What a beautiful spot; backed in by the river, the back window of our camper looked directly out on the river and it couldn’t have been more perfect.  We were in campsite R9 at Rayport Campground and it was just lovely.  

Even though this year has been a bit of a letdown, in the fall colours category, the colours along the river were beautiful.  The touches of colour during our travels to get there, and travelling in the area were great to see, although not as brilliant as usual.  

I was surprised how many people were camping there on this mid October weekend.  Many campgrounds closed that weekend, we discovered as we were trying to find a spot to go, but this campground was remaining open for another week.  Lots of people were taking advantage of the last chance of the season.  But, we stayed until Monday, and it definitely emptied out on Sunday.  

Rayport is a sweet little campground, about 10 minutes from Mahone Bay, but if you are going there, take the long way around Indian Point to get to Mahone Bay, at least once.  So many beautiful sights!  

The campground has a pool (obviously not open in October) that looked quite nice.  It also has a small playground.  I would worry about having small children there, though, as the water runs quite fast and you are very close to the river.  There is also wifi throughout the campground, which is helpful as I rarely go without some work in hand.  I think you can get cable TV too, but I’m not sure whether that was an additional charge or not.  

Campfires were allowed at this point so we made sure to buy some firewood and enjoy a campfire one evening.  S’mores were included in this adventure!

The trails on the old railbed are very close and we took some time one afternoon to explore the Dynamite Trail, a section of that trail between Martin’s River and Mahone Bay.  Also, there were lots of places to watch the sunrise over the water.

This trip was to celebrate our anniversary, so we didn’t worry about packing much food…we enjoyed a big breakfast each morning, a snack before heading out, and then grabbed dinner at a restaurant in Mahone Bay or Lunenburg.  

Our Blackstone was put to good use making our lovely breakfasts; Day 1: bacon, eggs and hashbrowns, Day 2: omelet, and Day 3: French Toast topped with cream cheese, fresh fruit, whipped cream, and maple syrup.

We spent one afternoon exploring Mahone Bay and Lunenburg.  Lots of sweet little shops, including Suttles and Seawinds.  Would have loved to have some spare money sitting in my clothing budget, but alas…

There were several gift shops and shops with handmade goods. We found a grea

t little bakery in Mahone Bay called Joanne’s.  We tried a couple of different mini cheesecakes, carrot cake, and coconut cream pie.  

The first night we had supper at the Mug and Anchor (Mahone Bay).  It was very good…we started with mussels, then I had Fish and Chips (substituted Sweet potato fries) and John had Fishcakes that were served with a lemon citrus salad and chow.  Both meals were great and the service was very good.  The place is in an old building with quite the atmosphere, and the beams are lined with coasters of every type of alcohol imaginable.  The bar has beautiful old wooden panels.  I would love to go there during the day because there is a deck outside, looking out onto the bay that I’m sure would be so serene.

Night 2 saw us at Knot Pub in Lunenburg.  We have been there before and I was happy to order the Lobster Linguini again.  It is a fabulous dish!  John had the panfried haddock and was very pleased with that.  We got there right around 5 (Saturday) and I think we were the last to get a table without a wait. 

On the third night, our anniversary, we went to the Grand Banker in Lunenburg.  We were planning to go there and talked about making a reservation, but kind of forgot.  We should have, for sure.  We got there and they told us it would be a 40-minute wait, but took our number to text. We walked around the town a bit and then got a text.  It was only about 15 minutes and it was a beautiful night.  We started with the potato skins as an appetizer.  They were great.  Then John had the lobster roll with homemade potato chips.  I had the scallops and substituted the quinoa with Panfried potatoes.  The scallops and veggies were cooked to perfection (although I did mention to the waiter that I liked my scallops cooked all the way through).  Beautiful flavours in everything we tried and we talked about dessert but decided we didn’t have room.  

All in all, we had a beautiful and relaxing weekend, in the camper.  I would highly recommend this campground and some time to spend in the Mahone Bay/Lunenburg area.