150920040045 Pleasant Bay, Nova Scotia,

The title pretty much says it all! It was the first day of the 6 day Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island tour and it's been fantastic. The bus picked me up from Devin's friends' place in Pictou (after the herring net incident) and it's been all beautiful scenery and good company so far. Did burgers for 11 people tonight (maybe my destiny is to be a burger flipper?). The Highlands National Park on Cape Breton Island is so beautiful. It's on the tip of the island, so there's coast everywhere. The hostel we're staying at is actually in the park and we saw 6 moose on the 20 minute drive in, so cool! I've been waiting so long to see one! During dinner outside in the freezing cold night, one of the guys asked JR the tour guide what the lights in the sky were, and I'm sure you can guess! Th Japanese girls were jumping up and down in excitement, and if I wasn't far too cool and cynical for that kind of thing, I would have been too! They weren't terribly bright but I had only ever dreamed of seeing them. Such a thing is so thrilling for a kid from New Zealand. We ended up all getting into the big puffy prison orange suits that they use for whale watching and walking down to the beach to look at the water and the stars. The northern lights had faded a little at that point, but there were SO many stars. The suits were ridiculously warm, and naturally waterproof, so we were down at the beach a lot longer than we would have been without them. Coming home we looked like that scene out of Armageddon where they all come walking out into the hangar with their spacesuits on. I was doing moon jumps as best as I could with one of the Aussie girls.

Tomorrow we get to go whale watching, hiking, and maybe sea kayaking. Hopefully we'll see some more moose (we're playing Moose Lotto but I lost) and of course some wicked scenery. [Note: I have just seen the biggest tsetse fly I've ever seen flying around above my head. Luckily I'm not freaked out by bugs too much.]