Towering ancient Hemlocks and white pines, indigenous plants, a dark sky reserve, biking and hiking trails so plentiful that you can't possibly do them all in a short trip. What more could this nature lover want? More time. Keji, we will be back again.
The next leg of our journey brought us to the Kejimkujik National Park in Nova Scotia. The hemlocks have grown so tall over time, that the sun seems to set an hour early and take her sweet time rising in the morning. We spent our three days there enjoying a mixture of lazy rainy day activities and pushing our kids physical limits. For the first time on our trip, we busted out the Lego. It served it's purpose wonderfully, providing the children with an outlet when it rained too hard to play outside. While the little ones played peacefully together, the adults took some time to relax, read and get caught up on journal entries. Little Autumn roller around on the floor, playing with odds and ends, trying her best to learn how to crawl in such a small space. She somehow came out triumphant, learning how to crawl a few days shy of seven months.
When the sun came out, we hitched the trailer onto the bike to pull the little girls behind us while we took the big kids on some of the trails. For two subsequent days, we pushed their little legs to do roughly 12 km trips. We explored the lake shore, finding all kinds of treasures, including a leech :(. We rode through majestic forests, that seem to have come straight out of a fairy tale, discovering new things in the world around us. We learned about lichens and how to identify some of the huge trees. We raced back to our site, trying and failing to outrun the rain. Our children learned how joyful it is to spin their little tires through puddles. A few deer bravely observed us from the side of the road, letting us see them up close. We trekked around drumlins, noticing the changes in the forest as we reached higher elevations. One of our hikes even took us through an old farm yard and apple orchard that has mostly been reclaimed by the land.
Overall, we had a magical time. I did leave a bit bummed out though, as we weren't able to see the stars because of the weather and there are many plants there that I had hoped to see, but didn't. Next time we venture this was, we will be sure to return and explore a little more.
