and small and tall one to be over at his house by 11.28am...! Wasn’t too much notice, tall one is in the toilet. Managed to get there and we sped down and just mad the ferry all squashed in Penny’s little car. It was drizzling all day and very grey. Tom had 4 German’s still very keen to go out, and he reluctantly agreed. He had us start cleaning out the wwoofing house next door to the Zodiac Office on the island. It was an absoloute state.... again stacks of junk, anything from piles of old CD cases, to takeaway boxes, to old videos, to old books, old bit sof furniture, generally anything you’d find in a car boot sale just thrown into a room in no order.... on top of that sprinkle some mouse droppings, make every tap in the place drip and all the applicances broken and that may give you a general idea of his house for wwoofers. It’s a proper house, but its so run down it’s more like a dodgy cabin in the woods.
So we tidied and boxed stuff up for him. He gave us 2 big plastic boxes to put everything in the kitchen into, then came back half an hour later and said ‘well, all you’ve done is put everything in the box that’s not sorting a problem it’s just hiding it, so we’ll have to get everything out and sort it”.... Got the three bedrooms and kitchen generally tidy, and were thankful that he told us we would just stay in the guest house on Digby Neck till we left next week, the two new wwoofers would go here tomorrow. Tom went out at 1.30pm and we caught the 3pm ferry back and walked home in the rain.
Friday 22nd June 2012
Our 2nd and last day off, with Kathleen’s shuttle picking us up at 8.10am.
We were awoken at 6.20am by Tom rattling the downstairs door trying to get in, we have it looked over night so he went away. He was back though after 7am saying that he couldn’t get his breakfast and we shouldn’t lock the door (even though we’d heard something or someone rummaging loudly through his junk outside a couple of nights ago). We asked if he wanted anything picked up whilst we were in Digby town (just to be polite) to which he said no, but could we find a pay phone and call him later in the day and see if he thought of anything (for fuck’s sake). He also mentioned his old employee Jim (half Irish) was flying back to live and work this Sunday (from Melbourne) being picked up by another wwoofer who was turning up early! So there would now be FIVE people scratching around for work...
After watching Philip pick his face and flick it about the kitchen we stood outside waiting for Kathleen from 8am, no sign of her so phone dher around 20 past to be told she thought we meant next week (for fuck’s sake, is everyone from this island useless). She got here at 9am and we were on our way..... finally a day off where he can’t get to us!
Dropped at the library in town and Small one went to the little barbers. He didn’t even have his OPEN sign on yet, but the little old man was at work on some tall old fella. They were having some pointless banter as we came in and the tall fella left. Small one went to get in to the barber chair but then had to be correct as the old hairdresser had the chair facing away from the mirror, he said he preferred customers to sit with their back to the mirror so he could use it with his cordless shaver??? Very strange, so small one sat looking back into space as his hair was cut. The tall fella then came back in and said he wanted more off the fringe.... there was even more banter. Finally the hairdresser made it through the cut, dropping the shaver on the floor and then charging $11 to small one.
We then spent 5 hours on the wifi in the Library whilst tall one’s laptop wurred and buzzed like an aircraft crashing..... it’s really on its last legs. We did a quick food shop in Sobeys, and many tramps and rough tinkers seemed to be saying hello to us after we came out with a paper bag of beer. Pickup from Kathleen was due at 4pm and small one kept looking at every ‘large’ woman with a moustache and asking “is that her?”. At 20 past 4pm we phoned her from a pay phone and she said she’d been delayed in Halifax and couldn’t pick us up until 6pm!!!
We couldn’t believe it but had no choice and had paid our (huge) $3.50 in advance to her. Not sure how she thought she’d drive the 3.5 hours each way to Halifax and make it back for 4pm anyway??? So back to the library for the last half an hour before closing. Then sat outside in the nice hot sun on a bench, small one watching the Germany game on his tablet drinking the Canadian cans of beer by the library car park. She came in the end at 5.30pm... an exciting drive back with her farting some real troopers and then she started to sing “scooby dooby doo”.... we didn’t know what was going on.
Back at the guest house and we cooked some ‘black fish??’ fillets on the BBQ, small one had left over burgers. Watched Coronation street and went to bed.... hooray! Work again tomorrow.
Thursday 21st June 2012
Here we are, all set for our two days off...?? Someone needs to tell Tom what a day off means.
He’d phoned back lat last night to tell small one that the phone line had been installed already, but could he please go over on the 9.30am ferry and wait until he gets there at 10.30am incase any customers walk in – this was despite the tour being fully booked anyway??
This morning he phoned back to say not to worry he’ll be by at 9.30am to get the ferry himself (like he should have been in the first place, but either way our lie on was ruined). He gets in at 9.25am, all stressed and huffing and puffing. “Can someone get the box of dirt out the back of the truck??!!”.... so Philip went down to move one box for him, whilst Tom was rummaging through half a dozen bags of groceries (all 50% off as past its sell by date), saying “don’t touch this, freeze that, i’ll be back for that, do you like these?”. He then asked what plans we had today, we told him hiking, to which he said he may have a road trip project for us later. He then phoned 15 minutes later from the office and said “hmmm, i guess it’s okay for you guys to still have today off, maybe send Philip over...”, and then “well the weather isn’t too good next week, so may be if you work tomorrow on some projects for me and you guys can then take the car on Sunday or Monday and drive to Digby to drop off brochures, or i may get you to drive to Halifax and pick up Jim coming next week”..... We told him no, we’ve already booked a shuttle into town tomorrow as you’d already told us we had two days off..... for the love of God, just leave us be and let us have some free time!!!
We finally got the day off (so far anyway, he’ll probably wake us up at 10pm asking us to move a wardrobe or something). Headed over on the 11.30am ferry, waited for all the cars and customers to get off before us so Tom would be busy at the office. Then walked past with heads down, glancing in to see that Philip was just sat eating and not working. Walked up past the information centre and then down to the Balancing Rock, took about 45-50 minutes in all. Balancing Rock was alright, as expected.... we ate a banana, drank some water, sat in the sun, watched a nest of baby crows then walked back. Small one stopped at the information centre and sat on the grass outside using their quite good wifi. Caught the 3pm ferry back, stopping at the office to get small one a new pair of sunglasses out of lost and found. Philip turned up, said he’d been told to hang around until the tour got back at 3.15pm, he started showing us some rocks he’d found at the lighthouse and we said we had to go and catch the ferry. Got a lift up the hill from two girls who kept stalling their car. Homemade burgers tonight with homemade wedges.....
Wednesday 20th June 2012
Wwoofing’s not for us.
Starting to get sick of all this bullshit. Tom coming in every morning and checking the TV has been turned off on the wall and not just on standby, or checking the thermostat is set at 15 only. Been here 16 days in a row without a day off, a couple of days we have worked 3 hours, but usually it’s 8.30-9am until 1-2pm, sometimes till 3pm, and yesterday was 8 hours. So gonna try and ask for a full day off in the next few days, see what happens.
...well it was an interesting day. We sat waiting in our work clothes ready to go form 8.30am as usual. Tom turned up after 9am, brought us a pack of steak that he said he’d cut into equal parts and taken some for himself. He then asked what we thought about being dropped the 20-25km down Digby Neck to his Centreville home again, to do general house cleaning. Small one said he didn’t like the idea. Tom confirmed it would only be tall and small one and said “I guess Philip you have the day off and you can take tomorrow off as well” (so much for our plan of asking for a day off, he’s ended up giving Phil the day off when he does half the work and has been here half as long as us!). The day was thick fog outside as well, so no Tour, we finally agreed to do the cleaning and hitch back. He said he was going to the island on the 9.30am ferry and would pick us up at 10am. He wanted to sort through all that shit lino and boards we dug out yesterday to see if he could use any, we told him “no, it’s all shit”.
At 10am Tom phoned and said he may be over on the 11am ferry but may wait until 12pm to see if 4 customers come as the weather was improving. He then phoned again later and said he’d be over on the 12pm, then stop at his house and pick us up at 12.30pm.... he turned up at 1.15pm.... we’d been waiting all bloody morning for him, whilst young Philip had his free day. Before we left we had to fart around shifting an ancient photocopier into the back of the truck for him to ditch, he claimed he brought it for $500 when it was worth $15,000?? We opened the scanner lid and now under the glass there was a mouse nest.
He drove us down to Centreville and left us there alone at about 1.30pm. Small one wiped down all the furniture and swept downstairs, whilst tall one got the cobwebs (many cobwebs) and cleaned all the windows and swept upstairs. They were done by about 3.30pm, and Tom had said to go until 4.30pm. We left walking up his long residential road to the main highway, it was now hot and sunny. Stoppe dint he petrol station and brought a soft serve Mr Whippy ice cream. We then walked with the hitch hiking thumb out for a good half an hour..... finally a young man picked us up and took us the 10km to Sandy Cove (that’s as far as he went), we were still 15km from Tom’s house. We kept walking for another half an hour and finally two young girls picked us up and took us as far as the ferry terminal, past Tom’s house. We waited the half an hour for the 5.30pm ferry over to Long Island, garbbed Tom’s office laptop and caught the 6pm ferry back to the mainland. On the ferry was ‘Kathy’s Shuttle’ and we chatted to her after seeing her poster on the ferry, apparently she does a $7 return trip 4 days a week into Digby town.... we booked it for this Friday, as Tom had confirmed on our way to Centrevile earlier that WE could at last have a day off, infact two....! Though we could have the next 2 days off he may need us to go over very early to the office for a few hours to wait for a telephone installation man??
Kathy of Kathy’s shuttles kindly gave us a lift up the hill to the house, a nice lady, but she has a moustache. We crept into the house and Philip was in the shower. We cooked our steaks and spuds and sweetcorn just for ourselves, as we didn’t want to be cooking for him every single day. It felt like a bloody long days work, even though technically we’d only worked less than 2 hours.... it was all Tom’s usual dicking around that wasted our day. Still only 1 week left.... hooray!
Tuesday 19th June 2012
Tom started us at 8.30am, usual stuff at the guest house. Moving around pebbles and dirt, and small one re-doing the turf he put down yesterday. Across on the 9.30am ferry, 3 of us started work on the retreat again – doing the fruitless work of levelling out the rough, scrubland ground he plans to make a good lawn for a gazebo to go up....? As small one and tall one ferried around rocks and dirt and pulled out roots, Philip stood looking at his own shoes. He was becoming quite frustrating throughout the day, he’s too young to be doing this work un-supervised, and we were sick of babysitting. Back to office by 12pm, Tom was full on his tour today. We left on the 1pm Ferry with instructions to dirve up to their other house in Centreville (20 minutes drive down Digby Neck towards Digby), mow the lawn, move a freezer from the basement upstairs and then rip out the flooring. He said to get there for around 4.30pm and work till about 7pm, but not start the floro till Penny got there.... right.
Back at the house, Philip ate beans on toast, then a bowl of cereal, then a microwave pasta then made a sandwhich.... We left at 2.30pm and took a detour in Tom’s truck to see Sandy Cove. This was the spot the ride we hitchhiked the other day showed us. We walked out to Jerome’s Rock and the dead whale (not buried). It looked like a Minke whale and stuck a fair bit (mostly bones left now). Then we walked up the hike to the top of Mount Shubel, some great views over the bays and bald eagles overhead. On to Tom’s house, a lovely big white house covered with ivy set in a nice big garden. They are trying to sell it and the agent told them it must be tidyier.... well it was a shit hole inside. The basement was a state, as apparently it floods to knee level in heavy rain. The freezer was full of a foot of brown water which we tipped out onto the concrete basement floor. We tried for 20 minutes trying to shift the freezer up the very narrow stairs and low ceiling... it was a no go so we dumped it back down. We mowed the huge lawn, small one on the strimmer. There was no grass boxes on the mowers so spent just as long raking up grass as we did mowing. Though most of the time when we looked over to young Philip we was just standing rake in hand picking his nails, whilst stood surrounded by haps of grass to rake.... Penny turned u, we were starving by now and hoed she’d bring us pizza or beer... nothing. She was surprised Tom had us working on this so late. We started ripping up the lino and boards on the basement floor.... it was all rotten, but at leats came up in big chunks. Managed to drag it all out and dump in the back of the truck. It was a mucky job as all the boards and lino was rotten, wet through, muddy and covered with woodlice. Penny left us to it and we finished dead on 7pm, driving back with piles of rotten wood and lino precariously hanging out the sides of the pickup. Got back shattered and aching to the guest house, we had stopped at a gas station and asked if they sold beer, they said no and there was nowhere this side of Digby either.... Cup of Barrys Tea will have to do....
