Month: July 2018

I wasn’t sure how many kid friendly activities were to be had in Nova Scotia so when I found there was a Jellystone in Kingston I thought it to be a safe bet. This Jellystone had three bouncies (one in the little tike area), a shallow entry pool, a rec hall and a snack bar.

The snack bar was a big hit with everyone. From poutine (fries, cheese curds and gravy) to Ice Cream and in between, they had a great menu. Change out your US dollars though, this campground only accepts Canadian currency.

They also had a couple different playgrounds and a wooden train and monster truck to play on.

The site I picked back in April was the last one in the row. We looked out to the woods and a nature trail. The kids spent just as much time playing in those woods as the playgrounds. They would go in there and play all sorts on ninja or horse games.

They had a lot of fun climbing trees and we even made a balance beam out of a fallen tree for them to walk across so their ninja skills wouldn’t get rusty while on vacation.

The bathrooms were very clean as was the entire campground. Our stay here coincided with the halfway point of our stay and I’m glad to say the laundry was also terrific.

Kingston is in the northwest corner of Nova Scotia. The town itself has almost everything you need and is close to The Oaklawn Farm Zoo which will be in the next post. It’s an hour and a half drive to Halifax. In retrospect, Id say if you plan on going out to Halifax multiple times to book a campground closer to the south shore. The Nova Scotia Highways are great but this province is very vast and it seemed to take quite awhile to get anywhere.

I did notice during our stay that we seemed to be the only family staying here from “The States.” All the license plates I looked at were from Nova Scotia. I’m not sure if there are other campgrounds that seem to get more Americans. This Jellystone seemed to be a local favorite.

In summary, I enjoyed this campground and would stay here again but if we ever get back up to Nova Scotia I think I’d like to stay in the Southeast part of the province to see some the beaches and more of Halifax. Be sure to check out our video below which shows more of the campground. Also stay tuned as we’ll show you some the the kid friendly activities we found during our stay. Thanks for stopping by.

We had such a great time at Mountain Lake Campground last year, spending the Fourth of July with them and enjoying their exclusive campers only fireworks display that we just had to go again this year. Not to mention, Santa’s Village. We did however have an unforeseen challenge this year as Linda broke her foot and had to have surgery just weeks before our trip was to start. After consulting the doctor we planned to still go and just see how things went.

Needless to say hiking was out and I apologize for the lack of hiking videos from this trip but there were a couple things we didn’t get around to last year in this location. If you can’t hike up  a mountain why not drive up it? That’s exactly what we did. We drove up the twisting road (some of it unpaved) to the 6,288 foot summit sometimes feeling we were mere inches from the cliffs. It wasn’t the clearest day but we did get to experience driving through a cloud.

On the back into town we found a park with some retired train engines and rail cars. Ryan got to get up close and personal with them naming the different cars as we walked by. This one’s a box car, that one’s a caboose.

We really enjoy Mountain Lake Campground and some days we didn’t even leave. Aside from the waterslides, Ava, Ryan and I rented a canoe and ventured into a remote part of the lake. The water was warm and the kids spent all day swimming out to the floating dock and jumping off.

On Monday afternoon we went to Santa’s village to “preview” the park before we went on the following day. Santa’s Village has a policy that if you arrive after 3:00 and buy tickets for the following day that afternoons visit is basically free.

We went to the water park first for a couple of hours, rode a few of the smaller rides and then went on Rudy’s Rapid Transit Roller Coaster. I’m happy to say that this year everybody met the minimum height requirement. Because it was close to closing and there was literally no line to get on they let us go around continuously as long as nobody wanted to get off. I counted Sarah and Ava go around 17 times. Ryan and I went 11. A big thank you to Linda who watched us go on all these rides while she stayed in a rented scooter.

We came back the following day and did the rest of the park, riding the flume two or three times. Sarah and Ryan got their slingshots which they’ve wanted since last year. Time will tell if we’ve made a good decision buying those for them.

I must say these kids are daredevils, riding these rides with little on no fear. Now that they’re taller they can ride almost anything in this park. Ava really surprised me as she has just about enough excitement over coasters and thrill rides as Sarah does. They never will cease to amaze me.

You can see more of our adventures at Mountain Lake Campground and Santa’s Village in the video below. Stay tuned as we’re off to Nova Scotia next. Thanks for stopping by.