McLaughin's Wharf Inn did have another guest staying last night but there was no sign of him at breakfast so we had the place and Anne's attention to ourselves again. We were packed and ready to leave by 8.30am with a view to catching the 9.30am ferry back to the mainland. Brenda, the owner, came over to see us off. Grand Manan had been a beautiful and quirky place, very friendly, quite old-fashioned and with the lobster fishing industry evident everywhere. Another day to explore the northern trails would have been fine but we had run out of places to eat!

The ferry set off in a breeze but the bright sunshine meant it wasn't too chilly up on the top deck where we had excellent views of the northern coastline. We were soon back on the mainland and taking the short drive round the coast to Letete where we were picking up the next ferry. We'd been struck by just how many churches there are on Grand Manan (we think about 12 churches along the 21 miles of the island's length for a population of around 2500!) and it's clear that mainland New Brunswick is as God-fearing as the islands as we passed four churches driving through Blacks Harbour. The church buildings are of a similar construction - United Baptist and Wesleyan are the most common - sometimes with virtually identical churches sited next door to each other.

As we drove we had another listen to the satellite radio system we'd discovered in the hire car a few days ago. There's a 24 hour/7 day Bruce Springsteen channel, playing mostly live recordings, that we enjoyed. This was our last experience of driving on the Canadian mainland so it's a good time to reflect on the experience. The tarmac roads are wonderful and often quite empty with dual carriageways running for mile after mile in the middle of nowhere, hardly a vehicle in sight. Everyone seems to take the speed limits with a pinch of salt including the drivers of enormous trucks. Unlike in the UK the trucks seem to have massive power, don't slow down for hills and often passed us at well over the speed limit! We wonder if this surprisingly untypical disregard for the law by Canadians will be a characteristic of the driving of US citizens too?

Whilst we arrived in good time at Letete there was a queue and we didn't get on to the 12.30pm ferry. However, we were at the front of the line for the next crossing at 1pm. This ferry was much more like the Windermere Ferry although not chain driven. Soon we were across to Deer Island and looking for lunch. The local store didn't have anything that appealed so we were reliant on our own snack bag of accumulated goodies. We'd hoped to find a short stroll but lack of a proper map and a "No Trespassing" sign meant we had to settle for a rocky roadside spot with a sea view for our lunch of crisps, nutty bar, cake and apples.

Finding or not finding a pleasant walk became a theme for the day. Dave had read of an area at the south end of Deer Island that had indicated the possibility of a walking trail but in reality there was a picnic spot and camping ground but no trails we could see. We decided to cut our losses and made a dash for the next ferry crossing to Campobello. This ferry was unique in our experience having a pivoting tug-like powered section attached to the floating car platform. Once away from the landing ramp we were surprised to see the tug section slowly move out in a different direction to us before it completed the pivot and reattached fully. This seemed something of a Heath-Robinson invention but it did mean that the whole car platform didn't have to turn round at either end of the journey.

The Owen Inn was signed from just beyond the ferry and we were pleasantly surprised to find we were staying in the oldest building on Campobello. The place is festooned with antiques and antique furniture. We might have more to report tomorrow when we've had time to read the history of the place. It was late afternoon and we'd still not had a walk and still didn't have a map showing any trails. As it was too late to seek out the Information Centre we set off down the road to see what we could see. What we could see was more road! We were heading in the direction of Herring Cove which sounded promising. In fact, we knew there was a restaurant there and Jill proposed that we should just keep walking, find the restaurant and have an early evening meal.

Forty-five minutes saw us across the island at the golf club restaurant and eating a yearned for fish and chips. Just what we wanted and followed up by delicious raspberry pie. Fed and watered we walked back across the island and planned an early visit to the Information Centre to ensure we had some proper walking tomorrow. Sad to say the mosquitoes are still active here.....