Monday 18th June 2012
Had breakfast. Watch young Philip dipping his knife into the honey jar, spreading his toast, sucking the knife clean and then putting it straight back into the honey jar to get more.... Tall one did his best to explain to him in pigeon English, that “that is bad...no lick knife and put back in... you disgusting”. Not sure if he understood.
Restacked the rotten wood from the greenhouse this morning, put some turf slabs down by the re-arranged rockey, moved a heavy Zodiac motor onto a crappy old trailer and covered it up. Ferry over to the island and worked on the retreat house, moving more junk, digging roots up... same old shit. Back to office at 12pm, 8 customers today, fog was so thick you could barely see the back of the ferry.... Sent us back on the 1pm ferry, he planned to take them out anyway. Back to guest house and finished the turf. Watched the news about the ex-porn star guy who killed some Japensase fella, cut up his body and had sex with it before posting feet and hands to various places across the country – he’s now being extradited from Germany back to Canada. There was an old woman who could not move her body or hands, who was now losing her speech and had won a case to be euthanized in Canada when she loses her speech and all ways to communicate. Then there was two Quebec girls who were found dead on Phi Phi island, Thailand – presumed poisoned but no one knows by what yet. Then there was the shooting of 3 guards in Edmonton City – an ex-employee of the same company fella stole $300,000 cash as the guards emptied an ATM, he was caught crossing into the USA. A stage collapsed in Toronto put up for a Radiohead concert the next day, killing a British stage hand.... Canada is full of fun this week.
Small one cooked us roasted peppers with rice and garlic, with a lasagne. We watched Ireland leave the Euro, whilst Philip sat picking his face and eating it. Tom turned up with three boxes of Nova Scotia brochures and asked us to remove the DVD promo from each and separate them all into garabage and recycling. He also dropped off tall one’s digital watch as earlier he’d said “I lost my watch yesterday can I borrow anybody elses?”.
Sunday 17th June 2012
No Tom until nearer to 10am.... He had us finish the Rockery! Hooray, almost 2 weeks after we started it.... He said catch the 11.30am ferry over. After the rocks we carried on laboriously picking up pebbles in the garden. Penny stopped in with a carrier bag with shoes and socks in and asked if we’d take it over to Tom on the ferry as he’d left wearing only his slippers....
Caught the ferry over and put to work for an hour up at the retreat moving more junk and more grass cuttings about. Back at the office Tom had 2 boats running today. He asked if were were coming, small one ummed and argghed, and then we decided to go.... it was a lovely calm sunny day and we would get to go in the 2nd boat – the small blue Zodiac, with 4 customers and a local guy called.... Guy as the driver.
We left first, leav ign Philip to go with Tom in the standard Orange one with 10 customers. Guy was un-shaven, glasses, oldish, big moustache. Pretty quiet, not much talking, but got going in the end, speaking with a very gentle story telling voice. The two couples we were on board with were pretty nice and chatty. One of the fellas got out an enormous camera (said it cost over a $1,000) and started taking multiple shots, the other fella said “i might just put mine away...” and shyly put away this dainty little $20 red camera.
We followed a few Fin whales a while, which Guys aid were Humpbacks, but small one was proved right later when it came over the radio. Tom was out not long after but stayed a way aways with another tour company following a mother and a calf (which we never got to see). We did however finally go after a couple of humpbacks which were diving a lot with their tales left hung high up in the air out of the water. In the end it started diving for up to ten mintues after the tale shot, and turning up again so far away that by the time we caught up, it would do the big tale dive again and be gone another ten minutes....
Tom caught up with us and we tried to follow the tale diver for a while, before splitting up again. Tom headed in via the seals, whilst we looked for his mother and calf.... we failed, though did glimpse a couple of porpoises and seals.... though we think everyone would have preferred just to have gone in an hour earlier. Back to the office just before 4pm, missed the ferry by the time we were sorted, and so hung about outside the shop until the 5pm ferry. Headed back with Tom who dropped us up to the house and pinched one of our pork chops. We’re cooking the other three on the BBQ which he told us not to use.
Sat down outside in the sun with Philip. We drank Tom’s de-alcoholised beer, as it was the nearest thing we had.... Philip (only being 17) told us that the legal drinking age for beer and wine in Austria is 16 years old! Small one finished the BBQ, and piled a plate of food for each of us, with a huge pork chop (half a big as the dinner plate) two jacket potatoes, corn on the cob and baby carrots. Ten minutes after Philip finished the meal he made himself a bowl of cereal......
Saturday 16th June 2012
Tom still on his way back to Halifax, so had instructions for the 3 of us to head over on 9.30am ferry. As we stood on the ferry waiting for it to leave, tall one noticed a middle aged over friendly Canadian man getting out of his car with a smile on his face as he started to amble over to them.... tall one thought, “oh God here we go”. The man pointed to the shears we had and said “I notice you’ve got some cutters there, I have a pair same”.... then he wanted to know where we were from, of course he claimed he was Irish decent. Small one asked what he was doing on the island and he said he was a botanist, whose special subject was ‘seaweed’ (hence his dull personality), he was on Brier Island to investigate a rogue strain of Rose which was taking over Canada... hmmm...
Thankfully the ferry ride ended and we made it ashore to the Zodiac office. Tall one and Philip worked on the yellow house retreat, lopping grass, moving junk around etc. The strimmer was not working and so grass and weeds had to be lopped by hand. Small one had to baby sit the office incase any customers phoned. He had a strict list of instructions from Tom, such as “turn off the call forwarding when you get there, but phone me before you do, and if you can’t get hold of me turn it off anyway”. Tom finally showed up on the 12.30pm ferry. He only had 2 people booked for the tour (he needs 4 minimum), the 2 who booked didn’t even show up so we headed back on the 2pm ferry.
Penny had stopped by giving us loads of potatos, cheese, four loaves of bread and Philip his jar of honey.... Small one fell asleep on the sofa watching Poland vs. Czec, and Tall one sat out in the windy hot sun reading his book.
Friday 15th June 2012
Got up and ready for work at 8am.... waited and waited.....Tom didn’t show up till 10am (on his new little scooter). Philip had disappeared. Tom put tall one to work re-painting that old rusty trailer green, whilst small one tried to fix the chainsaw he broke, then gave up and went back to chopping branches. Philip finally re-appeared from nowhere, making his weird little noises. Tom came rushing back in his pickup just before 10.30am, he said for small one and Philip to get the 11.30am ferry over and tall one to come with him with the paint on the 10.30am.... after tall one collected all the brushes and paint tins, he then decided (all this in a long, spoken out loud, train of thought) that the green paint was too light, he needed darker, it wouldn’t work to paint the benches today, so tall one was then told to get he 11.30am ferry with the others. So, we catch the 11.30am ferry over to his office, only to be told that there was no tour today (too windy and no customers, though great sunny weather) so he said we will catch the 12.00pm ferry back!! That gave us about 20 minutes free time and he had us start mowing the lawn. At 12pm dead he had us all in the pickup only for the ferry to be fully loaded, so we had to wait for it to come back. Philip disappeared again, and then re-appeared from nowhere just before the ferry got back (it had done a second run at 12.10pm as it was full). Philip given the day off and Tom said he’d drive tall and small to Digby, as he was finally going into Halifax to pickup his new boat.
He picked us up at 1pm and drove the 2 of us to Digby, it was a long long painful drive in. Tom mentioned how, (then he stopped to state that “this is confidential of course”), how the blue boat he just sold cost him just as much as the grey boat he’s picking up in Halifax..... Why this was interesting or ‘confidential’ we did not know. He dropped us at the library and left, said he may be back tomorrow and had left a long list of instructions for small one to get us all to work on in his absence. Had a few hours in the library on free wifi, catching up with downloads and visas and photo uploads and tax returns. Small one had a letter from tax revenue at Canadiana asking for more info (all info already sent to them in the initial form). Tall one had been paid his £465 from the UK Channel 4 production company for using 45 seconds from his 2005 fox hunting documentary in some new panel show called ‘A Short History of Everything Else’.
Left after 4pm, stopped at Post Office, then some food shopping at Sobeys. After we ate a pizza slice each we just got onto the highway to try and hitch hike back and small one had literally just got the sign saying “Tiverton” out and a 4x4 pulled over. Turned out to be very lucky, this Canadian contactor fella with a small moustache was driving out to a BBQ past Sandy Cove and said he’d drive us the extra 7km to Tom’s house. He’d been born on Digby Neck and went to school there as well, his father had just been given 2 months to live... He then offered us a beer each, and as he asked twice we took on and he had one as well. He took us on a little tour out to Sandy Cove, to see the big sand spit beach and the buzzards which were picking at the bones of a beached whale (that had just been buried by the government). There was also a rock on the beach called Jerome’s Rock, named after a man found 70 years ago leant up against it on the beach with no legs, all they found out about him was his name. Got to Tom’s house and thanked the guy, he said he doesn’t usually pick up Hitch Hikers but the sign helped, as anyone heading for Tiverton must need help! Got back to the house about 6pm and cooked a pasta.
Waited up until 11pm to watch the live footage of some fella doing a tight rope walk above the base of Niagara Falls. He used a safety rope in the end, so not as interesting, and tall one was half asleep being up that late anyway. He made it in 20 minutes instead of the expected 40 minutes, talking the whole way across asking “Jesus Protect Me”.... well, the safety rope was for that....
Thursday 14th June 2012
Tom stopped by around 6.45am, heading into Digby to sell his boat. He asked us 3 to work on the de-pebbeling the garden until 11.30am when he’ be back to pick us up, and for small one to walk over on the 9.30 or 10.30am ferry to wait in the office incase of walk-ins. He also dropped off more cereal, Rice Crispies from 2010 and Corn Flakes from Aug 2011. We left them out for Phillp as he likes cereal so much. Tom had asked if we needed anything and Philip had piped up again “did you get Honey???!”, Tom said “not yet”.
Started work 8.30am. Tall one finally finished taking apart that rotten greenhouse, a job that’s taken in total only about an hour to do, but over 5 attempts over the last week and a half as Tom just doesn’t let people finish a job all at once. Small one did sewing, and Philip after being told to take pebbles out of the lawn (ready for re-seeding) decided instead to rake the flower bed rockery, which Tom had told him not to do. Small one left at 10.30am to the office. Tom called three times in the next hour a nervous wreck, “has anybody called, what did you tell them”.... and the worst being “i know you’ve picked up a lot of knowledge about the business but don’t tell people anything, there thousands of things you don’t know and you might ruin my business. Don’t tae any bookings for today or tomorrow, just tell them to come back when i’m here....”. What the point of small one even being there was a mystery.
Tom pulled into the guest house at 11.30am to catch the 11.30 ferry. He had the truck filled with speedboat motors and a red scooter. He said there was no room for Philip and tall one, then decided there was and stuffed us in the back. On the ferry (which we made with 20 seconds to spare) Tom told tall one he’d had a very busy morning and only got half his jobs done. He had managed to get a nifty new haircut however. He said instead of selling the boat he’d taken in he’d exchanged it for a scooter (tall one thought, well a scooters better than exchanging it for a jar of magic beans at least). He told Philip he’d wasted half an hour looking for honey in the store and found none, Philip didn’t understand a thing.
