Maritimes

Woke up a bit earlier, we were camped in a church parking lot and mass was starting at 9:00. Found a nice spot for breakfast at Baddeck, then onto the Cabot Trail.
When we arrived at Cape Breton Highlands National Park, we were told all the hiking trails were closed because of the fires near Halifax ☹️. Very disappointing since there are several “must do” hikes in the park.
Change of plans … Now we are going to hit all the lookout spots and search for lobster. The info centre said to try a place in Neil Harbour, next to the pharmacy (you can’t miss it). We went to the back to what we thought would be a fish market. We ended up in what looked like an auto parts store for boats. Convinced we had the wrong place we asked the two guys at the door where the lobster was. Turns out you could buy lobster there, but only the meat, frozen in bags. We were looking for something like what we had in Alma with Renée. Lobster right off the boat, cooked, but not shelled. After a very jovial conversation we were given 2 choices; Buy the precooked frozen lobster meat, or go down to the plant, buy live lobsters and cook them ourselves. The thought of cooking a live lobster was not very appealing. After the two guys poked fun at us for not wanting to cook live lobsters, one of the guys, Vincent took pity on us. He said:” I‘lol give you one!”
He took us to the plant and gave us three lobsters to cook. We got a lesson on how they handle and ship the lobsters, how to tell male from female, and of course how to cook them.
So we took our 3 crustaceans to a sunny picnic site and cooked them up.
Thanks Vincent you made our day.Les mer