REPOSTED FROM WITHOUT PERMISSION from telegraph.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/budgettravel/4448865/Guide-to-house-swap-holidays-in-Nova-Scotia.html
Guide to house swap holidays: Scotia free
If the economy has done for your regular family holiday, a house swap may be just the ticket. Sara Wheeler traded Camden for Canada. - By Sara Wheeler - 10 Feb 2009
'We needed little to entertain two small boys beyond the kayaks and bikes' Photo: Bojan Fürst
My Canadian husband grew up in Nova Scotia on the Atlantic seaboard; his people had emigrated from Scotland after the Clearances. He had always spoken fondly of the pastoral landscapes of the 1950s where he and his brothers skinny-dipped in cool lakes, and of the drive-in cinema where he claims half the population was conceived. He wanted to take our children, to see if it still existed. So last August we fixed up a house swap in Nova Scotia.
As a veteran of three tremendous family home exchanges, I can reveal that these are the only holiday options on the planet with absolutely no hidden costs. The home we picked was on Black Point in Pictou County (pronounced Picto), near New Glasgow and 105 miles from Halifax, the provincial capital. Set in characteristic North Shore dunes overlooking the Northumberland Strait, the back garden decanted on to a two-mile sandy beach.
Inside, the house, home like ours to a family of four, was abnormally clean, and typically North American in that everything in it was outsize, from the frightening Maytag washing-machine to the four-berth fridge. But it would be hard to conceive of a lovelier setting. I never saw more than a dozen people on our beach; most of the time it was just us and the bald eagles. There was a bank of reeds where piping plovers nested. The water was warm. Nova Scotians boast that their North Shore is the warmest on the whole east coast because its shallow, sandy bottom stretches to Prince Edward Island rather than toppling off the continental shelf.
Our neighbours were few, their houses clapboard or faux-clapboard, some handsome and some not, but all called cottages by my husband (reverting to type the minute he stepped on to the Tarmac) even if ‘mansion’ would have been more appropriate. Our children, inordinately proud of their half-Canadian status, rejoiced at the maple leaf flags hoisted in the front yards. The unsavoury practice of flying the national flag outside one’s home is much less common in Canada than in the US; its popularity in the backwoods of Black Point exemplifies the curiously unreconstructed nature of Nova Scotian society. Off the quiet roads, blue spruce and other softwoods rolled inland, trailing a heady scent of gummy resin.
It turns out that North Shore Nova Scotians are equally proud of their Scottish heritage. The region has attracted so little immigration that the original settlement patterns remain, as does the ethnic mix; our area, dotted with cavernous Presbyterian churches, was even called the Scottish Coast, and a shop near Alma advertised kilt rentals. When we visited the Hector replica in Pictou harbour, we were gripped to find a Graham (my husband’s surname) on the ship’s list. In 1773, when the Hector set sail from Loch Broom in Ross-shire carrying 33 families, a piper and 25 single men wearing the forbidden tartans, it inaugurated the great Highland migrations. The 11-week voyage was so crowded, the ship so unsanitary and the passengers so seasick that 18 died of smallpox and dysentery before making landfall.
Other Canadians perceive the Maritimes – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island (add Newfoundland and you get Atlantic Canada) – as rustic, attractive and inhabited by seriously weird people. Appearances of the provinces in the national papers are restricted to charming photographs of the red cliffs of PEI and reportage of the ‘Cape Breton Man Claims to be Martian’ variety, the latter illustrated with pictures of a spaceship built from lobster claws. Perhaps this will change when Newfoundland brings in its oil from the Grand Banks in seven years.
Yet Canadian townies still crowd the fashionable yachty developments of Chester and Lunenburg on the east coast of Nova Scotia (Canada’s oceanfront playground! yell the province’s numberplates). Those parts have been the Hamptons of the north (sort of) since the 1900s, when city folk flocked in to sample the placid water and tie up at Chester’s deep, fogless moorings.