Off loaded at the office, and Tom said we could try out the scooter, though he had no helmet to go with it. He claimed it would be for running back and forth for the ferry instead of always using the pickup, then he complained that he’d probably need something in the pickup and have to go back for it anyway.... He started the 3 of us to work on absolutely nothing. Tall one was given a screwdriver to try and scrape some excess glue off a small patch on the Zodiac boat. That took all of about 5 minutes. We stood about a long while and he sent Philip home on the 1pm ferry. Tall and small stayed to see the 8 customers off with Tom. His usual docking space on the flat boat deck had been taken by another boat and so he had to go somewhere else. As he set off with them we could hear him starting “hello and for those of you who don’t know or forgot, my name is Tom.... blur blur blur”.
Tall and small walked to the shop up the road, small one getting his free wifi fix. Tall one noticed that the rough house next to the shop was deserted again, except for an abandoned rabbit hutch, which looked like the poor inhabitant had long ago died of terror. Then Tom’s age old friend and stand by 2nd Zodiac Captain, Richie pulled into that house. Turns out he lives there.... so maybe the whole island isn’t that rough, as the only rough people they’ve met seem to come from that same house. Back to the office and small one phoned the tax office again, still nothing (now mid June) after filing his return with H&R Block back end of Feb. At least (after being transferred 3 times) this time he was told a bit more info, how some immigration ones our spot checked thoroughly, including checking visas etc etc. She said she couldn’t confirm the amount he;d get, when he’d get it or how.
Caught the ferry at 2pm. Tom had said to take his scooter back (as he still had the truck on the island) and put in his house. Though we were un-sure if we would be charged as we did not have Tom’s ferry permit. We asked the big bald Ferry guy (looked like a biker with his big shades and huge furry goatie) if we’d be charged. He said if we were going back on forth on the ferry then we’d have to pay, Tom couldn’t be running two vehicles at once on one permit. He told us we needed a helmet as well. We were aloud on in the end as you only pay coming onto the island not off. Chatted to the biker for the ferry trip, he obviously doesn’t think much of Tom. He said (after we told him we were here 3 weeks) “you think you can last that long?!”, he then added that “nobody works with Tom, they work for him”. Then some crack about how short Tom was as he;d probably need a stool to get onto that scooter. Anyway, made it home up the hill on the scooter with 2 of us riding it. The day had ended with blue sunny skies, after the morning being dark clouds and rain pending. Back at the house and Philip had just finished cooking a chicken dinner at 3.30pm, wondered how much more he’d eat tonight?
Wednesday 13th June 2012
Started the day doing work outside the guest house. Usual work, weeds, digging sand and rocks, cutting branches.... Not sure if i’ve listed his fancy names for all these properties yet. This one (which is actually quite nice) he calls “Amazing Tides”, the yellow house (what i would call a ‘rat hole’) he calls “Amazing Tides: Ocean Retreat”.... hmmm. He’s even had mugs made up (one of which we had to pick up today newly delivered at the post office) which state “I (heart shape) Amazing Tides Cottage”. There’s nothing cottage about this place. It’s quite plush inside, but the basement and the surrounding ramshackle sheds and surrounding slopes are covered with junk.
Over to the retreat (yellow house) after 9.30am. Cutting grass and filling holes with sand. Drove his pickup back to the office at 5 past 11am, to which he told us he had wanted to get the 11am ferry but we were late coming back, he’d only told us to spend ‘about’ an hour there, nothing about getting back for the ferry for him, and we weren’t likely to leave 5 minutes work of grass cutting behind us. Another late morning/early afternoon of nothing jobs at the Zodiac office.
Guests arrived (2 same as yesterday’s tour as he saw NO WHALES yesterday). No space for us 3, and he’d given us a few jobs to do back at his own home and the guest house on the mainland, so we suggested Philip catch the 1pm ferry in 5 minutes, small and tall stay to hel with the guests and wait and catch the 2pm ferry. He said that was fine, but then after Philip had left he was on at Tall one about “so Philip has gone over on his own to mow my lawn?.... does he know what he’s doing?”.... “yes I told him” said tall one, “but you can;t trust these young forgien lads, they just nod there heads, this is NOT WHAT I WANTED, not at all. He could be over there now mowing areas i don’t want mowed!”. Tall one just nodded. Could not exactly work out what Philip could be doing wrong, we told him exactly what Tom had told us (go over and mow his lawn). So when after Tom left with the tour and we got over on the 2pm ferry, we were wondering if we were to find Philip mowing Tom’s carpet in his front room, or running the mower along his roof tiles.... but no, surprisingly enough he’d just mowed the grass on his lawn. Before Tom left with the guests he always re-records a personal answer phone message, he did this one 3 times! The first was something along the lines of “hello this is Tom Goodwin at Zodiac Explorations, sorry i am not here I am out on a tour right now, if you wanted to go try again tomorrow, we’re open from 10am, though perhaps later at 11.30am, or email me at .... or our website at.... or telephone at.... (they would already know the number anyway having just called it?”. Then when small one said he was staying behind to check his email, Tom re-recorded the message to say “sorry not here right now, call back again or leave a message, but we do have staff here and we only have dial up internet so call again later if it does not ring through as it may be in use for dial up, or email me at.... website at... telephone me at...”.
Back to the guest house and we found that Philip (thin stick that he is) had eaten SIX bananas in the last 24 hours, tall and small had had one each, Penny had stopped by yesterday afternoon and given us 10, and there now being only 2 remaining..... that little bugger must have worms?! She had asked if there was anything else we needed, small and tall said no, and Philip piped up “Honey!.... can you get me Honey!??”. Penny looked a little bemused and said, “I’ll see”.
Tuesday 12th June 2012
Tom was here early at 7.20am, calling into the front door if we were up. Of course we were up, but we ignored him. He came up anyway whilst we were in the bathroom and bedrooms and left us a box of rice crispies from Oct 2011 (straight in the bin). He did come back at 8.25am saying that he couldn’t afford to keep buying us bread (Philip had 4 bits of toast for breakfast....) so we were to use the bread maker, but he had no ingredients for that. He left Philip weeding and said he’d run small one and tall one over to the island on the 8.30am ferry. He told us we’d be helping his friend ‘Richie’ cleaning the underside of his fishing boat as Richie would be running the 2nd Zodiac today. First he set us to work back at that yellow ‘Retreat’ house on the hill. Back digging out roots and scattering rocks everywhere, using the broken lawn mower that tall one had kind of fixed. He said he’d be back at 10am, but picked us up nearer to 11am. Small one was then sent to get petrol from the gas station again, begrudgingly entrusted with the pin number. Tall one was told to go and help Richie clean his boat and Tom walked him down. Richie was a big burly fisherman, bit rough. Tom in his high pitched voice introduced tall one and asked Ritchie if he was okay to run the 2nd boat today. Ritchie said “i dunno, i gotta get this done first”, Tom said “well i need to let some people know if they can come or not, you have Michael and Conor to help”.... Richie said he didn’t need any help and he’d have to get the boat done first. Tom then spent the morning turning away customers as he couldn’t run the 2nd Zodiac boat, apparently Ritchie is a good guy who he has known since Ritchie was 8 years old.
Philip was also now on the island, and Tom admitted that he had nothing for us to do at all, and he had three things to do himself... and this would happen a lot. It was only after 11am, and we wondered why he’d even taken us off the work at the retreat house. Small one came back and had to move around the petrol. One can leaked about a litre onto the wharf and Tom complained for about an hour about that was a good litre there gone.... small one did think about offering him the $`1.28 that it had cost him just to shut him up.
Tall one scratched around and found work sweeping the floors and cleaning the customer bathroom. Philip didn’t know what to do with himself and either followed tall one round like a lost sheep or followed small on around (who just started ignoring him). In the end none of us knew what to do with ourselves.... Small one suggested we scrape the seaweed off the nearest boat ramp which Tom had mentioned the other day. Tall one and small one grabbed a shovel each and spent the ten minutes doing that short job. Philip didn’t know what to do so turned up a few minutes later with a scrubbing brush in his hand. Small on ignored him and tall one looked at the brush and told him “i don’t know what you’re going to do with that”. Philip went away and then came back with an oar from one of the boats, and started trying to scrape seaweed with that.... poor fella doesn’t have a clue, and Tom is giving him no direction or work at all.
Tom asked small one to help him refuel the Zodiac boat for the trip. It was low tide and so the boat was parked way over on the flat boat wharf (where he’d also have to load passengers in an hours time). To refuel it he drove the boat way around to the boat ramp (where we’d scraped seaweed), got small one to jump in with 4 cans of petrol. He then backed up a little and spent ages tying the thing up against the 20 foot solid wharf wall, where the only access to the boat was via the very long vertical ladder. They refuelled there and then Tom said to small one to follow him up the ladder. Small one looked and saw that half the runners where broken or missing. Tom headed up and small one called out that he was not going up there. Tom struggled at the top where a good few runners where missing and then let out a huge fart. Immediately apologizing to small one who said “God bless you”. Tom came back down as the ladder was fucked. He then messed about un-tying the boat to move it down the wharf wall to the next ladder, tied it back up again, then this time they both made it out the very high ladder out to the wharf. None of this made any sense as in less than an hour Tom would have to climb all the way back down, un tie the boat and move it back where it was on the safe, flat boat wharf to board the customers.... we really really never understand the man’s logic.
Tom left on the tour after 1pm. There was no space for any of the 3 of us, but he had asked if we could finish the mowing at the retreat house. W used his pickup truck and drove to the grocery store. Small one tried using the free wifi, which last time the rough kids in the house next to the store had pestered him while he was trying to. This time there was no kids there, though the garden was littered with their rusty bikes and damp teddy bears. The mother was there however, and she was a sight to behold. This tub of guts heaped on a poor deck chair, sun bathing under her dirty washing line, her skirt rolled up too high with her big white legs laid out like huge joints of meat put out to drain.... we did gather that some of the islanders were a wee bit rough.
We drove to the retreat house and had 15 minutes before the 2 o’clock ferry left. Threw the lawn mower out and finished the lawn, then filled in the holes on his ‘future decking’ with pebbles. Back in the truck within five minutes and parked up back by the office. Young Philip caught the ferry alone as in the end small one wanted a good session on the dial up internet. Ended up staying for another 2 hours, whilst tall one lay in the grass in the sun reading. At one point they did venture over into the woofing house 2 doors up (where they may be moved in a week or so). It was a shit hole. Every single room stacked with heaps of old clothes, old newspapers, old books, old receipts, old crockery, old anything...... Found the food cupboards already stocked with pasta sauce tins and cereal boxes.... even though the place had been empty for months. He is a strange little man.
Caught the 4pm ferry back. Found Tom had been back (when he picked up Philip) and left us a box of flour (still missing about 5 ingredients for the bread maker though) and a couple of spoons of butter in a tub. Tired already. Even though every day is light on work, and un-filling in every way, we are still shattered somehow. Most night falling asleep by 8pm, and up at 7am next day.... don’t know where the energy gets used up. Told Philip to cook for himself (don’t want to be treating him like a child and cooking and doing everything for him). He cooked himself EIGHT chicken strips and used up all the potatos, eating them all cut into tiny little inch squares whilst sat crossed legged on a chair at the table.... may we’ll cook for him next time. Half an hour later he was dishing himself up a huge bowl of cereal, leaving not too much milk to last us for 3 bowls for breakfast tomorrow. Enough complaining anyway, we’ve all eaten too much chocolate. Small one was back on the chocolate dolphin making and tall one got to lick the spoon.
