Fantasy RV Caravan - Day 18

Monday, 19 August - Day 18

A moderately slow start for Sprinty as Kris and Darrell attended the travel meeting at 9am where the Wagonmaster went over the travel day tomorrow and the plan of events while we are in North Sydney, NS.

After the travel meeting, Sprinty headed out, stopping first at Sobey’s, a Kroger-like grocery store.  After picking up a few items, we headed for Peggy’s Cove.  

Not the ideal morning to travel a loop known for its scenic views as it was foggy.  It was still picturesque, just a bit foggy.

Along the way in a counter-clockwise direction, we saw the sign for the Swissair Flight 111 which crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia in September 1998.  The communities of Peggy’s Cove and Blandford were central to the recovery operation.  While we were there, a lady was telling her friend about her father, a fire chief, being part of the recovery efforts.

We continued to the picturesque village of Peggy’s Cove.  

When we got to the Visitor Center, we parked Sprinty in one of the RV parking places - one of the time sit was handy to be driving an RV as all the car places were filled.  We wandered through the village down to the iconic lighthouse.  It was still foggy, so visibility was less than optimal.  A cute little harbor.

There was a large brass plaque on the granite rock along the path to the lighthouse that said “Warning injury and death have rewarded careless sightseers here.  The ocean and rocks are treacherous savor the sea from a distance”.  All the while, dozens of people including kids were bounding around the rocks.

By the time we left Peggy’s Cove, all the parking was filled, people we circling multiple times hoping for someone to be leaving, and the gravel area by the main road that had been completely empty when we arrived was chocked full of cars.  We were glad we arrived when we did.

We then continued along Peggy’s Cove Road to Granite Springs Golf Club in Bayside, NS.  Among the choices for golf in the Halifax area, it had the advantage of being a little less expensive, and we were able to get a tee time.  The website description stated:

• Granite Springs Golf Club is an oceanside 18-hole, Par-72 golf course located just 30 minutes from downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our scenic Nova Scotia golf course is nestled in the rolling hills and breathtaking landscape of the region and overlooks the beautiful Shad Bay on Nova Scotia’s Eastern shore. The unique layout of our Nova Scotia golf course presents golfers with a pleasantly challenging golf experience – making it a favourite for both local and visiting golfers.

We knew from the web site that it was going to be a challenging course - the slope rating for Ladies from the red tees was 131, and it was 130 for the men’s gold tees.  After Darrell’s recent golfing challenges, he decided gold tees would be enough challenge for today.

We arrived about a hour before our scheduled tee time of 1:48pm, which gave us plenty of time to hit a bucket of balls on the driving range, and practice putting.  Although we did not see anyone getting ready to go, they would not let us go off early.  My suspicion is that because the course was not very busy, they spread out the tee times.  First time we have experienced that.

As we were waiting until we could move to the tee box, we got to talk to someone who plays there regularly.  He confirmed the website description of it being a challenging course, suggesting hitting irons off the tee instead of driver.  He also said the golf course consisted of about 8 inches of soil over granite, so golf balls had a tendency to take large and unpredictable bounces.

The first hole was almost a carbon copy of the other day.  Darrell’s drive went right and then bounced several dozen yards and was almost lost in the woods.  His second shot splashed in the pond by the green that he did not know was there.  Kris hit her drive 175 yards in the fairway.  As we walked off the first green, Kris was already up by two strokes.

Slowly, Darrell started regaining the lost shots, and was up by two strokes at the turn having made six pars.  The 10th hole was a repeat of the 1st hole, with Darrell losing two balls.  He bounced back with back-to-back birdies, and managed to take the day by 5 strokes despite losing three balls - an improvement over the other day when he lost 7.

Toward the end of the round, the fog moved in, and at times, we could only see about 150 yards.  As we were both hitting the ball well, it made it a challenge to figure out where our ball came to rest.  We played the first nine holes in 90 minutes, and the second nine holes took over 2 hours.

We completed the Peggy’s Cove loop as we headed back to the campground - the east side of the loop was not as scenic as the west and south parts.  Although with the fog, it did not make that much difference today.  And it was late enough, we decided not to visit the SS Atlantic Memorial that is on a rotate off Peggy’s Cove Road.