The North Shore, on the other hand, is devoid of tourists: we were the only people on our beach, ever, not connected in some way or other to Pictou County. It was ‘down home’ with a retro Nova Scotian tang: the ancient schoolbus converted into an ice-cream van in the Wentworth Valley; the annual Chedabucto Mackerel Derby; the local newspaper called the Antigonish Casket. Even at the Atlantic Superstore in New Glasgow, staff at the fruit and veg section wore dungarees and plaid shirts. The 21st century has yet to make an appearance, as have decent restaurants. But who needs what local brochures still quaintly refer to as ‘fine dining’ when you can buy scallop and lobster by the bucketload? The difficulty was deciding between one lobster or two.
We were lucky with the weather, and needed little to entertain two small boys beyond the kayaks and bikes – four of each – that came with the house. At sunset we drifted with the current in Back Bay, watching ospreys come home, and at night huddled round a beach fire or let off fireworks purchased from the petrol station. We had planned a three-day trip to the south-west, but abandoned it: it was too good where we were. Instead, to break the idyllic monotony, we drove west along the Northumberland Shore to Oak Island and Fox Harbour, where we found vast sand flats (unoccupied even in mid-August), as well as more eagles and a dazzling mare’s-tail sky. When the boys spotted a porcupine on the way home, we tailed it (porcupines never run – they don’t need to. Nothing could survive an encounter with its erect needles). Last thing, we called at the Harbour Store to pick up lobsters for a late supper. The live ones go for Can$10.99 (£6.25) per kilogram.
The south coast east of Halifax is the least populated region of the 21,345 square mile province. ‘Where are all the people?’ asked 11-year-old Wilf as we headed through luxuriant forest and wide rivers (wide by European standards, at any rate). At Sherbrooke in the logging heartlands of the St Mary’s River watershed, a recreated 19th-century settlement occupied half the village. Normally I hate that kind of thing. But the rest of Sherbrooke was so old-fashioned one barely noticed the difference. The foggy, granite-cliffed shore south of Sherbrooke spooled east towards Cape Breton, fretted with saltwater inlets and wooden piers. We cooked corn over a fire at Lonely Rock near Larry’s River, originally a French settlement named La Rivière – those Scots knew how to put the Frogs in their place.
The first Wheeler-Graham house swap unfolded on the Greek island of Lesbos, the northernmost of the Eastern Sporades. For three weeks we exchanged our home with a villa in Thermi, a village surrounded by olive groves 15 minutes’ drive from the capital, Mytilene. It was a traditional stone house with overhanging upper storeys, and the master bedroom and roof terrace overlooked the Aegean and the Turkish coast; at owl light we watched fishing boats bringing home the catch before hurrying down to the harbour taverna to gobble it up. Unlike our Nova Scotian hosts, the owner and his wife, both academics at the university of the Eastern Sporades, had taken a refreshingly casual approach to preparing the house for its new residents. Half the food in the fridge was mouldy. One learnt not to open a cupboard, as one risked being flattened by the lava of junk that foamed forth. All the appliances had quirky features, or didn’t work at all. But who cared, when the beach was a five-minute walk away?
By saving so much cash on a house swap, I always reckon that we can afford one good add-on excursion. In Lesbos we took the ferry to Ayvalik in Turkey (a five-mile hop), trawled the waterfront and hired Captain Hussein and his boat for three days. We slept on board, ate fresh sardines cooked on a brazier, bathed in the sea – as Gertrude Stein said, ‘Paradise, if you can stand it.’
At Christmas 2007 we took our chances in Morocco. We found a house at Agadir on the Atlantic coast. This one was a different kettle of couscous – urban, smart and serviced daily by a charming maid inevitably called Fatima who spoke not a word of English or French. But we co-opted a neighbour to interpret, and Fatima whipped up excellent tagines to sustain us after a hard day in the souk.