Monday 11th June 2012
An awkward breakfast with our new foreign friend, no conversation to be had, we used it all up yesterday. Tom arrived before 9pm and put us to work. Philip was weeding (the whole lawn is weeds), small one given a naff chainsaw to cut more logs, tall one suggested he finished demolishing the greenhouse as there was only 20 minutes of work left on it, but Tom said no to leave that and start filling the barrow with sand to put over the bog by the road.... He never lets us finish a single job, even the rockery we started a week ago is still sat there un-completed. After the sand job tall one was told to fill 5 buckets with pebbles which will be taken to be dumped on the island property and he needs the ton of pebbles here shifted (so five buckets really won’t make a dent in that). We then caught the 9.30am ferry to the island (of course all of us stopping work). Tom complaining that he wasn’t going to clean out his truck so the 3 of us could all ride, and had originally thought to leave one of us, but then decided to throw tall one in the back of the pickup.
Over at the office there was no work for 3 of us, he told all of us to “why don’t you take a walk up to the lighthouse and back so I can think of some work for you all”. It was a nice walk, a great view over the sea, clear blue sky, ocean smooth as silk, and a grass snake on the way home. Back at the office he’d thought of ‘loads’ of work, he sent Philip up to collect his mail at the post office, Philip forgetting the box number within 5 minutes though. Tall one screwed a few signs up on the side wall and small one filled up the boat with petrol. He then told small one to take tall one with him in the pickup on the 11am ferry, pick up a hammer and a freezer at the house and come back on the 11.30am. Well we made it across, found the hammer, but could not find a bloody freezer anywhere. We then thought maybe he meant his own house, not our house, so finally sped round the corner and found the thing. It weighed a ton and he originally told small one to do it on his own. We made the ferry in plenty of time, and dropped off the freezer for him. His responce was “don’t you know never to lie a freezer on it’s side, as it may fall over”.... we didn’t understand what that meant.
Customers arrived after 12 noon, but fog had appeared from nowhere, you couldn’t even see the ferry anymore. He started telling people that we may not see anyting, and 1 couple said they’d cancel. By the time 1 o’clock came round it was clear as a bell out again, and he had two free seats, so tall one and small one could go as well as Philip. Tom was swearing the whole time though that he’d just lost $125, small one commented that his loss was our gain (as we had got to go). We got everyone on the boat, lots of English again.... as well as 2 young German lads who looked miserable the whole time through (even when we were surrounded by whales later on). Small one said that he’d spoke to them on the way to the boat and they had snapped and said “we can speak English very well, you don’t have to speak German to us like that other guy” (meaning Tom). Tom does have this habit of crow barring in his German skills into a conversation.
Ended up being a fantastic trip out, the fog left as quick as it arrived. Saw Harbour Porpoises just outside the harbour which came right up to the boat (apparently they rarely do that). Saw puffins again, right by a Minki Whale. He got real close to us as well, lunging out the water a few times, though only a small whale really. At one point he tried to keep up with it, but he could not get the engine to work. He fiddled around for ages whilst everyone was looking at the whale. Then he started doing all these camp sign language actions to small one, such as ‘oops what will i do?, the engine is broken?’. Thankfully it started up again and we then went looking for bigger fish. Tom got a radio call from another tour boat where some Humpbacks were. It was a trip away but we found them in the end. Soon we were surrounded by a good half a dozen Humpback whales, lunging out the water, along with a couple of Fin whales. The water was full of Krill which Tom scooped out and showed us, as well as jumping Herring also trying to catch Krill. A couple of times the Humpbacks came right under the boat which was kinda worrying. Through all of this the young Germans still looked nothing but pissed off (“we CAN speak English!”).
Headed back via the usual seal colony, and made it in around 4.15pm. Tom docked at the furthest boat ramp (the one where he ties the boat up over night as it can cope better with tide changes there). Everyone disembarked, then he told Tall one to stay in the boat whislt he drove it right around to the other boat ramp, the steep one covered with seaweed right by the office. We then had to tie it up temporarily there, for the only purpose being that he couldn’t be bothered to walk from the further one. As soon as all the customers had left with their chocolate dolphins, he then had to un-tie the boat from the near ramp and move it all the way back to the further one where it had stopped anyway.... waste of time. At 4.45pm (the ferry leaving either at 5pm or 6pm) did we want to go on the next one or stay till 6pm, though he had no work for us here anyway. We said we’d catch the 5pm. He then asked how hungry we were in case we stayed till 6pm. This was despite him having said there was nothing for us to do, in the end he stayed on his own and we walked on the 5pm ferry. A tired walk up the road back to the house.
Sunday 10th June 2012
Tom didn’t show up at the house until about 10am. We were there ready with life jacket and needle and thread in hand to pretend we’d been sewing for hours. Said he had an almost full boat tour today at 1m so we may or may not be able to go. Small one said we didn’t want to anyway as there was Ireland laying in the Euro around 3pm. Tom said fine.
Met him on the island on the 11.30am ferry, the little cafe by the ferry depot is now open and make a great hot chocolate with cream. He sent small one up to the gas station in his pickup to fill some jerry cans, but was very very over cautious of giving small one his credit card, even asking if he had his tablet computer with him to buy stuff online.... (incidentally Tom came in this morning gloating “guess what i brought”.... we give up.... “a tablet computer!”, this was curiously just after he had asked to see small one’s on the way back yesterday afternoon). Hoards of guests started arriving, a lot seemed English, and some of the little old ladies were asking “why aren’t there seats in the boat?”. Tom asked Tall one to clean up the summer house attached to the main office. Customers had already started peering in there only to see absolute piles of junk. Then he told tall one not to throw anything away and just move it all up on end of the floor away from the windows. Tall one had never seen so much crap, there was everything from several rusty screwdrivers to empty plastic tubs to empty plastic ham wrappers, rusty old opened and unopened coke cans, cable ties, hinges, card board, old stickers and business labels.... but the whole house and all his other 4-5 are the same....
We helped get the guess on the boat at 1pm, then he said to get the 2pm ferry back. We were also expecting this 17 year old Austrian lad today named Philip, so that should be interesting. We asked if he wanted us to make more chocolate dolphins, but he said he wanted to check the quality of the first batch we’d made.
Well, Ireland lost 3-1 to Croatia, the young lad also turned up. Nice enough, friendly lad with lanky curly hair, English really really not the best, sure he speaks Austrian well enough though. It’s going to be different with him around, as we’ll be having to make 3 cups of tea instead of 2.... hell on earth. Well that and the over explaining things in pigeon English endlessly. Tom turned up just after 6pm, he asked how the football went and small one said don’t ask. Tom’s response was don’t ask about the tour then.... apparently they saw no whales. He ran through a few things with young Philip and then left, but only after stealing that orange and chocolate ice cream out the freezer first.
Saturday 9th June 2012
Was not sure what was happening today. Tom had said it was due to rain so we may be spending the day with wife Penny sewing holes in the life jackets and making chocolate dolphins.... He turned up at 10am and told us we had the morning off, dropped off some more bits and pieces, and the molds for the dolphins. He said they make their own chocolate dolphins to hand out to customers on the tour as well as local businesses (chocolate dolphins because they run a whale watching company obviously....).
We caught the 11.30am ferry over to Long Island and tall one phoned the UK from the Zodiac office as he’d missed his younger sisters wedding. Small one sat outside the single grocery store stealing the un-secured wifi whilst being harassed by rough, inquisitive children. As we were walking back to the ferry Tom drove off the 12.30pm, so we then helped him load up more jackets and caught the 1pm ferry back (almost missed it by about 30 seconds). Back at the guest house he said Penny (if she was coming) may be a few hours, so we were un-sure if we’d actually be doing any work today. Small one watch Nederlands vs. Denmark in the Euro. Tall one made a cup of tea. That was about all you could do here on a day off anyway.
Penny turned up after 3pm, with a huge cup of tea in one hand and some chocolate and needles in the other. A quick tutorial on how to sew up big holes in lifejacket suit crotches and in how to melt buttons and pour them into dolphin molds.... we were then left to it, and small one made chocolate dolphins until about 7pm whilst tall one sewed ankles and crotches up.
Friday 8th June 2012
Started 8.45am. Small one on his logging duty again, whilst tall one had to scrub some plastic shelves and then start taking apart a collapsed rotten greenhouse. Tom turned up but left after 10 minutes, telling tall one he’d forgotten to change out of his pyjamas and had just got dressed over the top of them. Caught the ferry at 9.30am. Had a tour coming at 1pm, so was doing various prep. Though all we really did was small one mowed the lawn and then went through a box of customer’s gloves making pairs, whilst tall one had to put some flag poles up..... Tom had a flag for Nova Scotia, Holland, UK, USA, Canada and Germany.... We relaced the Germany one which was just a rag, but no one knew which way up it went (black-red-yellow or yellow-red-black??). Some German’s turned up 2 hours early for the tour and he asked them if we had the flag correct, to which the biggest German grabbed the flag and started waving it and said “like this....”. Turned out they were Swiss.... Tom was also un-sure about the German flag as it was half the size of all the others, so in the end tall one had to get the ladder out again and swap it for a bigger one... There’s so much politic involved in putting up a few flags.
Tom brought the Zodiac boat around to the dock ready. As he pulled in to the dock he shouted up to us both watching from the road “IF YOU ARE SAYING SOMETHING TO ME I CAN;T HEAR YOU!”..... small one shouted back “WE ARE NOT SAYING ANYTHING!”. Went for lunch up to that grocery store, small one sat outside on his free wifi hotspot whislt tall one brought chocolate. Back at the office the Germans/Swiss were back, still an hour early so stood about bored waiting for the other couples fo turn up (including a honeymooner couple from New York). Finally set off just after 1pm with 13 people in all.
Weather was strange today, as it was bright blue skies, but when we caught the ferry earlier there were huge fog banks coming over the mountains. By the time we set off in the boat it was clear, but then there were some huge walls of fog in various places in the bay.
As we cast off Tom did his speal (exact same as he did with the Tourist group the other day) “Incase any of you have forgotten my name is Tom.... there are ropes to hold on the side of the raft, but don’t worry nobody has fallen out this year.... doh i mean ever. Your orange jackets are also life vests, and if you fall out it’s only a $5 charge for me to come back and collect you.... now for spotting if you see anything we break the raft down into the times of a clock, 12 o’clock, infront 6o’clock behind me just like on a ship (we thought a ship was port and starboard??). Then during the trip he would shout out “12.30-1 o’clock!” And at one point “over there 11.31...!??”.
Not long after we headed out one of them thought they saw a dolphin, and again (same as last group) we had to humour them and hang about waiting to see nothing. We did however see a few lone puffins dotted about which Tom stopped for as one of the women had asked about them earlier. However no whales..... infact 2 solid hours went by of us just flying across endless rolling waves through huge fog banks with nothing but the noise of the wurring engines behind us. It was, well pretty boring.... everyone looked fed up, and also wet with sea spray. Tom had no sonar, no spotters on the beach, no radio communications to give tips, his way of spotting whales was essentially just his two beady eyes in a small boat in a big ocean.
Tom started heading home and showed us the fail safe seal colony. Then ten minutes out (and after 2 hours 50 minutes of searching) Tom shouted that he’d seen a spout of water and turned the boat back to sea. The boat sprayed up a lot of water covering poor small one. Tom then stopped the boat and everyone had their cameras ready..... we waited and waited..... then we were 13 bored people again. Finally there was a spray came up ahead and Tom sped the boat after a whale. He exclaimed that it was a Right Whale, very rare, only 400 left in the ocean. We did indeed catch up with it a few times, and pretty close. It did not stick around to play much, just came up a few times then was gone. Everyone was happy in the end after such a long search. Didn’t get back until 4.45pm, making it an almost 4 hour tour.
