Quick update

We are currently in Nipigon, Ontario. We are hoping to Make it to Winnipeg tomorrow morning. I am using some sketchy internet at the side of the road so can't write much, but will do asap. So far, so good :).

We've Arrived!!

We made it to Montreal, somewhat surprisingly, but we are quite excited about it.

We arrived in Nova Scotia at 2pm, and after stopping to get gas and walk the dogs down a random dirt road, oh and stopping to take photos at the Simpson's Farm, we drove straight to New Brunswick where we pulled over and slept. Then we got up this morning, found coffee, gas, and somewhere to walk the dogs and drove to Montreal. We stopped to see (and drive across and back) the longest covered bridge in the World.

We have been stopping about every 170km, or every two hours to get gas and give the van a rest. This has been working well for both dogs and kids, although now that we have discovered that the gas tank is closer to 60 litres, not 40 (which our gas gage would lead us to believe) we may drive for longer stretches. We have also discovered that our speedometer is 5km over, so we need to dig out our back license plate that says "yes we're slow, but your behind us" for those hills where our speedometer barely hits 80km.

Tomorrow we are going to head towards Ottawa and Sault Ste Marie, but I don't think we will get that far.

We are staying at Blake and Allison's tonight. Thanks Allison!!

Day One - Across the Island and the Atlantic

We made it across the island, albeit slowly, without any major hitches. We spotted three moose and one black bear - One of the moose, which was almost nose to nose with our Van (and was bigger than it) gave us enough of an adrenaline rush to finish the last leg of the drive to the Ferry.

Our plan today is to get through Nova Scotia and part of New Brunswick, so we can be in Montreal for tomorrow evening.

This trips seems so much more day to day now :)

The Night Before...Again

It looks like we will be able to head out tomorrow afternoon. We booked a ferry for Friday morning, so we have time to drive across the island. Will up date as soon as I can.

A Delay

Looks like the engine needs to be taken apart to find out what's wrong, then put back together. Best case scenario this takes a week, so we have no idea when we are actually going to head west. When I know I will post. The kids are sooo happy to go back to school this coming week :)

Day 1...or not.

So we headed out about an hour and a half later then we planned, but meh, to be expected right? We stopped three times in the first 20 minutes to retighten/check the gear strapped to the roof (would suck to both kill drivers behind us, and lose our tent). We were almost to Clarenville (for those non newfies out there, we had been on the road for about 2 hours) when the oil light flashes a few times, then comes on. We pull over, check oil aaaaaaaaaaand, there is none. Sucks. So we call CAA (so worth it) and then call our Mechanic in St. John's and decide to get the tow truck driver to bring us a sh**t load of oil, and we slowly make our way back to St. John's.

So. Van is in the shop and we have no idea when we are leaving. BUT the good thing is that when (if?) we leave again, this time we will bring the dogs food dishes, the cooking stove, our wetsuits, and our lunch food with us!!!

The Night Before

So we head out tomorrow morning. Our plan is to drive to Corner Brook, have dinner with a friend, and then head to the ferry. We have booked a cabin, so we should be able to get somewhat of a decent sleep. More worrisome is the dogs, who have to spend the night locked in the Van...hopefully little to no destruction ensues.

Our plans for the next day are somewhat shady. We are planning to meet some friends outside of Halifax for dinner, so our main objective is to find a good place to walk the dogs. We may do some of the Cabot Trail, or not. We shall see.

After dinner we will attempt to put a few more miles on the road but not too many, as the next day will be close to 11 hours on the road - which will get us to Montreal that evening - and mostly then is when I will be able to update again.

I am not sure how often I will get to update - and I have to figure out how this all works, such as how to post pictures etc, but we'll try it out and see how it goes.

Cheers