All three of our swaps included a car, and this is where one really saves money. In Morocco we had use of a four-wheel-drive. It was swappee Taoufique who recommended a first-class excursion itinerary. We headed south through the dizzying gorges of the Anti-Atlas, finding excellent roads and no traffic, and breaking the journey at Les Amandiers, a kasbah-style hilltop hotel in Tafraoute overlooking the date groves and pink-walled Berber villages nestled in the Ameln valley. The hotel, all high-ceilings and drowsy waiters, was straight out of The Sheltering Sky. Onward to Tata, where we took refuge at Dar Infiane in the heart of the palmeraie, its six glorious rock-hewn rooms looking out on to the Sahara quietly steaming beyond 20,000 date palms. On the third night we fetched up at a tented encampment among the rocky desert excrescences at Akka Naît Sidi gorge, and after the sun went down behind Jbel Banni, the chill fell like a curtain.
Part of the fun of a house swap is getting inside someone else’s life; it’s voyeurism, but in a good way. Does she ever wear those furry handcuffs at the bottom of the wardrobe? Why do they keep bin-bags of old newspapers in the basement? Could anyone possibly like that painting? The London-based writer Miranda Seymour was so intrigued to notice that her swappee, a single man from New York, had the same CDs and books as her, that they met up – and later married.
Practically, a swap offers opportunities that would not be possible without incurring considerable expense in regular holiday accommodation. Our house, and the three with which we swapped, had more bedrooms than were needed. In Lesbos we had five friends to stay for a week. Our Moroccan swappees hosted Christmas for their Paris-based son in our idiosyncratic terrace house in London (it’s a former butcher’s), and the Nova Scotians took Granny along to show her Buckingham Palace. All this happened after consent had been requested and given, by email, in advance.
Animals are a trickier issue, but it is surprising how many people post their places on the house-swap website with pets attached. One, predictably in California, came equipped with a cage of snakes. Our Lesbos place advertised two dogs that lived in the large yard. This, I reasoned in advance, would be fun for my two small urban guerrillas (and I had a pair of guinea pigs of my own that needed feeding). Somehow or other, by the time we got there the two dogs had become eight.
On our last night in Nova Scotia, we found the Empire Drive-In on the outskirts of New Glasgow. It was the size of several football pitches, with only two other cars. It was showing a double bill of Star Wars and The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. You had to tune the car radio to FM 91.5 for the soundtrack. It had a satisfactorily dingy 1950s feel. Yes, my husband concluded, it was just as he remembered. Now our boys had memories too.
* The family flew with Canadian Affair. London Gatwick to Halifax from £139pp one way (020-7616 9933; canadian-affair.co.uk). For information on Nova Scotia, visit novascotia.com
Home from home
I arranged my three house swaps through homeexchange.com. A US$50 joining fee is payable, and after that no money changes hands. You need to upload photographs of your property on to the site, with details about when the house will be available, whether a car is included, and so on.
You can either specify where you want to go, or wait and see what pops up when potential swappees respond to your posting. Once contact is made, the site has no further involvement in the transaction.
Swappees don’t only want London or other tourist hotspots. They are open to ideas. Like estate agencies, house-swap sites have something for everyone.
You will see from the site that facilities are listed – almost all the houses have washing-machines, broadband, and so on. Many have staff. Some owners suggest excursion options. Some even throw in second properties.
It is important to specify any restrictions you may have, such as no children, or no smoking. You will get the hang of this as you browse the site, and pick up ideas from other people. I found it useful to have a good look around the site.
Once dates are agreed, you and your swappee exchange emails to sort out details such as use of landline phone (we usually say use it as much as you want for local calls), availability of Skype, etc. It’s friendly to leave as much as you can in the way of maps and local information, and food for the first day or so. There are no contracts to exchange, and no formalities.
I informed my home contents insurance company and my car insurance company in writing about the incoming swappees. No extra charges were payable, though the contents insurer did not cover the swappees’ personal possessions.
I was worried that I would return to a pile of parking tickets: how could any foreigner grasp the Byzantine regulations of Camden council’s parking department, or the Congestion Charge? So I left detailed instructions – and returned to no parking tickets.
In each case, I returned to find my own house as I had left it.