We tidied up the jackets and Tom put the boat back to the dock, we missed the 5pm ferry and so had to wait until 6pm. We used his dial up a while and then he had us mowing the lawn in the wwoofing house next door (he really does like to utilise every waking second). We finished by 5 minutes to 6pm, ready for the ferry. We sat in the truck waiting for him and then finally dead on 6pm he came running into the truck exclaiming that he still had to water the plants! He pulled the truck around and jumped out with his water bottle again, small and tall one watched in horror as the ferry was slowly pulling down the ramp with a flurry of water spraying out from behind, whilst Tom was frantically making a few hanging baskets moist. He got back in and said it was going to rain tomorrow anyway, but just incase.... We did make it to the ferry in the end, just as the Captain was seen at the top deck staring at his watch.
Thursday 7th June 2012
Started work ourselves at 8.30am as Tom had said he may be going to Halifax for the day. Small one started grinding rust off a trailer base with an electric metal cutter? Tall one had to inflate one of Tom’s Zodiac rafts and scrub it clean even though the thing had so many holes it deflated over the next half an hour. Tom showed u around 9am (brining us a packet of rich tea biscuits), not going to Halifax today, changed his mind. Correct us on our methods a few times and went to the island alone, coming back after lunch. Had both us painting, small one now painting the trailer green and tall one rubbing rust and flaky paint off some metal chairs and tables to paint green. They were so rusty though that ALL of the paint was coming off, not just the rust.... Tom seems another one, like Bruce who would polish a dog turd instead of throwing it away.
Tall one managed to get just as much green paint on the grass as the table, but thought he could not be complained at for painting the grass green? Tom then left about 1.30pm and said for us to re-clean the boat again as it was still dirty, then left. We finished painting about 2pm, then re-inflated the boat twice and scrubbed it again, though it was so dirty you could scrub all day and it would still not be clean. We stopped at 3pm and went inside finished for the day. Small one screwed from bent over that trailer with either a metal cutter or paint brush all day. Tom came back just after and seemed happy enough. We have potentially 2 Zodiac whale watching tours tomorrow, so may be different, plus the 17 year old Austrian student may be joining us tomorrow.... should also be different.
Wednesday 6th June 2012
Another eractic days work. Started just before 9pm outside the guest house in the garden. Small one with a hand saw chopping up branches and making a pile, whilst tall one had to take apart a lawn mower and see if he could fix it.... not having a clue what he was doing. Tom had asked “which one of you is the mechanic”, there was a long pause and small one said “...the Austrian” (the 3rd wwoofer who hadn’t arrived yet), Tom having no sense of humour what so ever responded, “well one of you will have to do for now”. Then after 1 hour, Tom had us in the van and over the ferry to Long Island to work on the ‘retreat’ house where we were cutting grass yesterday. We were there for an hour and a half digging up tree roots.... He claimed he was making a lawn there, but not a hope. It was at least a weeks work, but after an hour and a half it was back on the ferry and back to the guest house.... Small one put back to work on the tree logging (this time with an electric chainsaw). Tall one was told to spread around a scattering of top soil (from the other house) over all the many many dead sandy patches in the lawn.... a fruitless task, but he did it. Then he was put back to work on the lawn mower. Any small job (that would take half an hour) or big job (that might take a week) we’d be put to work on, and then told to stop half way through and start something else for half an hour, and then be put onto something else..... it’s a real scatter gun approach to work, so there’s about 100 jobs started and none near completion.... no wonder ever house is a state. He also tries to use every possible second of his waking day to do something, such as when we were on our way to catch the ferry back on the hour (the next one being in another hour if missed), he pulled in at the office at 59 minutes to the hour and said “i know there’s not much time but i’m gonna water the plants”.... then he got out to water 2 hanging baskets using the 1cm of water left in his mineral water bottle..... waste of time an almost risking missing the ferry.....Then whilst small one was doing his logs Tom told him to look out for tick bites, small one asked if you get them working where he was (in the tree branches), he said no here not in there, small one asked if he meant bed bugs or black fly bites, Tom said no they are ticks, and small one asked where do you get bitten by them, and Tom said they are in wood.... (where small one is working??). Finished for the day around 3.30pm. Tom told us to make sure we turned the TV off at the wall and not just by the remote. He gave us some mince and said that would be for us to cook tomorrow night and that tonight we should cook Pork. He’s a strange little fellow, harmless enough. He said he may not be here tomorrow and so said we could just work a couple of hours and have the rest of the day off, but then gave us 4 very big jobs to get done....
Small on cooked a great pork stir fry with spuds. We then walked down to the 7.30pm ferry back to the island and went into the Zodiac office to use his internet.... Felt a bit like breaking and entering but he does leave the sliding door unlocked. Stood in that shambles of a place for an hour (till 9pm) on a painfully slow dial up computer, managed to look at about 3 websites each in that time, then we headed back voer the ferry. Walking back to the house were followed by the black cat from the harbour, but we lost it around the corner where the stinking dead raccoon lay half eaten.
Tuesday 5th June 2012
Up early and tv was already on by small one, watching some terrible Moring show talking about the Jubilee. Had a bowl of cornflakes each, did not taste right. It was then we noted they had gone out of date back in Oct 2011.... 8 months ago. We threw them away hoping Tom wouldn’t notice. We also noticed that the water in the taps was coming out orange. Tom came by and put us to work just before 9am, and for an hour or more we had to move big rocks from a flower bed and throw them in a boggy pit by the road, then cover the pit with sand dug out from the same flower bed. Tall one found a small snake between the rocks he was moving. He said he’d be back at 10.20am and to make sandwhiches, though we found there was no bread in the house so had to use pitta bread.
Picked up and drove across the ferry. Pulled up at his Zodiac Office which was an absolute bomb site inside. He had a group of 9 Germans from the tourist board coming today for a boat trip. He was un-sure what to have us do while he got the boat ready, and so had us put together a flat pack plastic tool cupboard. He showed us the house 2 buildings up for wwoofers, which was essentially like a rundown abandoned haunted house, again filled with absoloutley boxes and boxes of junk. He told us all the projects he had for the wwoofing house, and the Zodiac office and the guest house we were staying in back on the mainland.... all seemed to be half devised project and never seen through. He let us have a half an hour to walk around and we found the only shop on the island. Small one scanning every building for free wifi finally found one house with unsecured network, and made tall one stand in the road for ten minutes while he went on facebook and his football sites.
Back at the office and Tom had us scrubbing lack aglae off the side of the Zodiac Boat with washing up scrubbers, to no real effect. The germans arrived, 1 very tall man and 8 very small women. We helped et the jackets out for everyone and had to hold the boat as everyone got on. Out for about an hour and Tom was not to bothered about finding whales, as it was raining lightly, with a strong wind and some rough waves. Took us to see the Balancing Rock up the coast and then over to see numerous Grey and Harbour seals popping up and around the boat. Then over some very very large waves over to the lighthouse and back in to the shore.
We helped Tom pack up the baot and tidy up after the Germans left, and then at about 2.30pm Tom said we could mow some grass and said he’d take us to one of his houses.... turned out it was another property he owned. Tall one asked how many buildings he owned and he said he couldn’t remember. This one was a big yellow house overlooking the harbour. Inside was gutted and just rubble and wood scattered about. Small one had to mow the edge of the lawn with a push mower, even the knee high grass. Tom had forgot the key to the ride on mower and so had to go back for it, but set tall one to work. Tall one had to dig slabs of turf out the lawn and stack them up (to be used at another property) and then dig up the top soil and heap in another tray (to use somewhere else), all this being done on the site where Tom planned a new porch. All these projects Tall one was rather dubious off, especially as next to the fresh turf and soil he was stacking was some stacks of very very old dried out turf and soil which was probably stacked up a year ago by some other wwoofer. Back at 2.50pm Tom told us both that we would work another 5 minutes then he would take us back (as the ferry only leaves once an hour, the next ones being 3m or 4pm). At 5 past 3 we were still working, with Tom bombing around in his ride on mower, the Gerry already gone. Thankfully the ferry turned around and came back (Seemingly it does extra runs sometimes) so we managed to get on at 3.20pm and got back to the house with the afternoon off.
Back at the guest house, Tall one used the time machine shower. It smelt of rotten eggs at first with the rusty water pouring out. The time machine also lit up with many buttons on a display which can operate radios and such. Even when you turn this time machine off it does a 60 second count down before shutting down.
Monday 4th June 2012
Had our free breakfast downstairs in Digby hostel. Joined by the owner, a young woman who giggled like a school girl. The place was literally full of germans.... They knew Tom from the Zodiac wwoofing and said everyone has a great time there, and apparently there are even bears on the island. Her husband came to join the owner, and he seemed twice her age. Before we checked out back online we had a bizarre email from Melba at The Organic Farm replying to our balanced review of our 2 night stay ont he wwoof website (which mentioned the dogs licking the plates, bad organization etc). Her email was:
“Dear Michael and Conor
II am sorry you didn`t stay around and have a better experience. When I got back, I met with Woofers and worked out an individual schedule and a list of activities people wanted to take part in, off the farm, from skate boarding, to wall climbing, hiking and chasing ice bergs and provided rides; we also saw and took pictures of a young moose near our back woods.
As Jana said, every farm is different and people have different life styles. I was raised on a farm; Mike was raised in an upper middle class family in New York City; his father was a doctor. his mother a lawyer; he took a position in the psychology department at Memorial University, so our children could have a simple way of life; we are grateful to have found it, in Newfoundland, to have the farm and space and also to host people from around the world. With all of the stress and violence around the world, it gives me great hope to become acquainted with so many woofers, young and old, who have such positive values about the sustaining our environment and growing organically. And, living as peacefully as possible with each other. And example is Joel doubling up with Jana in the living room, to make room for you all. And, as you can see, Jana has no complaints, even though she might have been the person who felt crowded. She also cooked a wonderful meal for the night of my arrival, after being in the Toronto airport for 3 nights with little food and little money.
Woofers usually bring new interests,passions and ideas; we learn something from each person and for the most part, the relationships are sustained over the years. I get cards from this or that woofer, from Australia, Japan, Ireland, Holland, from time to time. In February, our farm was featured on the CBC Land and Sea program, a national television program in Canada. We got e-mails from several former woofers who saw the program.
Sorry, you were so disappointed. When and if I have time I may sill post a rebuttal so your comments do not scare off other woofers who have applied for the season. We got one recent cancellation, so am wondering or I may write to all of the woofers who have applied for this season, to Jana`s comments. But, that`s another time consuming activity. I have to be wise about how much time I spend on this issue against what the potential harm is for the farm and prospective woofers. I feel I have already spent too much time on this. I chair of 2 local charities having to do with child mental health; whatever time I can borrow from the farm, I have to use for planning and working for the charities and supporting the board of the local Farmers Market.
I am still hurt and angry, but, am ready to let it go. The general understanding is that it is important to move as quickly as possible toward the stage of forgiveness because it helps the person who is doing the forgiving. I think I am finally in that place with your recent grievances against the farm and sincerely wish you the best in your woofing experiences on other farms. .
Melba (Rabinowitz) Co-Owner. Organic Farm
-------- Original Message --------
II am sorry you didn`t stay around and have a better experience. When I got back, I met with Woofers and worked out an individual schedule and a list of activities people wanted to take part in, off the farm, from skate boarding, to wall climbing, hiking and chasing ice bergs and provided rides; we also saw and took pictures of a young moose near our back woods.
As Jana said, every farm is different and people have different life styles. I was raised on a farm; Mike was raised in an upper middle class family in New York City; his father was a doctor. his mother a lawyer; he took a position in the psychology department at Memorial University, so our children could have a simple way of life; we are grateful to have found it, in Newfoundland, to have the farm and space and also to host people from around the world. With all of the stress and violence around the world, it gives me great hope to become acquainted with so many woofers, young and old, who have such positive values about the sustaining our environment and growing organically. And, living as peacefully as possible with each other. And example is Joel doubling up with Jana in the living room, to make room for you all. And, as you can see, Jana has no complaints, even though she might have been the person who felt crowded. She also cooked a wonderful meal for the night of my arrival, after being in the Toronto airport for 3 nights with little food and little money.
Woofers usually bring new interests,passions and ideas; we learn something from each person and for the most part, the relationships are sustained over the years. I get cards from this or that woofer, from Australia, Japan, Ireland, Holland, from time to time. In February, our farm was featured on the CBC Land and Sea program, a national television program in Canada. We got e-mails from several former woofers who saw the program.
Sorry, you were so disappointed. When and if I have time I may sill post a rebuttal so your comments do not scare off other woofers who have applied for the season. We got one recent cancellation, so am wondering or I may write to all of the woofers who have applied for this season, to Jana`s comments. But, that`s another time consuming activity. I have to be wise about how much time I spend on this issue against what the potential harm is for the farm and prospective woofers. I feel I have already spent too much time on this. I chair of 2 local charities having to do with child mental health; whatever time I can borrow from the farm, I have to use for planning and working for the charities and supporting the board of the local Farmers Market.
I am still hurt and angry, but, am ready to let it go. The general understanding is that it is important to move as quickly as possible toward the stage of forgiveness because it helps the person who is doing the forgiving. I think I am finally in that place with your recent grievances against the farm and sincerely wish you the best in your woofing experiences on other farms. .
Melba (Rabinowitz) Co-Owner. Organic Farm
-------- Original Message --------
| Subject: | Letter On the Way |
| Date: | Mon, 04 Jun 2012 01:28:17 -0230 |
| From: | organicfarm |
| To: | Jana Enge |
Hi Jana
I put your letter in the mail on Saturday. Louis took the envelope to
add something, but I picked it up the next day from the shed. He didn't
put anything in it, yet - so, I mailed it anyway. I will address another
envelope and leave it in the shed. Maybe he will send what he had in
mind later.
Thanks so much for responding to the negative comments. I was very
concerned that their outrageous posting would put off some of the
woofers who are already planning to come this season. I didn`t respond
to the comments. Things are very busy still and it takes too much
emotional energy to put together something reasonable. I was too angry,
especially, since, these people first wrote in February about coming,
then, wrote regrets, in April, saying they had found what seemed to be a
better place, then, wrote me again in late April, saying they learned
that the host they chose required 40 hours of work, whereas we only
asked for 25, so could they still come to the Organic Farm. That should
have been the first clue, but, i am a social worker, by profession and
providing options is a calling card of the profession.
I knew we were crowded/ phoned a friend from Arizona and asked about
using a room in her place; it is down the road, between the farm and the
ferry and is actually a b and b; however, May is considered off season
for the B and B. I have paid her a stipend for woofers to stay there in
May before if it seems to cold to stay in a tent. But, when I called
from my brothers house on Thursday, Mike said, she had cancelled the
arrangements because she got a chance to rent the room for regular
renters prices at the last minute/ and he also said, Fumiko was with
Louis and you and joel were doubling up, to make room; This sounded
workable until I got home; i knew I could find something else if need be
when I got back. I have other friends who live near-by, who would loan
me a spare room, as a favour. On Friday, when I called from the airport
to tell Mike I was stuck in Toronto, due to fog in St. John's, he said,
they had already gone. I don't know how I felt at the time/ a little
discouraged and a little relieved. It was inconvenient and crowded; I
only let them come because I had arranged to use the B an B space for
the month of May, like i have done in prior years.
Then, to be so lambasted on the WOOFER Website. I found the comments
remarkable and am so grateful to you, to give your prospective,
especially a WOOFER who was here at the same time. As for my absence,
first of all, the reason I didn't come home with Mike and went by
Tennessee is that I have two older brothers who have several health
risks; although they are holding their own at the moment, one after open
heart surgery and the other, cancer treatments, at this stage in our
lives, we can't take anything fore granted. I go to visit them as often
as I can.
So, here I am visiting my brothers who are elderly and ill, then,
stranded in Toronto, for 3 days,only to be lamblasted on the WOOFERS
website, by two young people I thought I was befriending. Imagine my
chagrin, when I read comments about mike sneezing and the dogs licking
the plates. I am well aware that our way of life is informal and may be
different from what they expected. . Values relating to how animals are
included or excluded into family spaces is a matter of personal
experiences and preferences. Mike had no pets when he was growing up; my
dad hated cats and although greatly loved our dogs, the rules were that
the dogs lived outdoors. We got our first dog when Louis was eight
because he felt in love with a black lab. Soon, they were sleeping in
his bed together. Over time, I learned to be comfortable with pets and
enjoy sharing our living space, taking my cues from Louis and Toby. Of
course, if our life style made them uncomfortable, they should have
left, but I am sadden and surprised at how they tried to degrade the
Organic Farm on the International Stage for other WOOFERS. .
Jana, Thanks for everything. Your helpfulness to the farm was
immeasurable. As the WOOFERS book indicates, we have had many, many
wonderful and satisfied woofers over the years, from around the world,
including England and Scotland. We have only had one other set of
woofers leave the farm abruptly, our first year of woofing. They were
from New Jersey, USA. We never did find out what they were upset about.
They didn't seem very happy with each other; sometimes, these things
reflect deeper issues than what appears on the surface.
Although I regret what happened, Thanks to you, I won't have to put
spend much more energy worrying about it.
Kind Regards Always, Melba
p.s. we hope to see you again in August.”
We thought it all a little odd and frustrating. So, despite having been quite fair and balanced in our original review, we let rip on her in our email responce:
“Hi Melba,
Thank you for your response. It was not our intention to offend or upset anybody with our review. We are good honest people, and feel we left a very balanced review which mentioned the positives and negatives.
Sorry we never got the chance to meet you or work alongside you, and from what we gather it was better organized upon your return. However this does not excuse the points we raised. Nobody criticized you for being away from the farm but our point was that in your absence the farm should still be run under the same conditions that you stipulated to us in your email and on your wwoofing page. If you state 5 hours a day, it should be 5 hours a day. Joel told us that when he left the farm he didn't get so much as a thankyou and on most days he was working 7 hours! There was no justification to have us put straight to work on arrival when we'd been travelling so long, and if there was no space at the farm then we just should have been turned away. We can appreciate you are pet lovers and people can live to their own lifestyles, but when you have guests in your home then meeting a basic hygiene level is good manners. What was also disconcerting was that one of your sons was sleeping with 2 of the wwoofing girls who were there during our stay, we decided it would be unfair to put this on our review.
Thank you for including your email to Jana, to which we DO take offence. To start with you state incorrect information that we had booked with yourself in February and then cancelled in April after "finding a better place"....?? We made an enquiry with yourself and some other hosts in February, and had told you at the time that because you took almost a week to respond we had already been accepted by another farm in the meantime. We then re-contacted you in April to see if you still had space as it was not going to work out with the original host. You can try and twist any facts in your favour Melba, but facts are facts. You've listed a long email response to us about your family history and your problems in Toronto, but not once addressed any of the issues we actually raised in our review. Side stepping issues does not actually resolve them, and it is frustrating how somebody cannot admit their own faults and ignorantly put all the blame on somebody else. But I guess you're a social worker and you know best.
We can agree to disagree, and have moved on. We wwoofed elsewhere in Newfoundland and had a wonderful experience, so have not been put off. We consider the matter closed and will now move on. As stipulated on the wwoofing sites ‘Review Rules’ we left constructive and well balanced feedback in the hope that you may gain an insight into where there is room for improvement as a wwoofing host.
Mike and Conor”
Thank you for your response. It was not our intention to offend or upset anybody with our review. We are good honest people, and feel we left a very balanced review which mentioned the positives and negatives.
Sorry we never got the chance to meet you or work alongside you, and from what we gather it was better organized upon your return. However this does not excuse the points we raised. Nobody criticized you for being away from the farm but our point was that in your absence the farm should still be run under the same conditions that you stipulated to us in your email and on your wwoofing page. If you state 5 hours a day, it should be 5 hours a day. Joel told us that when he left the farm he didn't get so much as a thankyou and on most days he was working 7 hours! There was no justification to have us put straight to work on arrival when we'd been travelling so long, and if there was no space at the farm then we just should have been turned away. We can appreciate you are pet lovers and people can live to their own lifestyles, but when you have guests in your home then meeting a basic hygiene level is good manners. What was also disconcerting was that one of your sons was sleeping with 2 of the wwoofing girls who were there during our stay, we decided it would be unfair to put this on our review.
Thank you for including your email to Jana, to which we DO take offence. To start with you state incorrect information that we had booked with yourself in February and then cancelled in April after "finding a better place"....?? We made an enquiry with yourself and some other hosts in February, and had told you at the time that because you took almost a week to respond we had already been accepted by another farm in the meantime. We then re-contacted you in April to see if you still had space as it was not going to work out with the original host. You can try and twist any facts in your favour Melba, but facts are facts. You've listed a long email response to us about your family history and your problems in Toronto, but not once addressed any of the issues we actually raised in our review. Side stepping issues does not actually resolve them, and it is frustrating how somebody cannot admit their own faults and ignorantly put all the blame on somebody else. But I guess you're a social worker and you know best.
We can agree to disagree, and have moved on. We wwoofed elsewhere in Newfoundland and had a wonderful experience, so have not been put off. We consider the matter closed and will now move on. As stipulated on the wwoofing sites ‘Review Rules’ we left constructive and well balanced feedback in the hope that you may gain an insight into where there is room for improvement as a wwoofing host.
Mike and Conor”
So anyway, on with the day. Being picked up in Digby around 4-5pm with the new (and final) wwoofer.... should be interesting. So far the only black cloud over our Canada is bad wwoofing experiences. Spent the day in Digby.... overcast day in a fairly quaint harbour town, famous for its scallops. The free museum was closed and the only thing to do was walk the harbourside and lock at a lot of debris and old fishing boats. Small one priced a new calling card in a highstreet shop, he asked for one to phone Ireland, and all the man could tell him was which one was good to phone Columbia???
Brought the obligatory postcards to send home which came to $4.14. When we couldn’t find the 14 cents in change and just gave her a $5, she said “don’t worry i’ll help you out a bit on that” and then gave us the 86 cents change?? We then stopped in a cafe run by a wife and husband (though he was quite cam so we presumed brother). The coffees were very small and expensive, and the food a little tough, but all homemade and a nice view over the murky harbour. Headed up to the town library, a steep 20 minute climb only to find it closed on Mondays. Brought a Tim Hortons coffee where there were several pairs or even trio’s of 4x4 cars parked in bunches all with their windows down and had middle aged men all conversing....
Back to hostel by about 2pm, to await our ride later.... hoping for the best. Small one already wants out as he has told us their is virtually no internet on the island.
Well we got picked up by Penny (Tom’s wife) at 5pm. Squashed all our bags and ourselves into her little car and she drove us a good half an hour to get to their house out on Digby Neck. She explained that our wwoofing accommodation wasn’t ready yet (rustic, heaterless cabin on Long Island) and so we would be a few days in their guest house (which they rent out later in the season). We would also be joined by a 17 year old Austrian lad on Friday when he was hitch hiking in from Halifax.
Penny was very nice, very friendly. She told us Tom had been one of the first whale watching tours on the coast, started back in 1986? She said we cook ourselves and they stock the fridge for us, just write a shopping list for them every couple of days. Apparently there may be a whale tour out tomorrow (group of German Tourism clients) weather dependant, so we may get out on that. She mentioned that if Tom loses his temper to just ignore it, it’s just work, but this time of year (Early season) it shouldn’t be busy and so should be fine.... uh oh???
Penny parked up att he guest house, out the front was scattered a couple of the Zodiac boats and Tom’s red pickup. Tom came out from the house, not what we expected, and different from his photo. He was a very small, dumpy man, looked a bit of an oompa-loompa, small black glasses, small eyes (Small everything infact), black goatie and quite a high pitched voice. He was also pretty friendly and they showed us into the huge guest house, two big rooms, one enormous bathroom with a sauna tub (big sign on it saying ‘NOT FOR STAFF’), and this enormous shower which resembled a time machine, with so many levels and nozzles.... Huge kitchen and sofa lounge as well. Tom then gave us instructions such as ‘there’s food in the freezer don’t touch it, we don’t use the dryer either use the washing line, don’t touch the thermostat leave it at 18, don’t open a new box of cereal until you use up the open ones....”. It was all fair enough. They left us some left over beef curry (which was really good) and were gone within 15 minutes. We made ourselves at home and he said he’d be back in the morning between 8-9am. After dinner had a wonder down the hill to the ferry port over to Long Island. A nice harbour, with a very fast current between the spit and the island. Was followed by a black cat up the wharf and small one spent most of his time scanning every house we past for free wifi.....
Sunday 3rd June 2012
Stayed in the hostel and room right up until checkout at 12,noon. On the news there had been a shooting back in Toronto Eaton Centre’s Urban Eatery food court. This was where small one had worked and he managed to get in contact with the staff. Apparently most of them were off that day anyway, and no staff were hurt. Seemingly a gang related thing, someone walked into the court up to station 4 and 5 and shot some young fella dead, others got hurt, mostly hurt from the stampede of everyone running out (whilst everyone else hid under the table). Small one spoke to some of his friends who worked at Big Smoke Burger who said they just ran out the food court, apparently the security guards without guns were gallantly chasing after the man (who got away), also saw on the news one of his old staff members Marcus (who he used to call Kramer for his eccentric behaviour, such as always stopping to look at himself in every mirror) was interview and how he’d been right next to the shooting (15 shots). Later small one phoned Sunny from the food court who also told him no staff were hurt.
When we left we had planned to have breakfast in their cafe, but apparently on Sundays they only do brunch.... looking at the brunch menu it was the same as the breakfast menu but twice as expensive, so struggled up town with our huge bags, up and down those bloody hills. Had a subway breakfast and small one sued the wifi a good while. Tall one went in a ‘London Shop’, only to find it a very snobby art gallery where some stuck up fella started telling him how this desk was made out of an aircraft wing and only cost $2,000.... tall one only came in for a postcard?? Then gradually struggled further and further up the harbour walk to the bus station. At one point was given a blue leaflet by a gang of religion people staking out the ferry terminal as new people arrived. Tall one took one and it was on about how the Titanic was said to be un-sinkable by God, and so God had shown his true powers and sunk it. Made it to the bus depot. Small one slept whilst tall one brought supplies at the supermarket. Brought return bus tickets to Digby, somehow using our Hostel International card as a student card and getting a return for $76 instead of $89.
Sat in the train/bus station from 2.30pm until 6.30pm when the bus was due to leave. Watched numerous passenegrs come and go. One man in shorts kept harassing a staff member and was told to leave twice, and left demanding to know the man’s name and get his business card. Another very large passenger disembarked a train with a trolley of suitcases and a bassett hound on a lead, then continued to struggle in and out of the large heavy doors with dog and luggage.... dropping suitcases and strangling the dog in the process, but then continued to re-enter, sit down a while then exit ten minutes later, then come back in..... we went sure what he was at.
Boarded bus at 6.40pm. Tall one had detached his ticket for the outward journey despite it saying in big letters ‘void is detached’, but the driver didn’t care too much. The bus had electric sockets but no wifi, but managed to watch the CSI season final and then an episode of Mr Bean.... Got into Digby just after 11pm. The bus driver gave us directions to the hostel, which sent us up some dark alleyway, and then up a very very steep hill – which was hell with our huge backpacks. Made it to the hostel, let in by a chirpy young girl who told us we’d be surrounded by Germans tonight. Free breakfast in the morning apparently and then we went to bed..... in some quite bizarrely uncomfortable beds.
Saturday 2nd June 2012
Got very little sleep, the staff and guests had a BBQ and drinks until 3am sat right outside our room window in the alleyway. In the morning the hostel cafe didn’t opn until 10am, and tall one went to get some coffee and food for small one... the staff are pretty useless, no hello, no good morning, stood for 5 minutes before they bothered to ask what i wanted. Sat and waited for the food and some old thin man came and sat next to tall one despite there being another dozen free tables in the place. Back in the room with coffee and breakfast muffin, Tom from the whale watching wwoofing had emailed again.... really don’t understand this lunatic. We had told him last night we’ll just get the bus as he was still un-sure about picking us up. We said we can’t get public buses as expected anymore (The $30 option) and now had to take the Acadian direct bus (for $50) which got in at 11pm Sunday night. So suggested if he could not pick us up at 11pm Sunday, that we’d stay in Digby hostel and he could pick us up in the morning. His response was: “okay well for the same $$$ i’ll come pick you up Monday in Halifax”. So now he wants us to pay for another night in Halifax and pay him the same fare for the bus??? We said no thanks we’ll see you in Digby.
Walked into town midday, down the harbourside boardwalk. Brought a Subway sandwhich and a Beavers Tail. It was a ncie sunny day but we were overcast due to being messed around by this wwoofing man and small one still being messed around by his tax return. Watched a bizarre random band of young and old people banging drums and bells on the boardwalk whilst two old men flew by on their motor scooters beeping their horns. Brought a cold dinner and walked back to the hostel hoping it would be a quieter night tonight.
Friday 1st June 2012
Up around 6am in the McDonalds car park, after listening to intermittent weirdos driving in and out all night. Drove the last 100km down to Halifax, filling up another $5 of petrol to try and take home an empty tank (so we didn’t lose out on their pre-pay for the full tank when we left). Dropped off the car after driving over 1600km, it ended up being $100 less than expected and was only $424 total.
We had dropped our backpacks at the Halifax Hostel on Gottinden street on the way down and now met up with young Joel from St John’s who flew in a few days ago to stay with family. Walked up to look at The Citadel where a strange ugly young lad came out marching in Tartan. You had to pay to enter, so we left.
Walked back to the hostel explaining to Joel how there were 3 shootings in Halifax in the last week and one just a few blocks from the hostel. This was a strange ghetto street, mixed in with all the gangs was a hoard of rainbow flag hanging from every other shop. Back at the hostel we dropped off our jackets and managed to get a shower in early as we could still not check in). Sat in the cafe as we waited for small one to pamper himself... the cafe was very weird with bohemian bullshit this morning, with loud music being played by a DJ at 9am and weird skinny guys in skinny jeans walking in wearing old women’s jackets walking as if they’d shit their pants (i think they were dancing to the music, but not too sure).
Walked up to the Fairview cemetery where 150 Titanic dead were buried. Was a 4km walk and we seemed to stop at every phone box (for small one to phone home and failing) and every convenient store to buy ice creams. Tal one brought one of his ink smiley men ice lollies, to which the hippy stoner behind the counter started going on about how it was “so funny man that everyone thinks they are gonna be smiling, but then you take it but the wrapper and it ain’t smiling....”. Small one un-wraped his ice lolyl and held up the pink smiling man to the cashier who goofily laughed.... we got the hell out of there.
Made it the to cemetery where two tour buses were walking round. Found the Unknown child’s grave, J. Dawson’s grave (From the movie) and small one found a J. Brown who may or may not be his relative’s grave. Walked back to town and through the Public Gardens. Brought some chips, Joel got us lost and then we went down Morrison Street were there were some old coloured buildings.
Back to the harbour front and in the Information Centre we asked a women helper how we may be able to get to Digby cheap on a bus (as Tom was being weir din his emails about picking us up). We regretted asking this women advice as she was printing off several pages, making phone calls, and then explaining how this bus got in at 3.05pm but the next one left at 3.00pm, and how there was an aple parade on in Kentville and so we couldn;t take our luggage on the bus that day..... it’s all just a blur now, and after half an hour of it we were still stuck. Later we checked our emails to find Tom had finally emailed us back, but not to confirm a lift, only to confirm that he didn’t have a clue and suggested we could even wwoof somewhere else if we wanted and welcome to his chaos (smiley face) ??? We had arranged wwoofing with him way back in February and he was still this disorganized about us coming?
Got cash out of TD, whilst small one made a phone call back home. Joel had to beg to borrow the key to the TD toilet and then thought he could get a good view out over the city by going up their staff elevator to floor 19 to look out. Only when he got there a receptionist sat staring back at him a the doors opened, and he just pressed the button and headed right back down again. We stopped in Alexander Keith’s brewery for some beers, where we fed a starling some food scraps and the waitress had blindingly white teeth, whilst the barmen all had identically shaved beards. Later we went through the Historical Building area, and out to another harbour front bar. There they were obviously less discriminatory with their waitresses, as they even had the large build ones in short Tartan skirts. After some Cows ice cream (child size for small one) we sat in the sun until small one was going to fall asleep, so we left Joela round 6.30pm to catch his ferry back, and we headed back to the hostel.
Thursday 31st May 2012
Woke up around 5am and moved the car just down the road to Moncton’s information centre and Tidal Bore park. Waited until 6.15am and walked up the river to wait for the water. We had seen this in Charlie Boorrman’s tour of Canada documentary where the salt water tide comes in as a small wall of water flowing upstream over the freshwater river. It was more interesting than we thought it would be, though essentially was just some muddy water flowing upstream.
We then left for Magnetic Hill in Moncton, advertised as the hill that makes your car roll up when in Neutral. It usually cost $5, but thankfully was free before 8am. It was literally just a small slope and you had to wait by a pole and put the car un neutral and in rolled backwards..... except it wasn’t uphill at all, you rolled downhill. If you got out the car you could see it was a downward slope the car went down and not uphill, though it did feel like an uphill when you arrived. Thankfully we had not spent the $5 (the road was even badly tarmacked)..... can’t see that topping Canada’s top attraction list.
Headed off the hill and into McDonalds outside Moncton, our last full day of travel. Back to the information centre in Moncton to get some maps from a very over enthusiastic French young lad behind the counter. Drove 40km down the otherside of the bay to Hopewell Rocks. Some large sand formations jutting out from the ground in bizarre shapes. Was very nice, shame was overcast weather. Had to pay $7 each to get in, and avoided thei r cafe which was expensive and full of children. Had tried to make a phone call from their local phone box to call a black bear tour north of here in New Brunswick. This local call was quoted to cost $5.05.... so we left that.
Small one was very tired and hungry by now, but we made it back to Moncton. He parked back into the friendly visitor information centre and fell asleep virtually outside their door. Their staff and customers walked past the car for the next 2 hours wondering why some lad was asleep with a fleece over his face.
Around 3pm brought a heap of food from the supermarket we slept outside last night and then drove south towards Halifax. The car is not due back until 9am tomorrow, so we’ll find somewhere to sleep on the way back out of the 270km to go. Stoped in Amherst (back in Nova Scotia) to clean out the filthy filthy car we’d been living in for 4 days. We tried a detour down to a Beach Road just outside Truro, but it turned out to just be endless fields of dead Dandelions and an abandoned house at the end overlooking a muddy beach. Now in Truro, back in the old faithful McDonalds.... we seem to live our lives in Canada in McDonalds, Tim Hortons and Greyhound Buses.....
Wednesday 30th May 2012
Woke up in our steamed up car, still tired and stinking from being on our third day without a shower. Started queuing for the ferry but were un-sure if we had to go into the ticket office as it was supposed to be ferry to go out to Prince Edward Island and $60 odd dollars to get back. We asked the guy infront of us but he said it was his first time as well. Boarded ferry around 8am, and was all fine. The ferry was strange, run down thing, the information desk had no leaflets and was un-manned. All the passengers seemed to be working men in working clothes stood about chatting noisily, it was like we’d walked into a Working Man’s Club.
Off the ferry and it was lashing with rain. We drove the speed limit and soon a queue of frustrated cars and lorries were queued behind us (this happened many times through the P.E.I.) We turned off down a side road to Point Prim Lighthouse, where we watched it get wet in the rain by the murky muddy sea. Back on to the highway and finally into Charlottetown. Our first hour’s parking was free (if you got the ticket stamed at the visitors centre), so we almost rushed around the City in an hour,but ended up staying 2 and paying the $1.50. A nice enough City, lots of trees, bit confederation buildings, old red bricks houses and wooden fronted mansions. May have been nicer if it wasn’t pissing down with rain. We did stop and buy some eggs for breakfast in a cafe where we left no tip. Brought a really naff magnet for Prince Edward Island then we headed north around midday to North Rustico.
North Rustico was a small fishing village, lots of little messy boats and sheds surrounded by lobster traps. Large gulls and osprey were fishing round the waters as well. We headed up to the top coast line of Prince Edward Island’s National Park. There we saw a couple of very wet and skinny red foxs. One was hunting and diving in long grass for mice, the other chased our car down begging for food (we may have fed him some left over chicken and ham). Following the red sand dune beach up and finally turning in to the Green Gables. A picturesque old farm used for the setting of a 1908 book ‘Anne of Green Gables’. It had finally stopped raining butwas pretty overcast. A nice enough place anyway, though people did look a little strangely at two guys walking around this quaint setting (the book is about a little ginger hair girl who goes to stay at a new farm who have adopted her). Most of the other people there seemed to be Japanese or snobs (the wife calling after he husband “Timothy, oh Timothy won’t you take my picture!”).
Down to Cavendish Beach to see some bigger sand dunes and some marshland. Saw a Rangers van drive in and thought they’d be asking to see our pass, but luckily they left before we got back to the car. It was mid-;ate afternoon and so we decided to try and drive off the island before dark. Heading through the back farm roads, through a lot of very dark red soil, and vast flat farmland, we made it to the south coast again. There we took the very very long (13 km long) Confederation Bridge over to New Brunswick, which cost us $44 each.
Now in New Brunswick we headed north towards Moncton. We had travelled into 3 Canadian provenances in 1 day. Though we had probably done this before on our many Greyhound buses. We have now stopped off in Shediac (before Moncton) to take a picture of a Giant Lobster and use the McDonalds free wifi. Everyone seems a bit rough in this town, some guy smoking happily by the petrol pumps, and some old woman coughing her guts up opposite us in McDonalds.... maybe we’ll sleep in the car here, but maybe we’ll take our chances somewhere else? Tall one had an email from a middle aged woman he used to work with in the UK saying “sorry for the short message, i’ve got a sore throat???”.
We left Shediac in the end and drove into Moncton. It was dark and we were tired and small one almost killed us not looking as he drove onto a roundabout. In the end we pulled up in a bit Supermarket car park on Main Street. Small one used their toilet then we went to sleep hoping the car park would not empty out over night. We were right opposite a big plush hotel and so as we lay there in our clothes and sleeping bags uncomfortable on our car seats you could stare out on the windows of the big warm hotel.
Tuesday 29th May 2012
Woke up pretty cold around 4-5am, but stayed in the car till about 7am. Got up and did the small waterfall hike in the campsite. Drove a while and drove down an unsealed, bumpy road to Bulach Falls, where the car sounded like it scraped bottom. Heading over to the east coast now. Took a coastal detour round some very small fishing village called White Point. Back into the National Park and a loop track around Jiggy Lake. Stopped to buy a cup of tea from a petrol station in Ignoish, when tall one asked for ‘one black and one white tea’, the woman looked confused and wondered what kind of tea was white, tall one had to tell her ‘one with milk one without’. Another loop track out over a cliff edge called Middle Cove, where tall one saw a snake in a bush. Small one had to use the Keltic Hotel’s toilet facilities. Then one final trail round Freshwater Lake, where we saw no beavers, but tall one needed the toilet so they left quickly.
Left the park after midday and started the 200km back to Antigonish. Stoped briefly outside Baddek to buy a coffee from a cafe named after a chicken which had customer seating in the garden next to a big sign saying ‘Caution Big Dogs in the Garden’. Back down south of Baddeck and small one thought he saw 2 black bears out on some river bed, but he had been seeing black bears in logs and trees all of yesterday. Back over the pebbled causeway into the main part of Nova Scotia, and finally to Antigonish (by about 6pm) and a McDonalds to use our laptops. We had been emailed by our next (and last wwoofer) Tom from the Whale Watching. He said if we were around in Halifax on the weekend he’d pick us up as he was in town anyway, but only if we paid him the price of the bus trip each anyway?? (some $50 each...).
Cape Breton had been a great trip, tomorrow a ferry to Prince Edward Island, and then New Brunswick the day after. After we left McDonalds we thought we’d try and find a beach to sleep on. Headed north up to Cape George, and thought we were lost until we found ourselves there.... It was getting dark by then and it was very hard to find a beach at all. Find a big lighthouse which we drove to the top of, but found it to scary to sleep at. In the end carried on driving (going past a fire engine and an ambulance at a house which was mentioned on the news the next day) until we got to the Ferry Depot at Pictou. The terminal was pretty quiet, but we snuck our car in the foot passenger car park and just about managed to get to sleep. It was warmer than our night in Cape Breton at least.
Monday 28th May 2012
Checked out hostel, reception being run by 1 guy who was also running the coffee shop. He made good coffee but he did take 30 minutes to make a bagel and cream cheese. Our car rental pickup from Enterprise turned up, no logo on the car or sign, and the guy sat in his suit on his phone looking annoyed whilst we stood right infront fo him. Small one knocked on the window and finally we were on our way to the car rental depot. Stuck in traffic for half an hour but got all sorted down in the depot. They had some strange system where you could also pre-purchase the current full tank of fuel for a lower price, so you could then bring the tank back empty (but you would have to bring it back completely empty to save money). There were no maps in the car but the guy gave us this mini map covering all the Maritimes which wasn’t too helpful. He also gave us directions out to the highway, but were a little over complicated taking us literally round the houses instead of on a straight and simple route.
Small one felt good driving in his new Mazda, which was red. Though there were several options he didn’t understand, such as the automatic gear box had the options ‘R’ ‘P’ ‘N’ and ‘M’?? Headed east up the highway through Nova Scotia to Cape Breton Island. Brought some grocercies in Antigonish, where it was cheaper to buy 24 bottles of water for $2.49, than buying 2 bottles for $1.99 each....?? We had at least left Halifax in the rain and were now heading into sunny weather. The roads seemed littered with roadkill, we saw two dead deer, many raccoons and some porcupines. The other thing we noticed on the 600km we drove that day was that every lawn seemed to be getting cut that sunny Monday afternoon.... it became ridiculous the amount of ride on lawn mowers we past.
Stopped for a detour up to Pomquet beach, a very small Acadian village with wooden houses spread apart green fields, and next to a big sand dune beach. There was only 1 man and a dog on the whole beach and a lot of mosquitoes. We also had the Salty Bear mini bus pass us by, which was the paid trip we were originally going to take up to Cape Breton.... Ironically this was the very bus and trip we would be on had we not cancelled (with their excessive tax added on it was almost $700 each for 4 days – no food included, renting a car would be $300 each). We checked their itinerary from the internet, and though they did not mention specific place names, we worked out from their descriptions the likely places they would stop so we could get photos of their bus. When we had asked to cancel (2 months in advance) they said they will still take a $150 deposit from our credit card, so we just change the date of the tour till end of July when we would have left the country and cancelled our credit card. From the look of the tour bus that past us there were only 2 young lads on the tour and a male guide, it looked ‘real fun’.
We crossed over a long pebbled causeway onto the island of Cape Breton and then drove up the west coast. Through many very small, quaint cliff top villages. All with these sparse wooden houses, and the occasional bar. Apparently the Celtic music capital of the country was here, with all their roots being either Scottish or French. We got stuck on some huge road block before the town of Cheticamp and had to go back round a badly signed detour. We then couldn’t find the information centre (which was due to close at 5pm, and was now 4.30pm, and we had to find out the trails and campsites and ay the Park entry fee before it closed). They marked the information centre as a Museum and with a big ‘?”. We went back to it only to be told it was the wrong one, we had to go to the one right on the border of the Cape Breton National Park. We made it there with 10 minutes to spare, got the trail maps, camp sites and paid the $7 entry each which gave us till 4pm the next day. We asked for free camping but she told us it was $23 a night, but that if we had no change we could pull in at the exit and pay the when we left??
We entered the park sometime after 5pm, and made it to the most famous hike, the Skyline trail. As we pulled into the carpark there was the Salty Bear bus again. We got an old couple to take our photo next to it as if we’d gone on their tour. We took off on the tour through some scrub woodland, there were lots of signs about Coyotes, Moose and Bears and what to do. So small one was seeing every bush or log as a bear jumping for the bear spray. It was a 9km loop track and halfway round was a detour to the end of a long spit of a cliff over looking a fantastic view of the ocean, the rugged cliffs, forest and the highway weaving amongst the steep hills. A couple from Victora, B.C. took our photo. On the way back we past a huge guy hiking alone carrying a baseball bat, presumabley to protect himself from bears, but he was as big as 2 of them. Back to the car and we thought we’d make it around 1 short 10 minute trail before dark. On the way there we past 2 backpackers walking up the road in the middle of nowhere. The ‘BOG’ loop track went round a bog and some orchids. We did see a large moose stood stock still well camouflaged from a distance, but it moved off when we stopped. Back at the road as we pulled out to go to the campsite there was a huge Cow Moose stood stock in the middle of our lane. We beeped our horn and drove a little nearer only to get the response of her turning her arse to face us. We took a few photos and finally managed to get past her.
Stopped through Pleasant Bay where we again saw the Salty Bear bus parked up outside a hostel. Then we stopped in the bay for a fantastic red sunset, as gannets and gulls dived infront of it into the water after fish. Made it to the campsite just before dark. Ate half a cooked chicken each brought from the supermarket earlier. Wrapped up in sleeping bags we slept in the car (no one else there) filled in one of their paying envelopes to show we’d made an effort but had no change should the ranger come by. Got to sleep by about 10pm.
Sunday 27th May 2012
(continued from Newfoundland Blog)
Arrived at Airport in Halfiax, Nova Scotia about 2.45pm. Sat and waited for our bags and noticed a woman kept sticking her head impatiently through the conveyor belt curtains, until a security guard told her not to. Turned out she was waiting for a dog, which we stayed after our bags arrived to see if it would come around on the conveyor belt. It arrived on it’s own private, separate conveyor in a huge plastic box.... lots of dogs on the flight, some with the luggage and some under the seats??
Asked at the info desk for the best way to get into the CBD, only to be asked ‘where are you from?”. Finally she said, “well from June 1st we are starting a bus for just $3 into town”.... small one said impatiently, “what about for May 27th???”. She directed him to a private shuttle company for $19.50 each. Turned out we’d missed the bus by 5 minutes and now had to wait another 55 minutes till 4o’clock. Spent this time getting free maps and booklets for their 4 day road trip round the maritime region, and getting a Burger King burger.
Took the shuttle into town without incident, and we were the first dropped off right outside the hostel. Dragged our bags inside through the downstairs cafe. Small one had noticed some terrible reviews had appeared online for this place in the last week, saying the place was filthly, and so we were a little wary.
We got through the very small cafe to a small reception out the back, where this very tired or stoned looking black fella served us. He was wearing a t-shirt but had a hoody draped over his back like a cap held on just with the hood over his head? He spoke really drearily to us, not even making eye contact as he gave us local info and showed us around. It was all a bit surreal, but the room was actually quite nice and looked clean.
Had a wonder up town to look for food. The street we are situated on seemed to be full of homeless shelters and gay flags. Walked past the big Citadel park which looked quite nice, down to the harbour front.... could not find a Subway anywhere. The pedestrian crossings seemed to play musical tunes like ice cream vans. The harbour looked quite industrial but had some nice old buildings. Brought a doner kebab and ate on one of the wharfs then wondered back home looking at a fair few dodgy people on the streets.... perhaps it’s nicer when the sun is shining?
