October 19th – Bar Harbor In Full Color (sic)

People come to Bar Harbor at this time of year to experience its famous leaves in full colour, and we got our timing just about spot on. Actually, the locals told us that things were at their most colourful peak about 2 days before, but it was pretty spectacular when we got there.

The Acadia National Park is great for exploring by bus, car, or bike, but I was travelling the traditional way – by horse-drawn carriage. The 50 mile network of carriage trails were laid out in the interwar period by the park's biggest benefactor, John D Rockefeller Jnr, who was fed up that cars (he called them "the infernal combustion engine", in spite of his family wealth being generated by the oil that powered them) were now taking over the roads of his beloved island.

So, at great expense, the trails were dug out through the forest, and cars were banned. We climbed into our traditional carriage pulled by two huge plodding horses, and began our sedate circumnavigation of the trails. The colours really were wonderful, and every breath of wind caused a flurry of falling leaves to flutter down on us - it was really magical.

We were told that it would only take a strong gust of wind or a downfall of rain, and the trees would be bare within hours – we really got our timing right.

October 18th – Here Comes The Sun in Halifax

Just when we thought we'd never see the sun again, out it popped in Halifax, as a chilly autumnal morning, developed into a beautifully warm and sunny day. So, I couldn't have chosen a better day to do the "Halifax By Bike Tour" – a tour, which (unsurprisingly, given its name) allowed us to explore the city on two wheels.

With its long waterfront and plenty of parks, Halifax is a great place to explore by bike, as we discovered its different neighbourhoods and learnt about the city from a different perspective. Sometimes when I've done this kind of tour in the past, it turns out that some of the participants haven't got on a bike in 50 years, and you're constantly worried that someone's going to topple off; but, fortunately all my fellow bikers were fit, strong and stable, so we were able to zoom around at a fair speed.

A really pleasant tour.

October 17th – Sydney - In the Footsteps of Alexander Graham Bell

Our unglamorous port of call, Sydney on Cape Breton Island may have seen better days, but it does give us access to some breathtaking scenery. I took the trip out of town to Baddeck, the one-time home of the great inventor, Alexander Graham Bell.

The drive inland to Baddeck, circumnavigating the Bras d'Or Lake was truly stunning. These were the best array of fall colours seen on this trip – at times it seemed like the trees were on fire, so vibrant were the flashes of bright oranges and reds in the forest.

Baddeck is famous for being home to one of the greatest inventors of the industrial revolution – Alexander Graham Bell, the Scotsman who had moved to the US to invent the telephone. The money from the telephone made Bell hugely rich, and enabled him to indulge his imagination in coming up with further inventions in electronic speech, aeronautics, and all kinds of other weird and wacky stuff. It also enabled him to move to this beautiful spot on Cape Breton Island, where the stunning scenery reminded him of the Highlands of Scotland.

When you find out about the lives of people like Bell and Thomas Edison, you begin to realise how many failures and near misses they have along the way – it wasn't all groundbreaking successes. These were people with incredibly enquiring minds who were constantly questioning the status quo and trying new things. Having come up with the telephone, Bell could have just rested on his laurels and taken it easy – instead, he gathered an engineering think tank around himself here in Baddeck, as he tried to push back the boundaries of powered flight. He was inventing and experimenting right until his death in his 80s – if it weren't for men like Bell, the world would be a very different place.

October 16th – PEI Dune Walk

Today I left the quiet town of Charlottetown, and went to explore the beautiful countryside and coastlines that Prince Edward Island's most famous for. We headed to the north of the island, to visit the pristine PEI National Park and do a walk out to its unspoilt coastal dunes.

Apparently these dunes are particularly rare because they're parabolic dunes (U-shaped), but as I can't tell a parabolic dune from your bog-standard dune, I just had to appreciate the scenery for what it was – absolutely stunning.

We trekked into the National Park through some thick forest and emerged at a boardwalk over the wetlands. In spite of the fact that it felt that winter had well and truly arrived, somehow the mosquitoes were still going strong, and I got bitten all over my head and face. Maybe because they had a body mass not far off that of a small bird, these mosquitoes didn't appear to feel the cold, and you felt them thud down on any exposed flesh before disappearing off with an armful of blood.

Anyway, I didn't let these bloodsuckers spoil my enjoyment of the scenery, and the white sand beach we emerged at was truly gorgeous. Because of a loop in the Gulf Stream, PEI's seawater is some of the warmest north of Florida – I think I'll have to come back in the summertime to give it a try.

October 14th – Quebec City Encore Un Fois

Today I did a day-long tour which ventured around most of the sites of interest close by to Quebec City. Our guide took us around the cobbled historic streets of Vieux Quebec, before we headed over to the large unspoilt island of Ile d'Orleans, sitting in the St Lawrence River just before the river narrows at Quebec City. The island makes for a complete bucolic contrast with the City – rolling fields of farmland, and leafy forests, just 20 minutes or so from the streets of the city centre.

We then headed to Ste Anne de Beaupre – a holy site of pilgrimage for Quebec's devoutly Catholic population. The modern church inside that Neo-Gothic exterior is beautifully decorated with mosaics, and does have a holy aura to it.

After a delicious typical Quebecois lunch at a countryside restaurant, we headed back to Quebec City for an exploration of the Upper Town, and some close up views of Quebec's most famous site, the Chateau Frontenac, one of the most distinctive and prestigious hotels in the world, before the cold finally drove us to seek the warmth of the ship.

October 13th – Beaux Arts in Montreal

As another leg of our journey round Canada and New England started, we had one more day to explore Montreal. There was no snow today, but it was just as cold, so as soon as we could, we headed underground to take shelter in Montreal's famous Underground City. Because of the harsh winters here, Montreal has dug out 19 miles of interlinked passageways and underground shopping centres below the level of the city's streets, so you can pretend that it's not utterly freezing at street level.

We emerged from our subterranean tunnel close to the Musee de Beaux Arts, the city's excellent Fine Arts Museum. The museum has been a beneficiary of donations from the city's wealthiest collectors, so it's amassed a surprisingly good collection of European art – including some very interesting El Grecos, Breughels, and Memlings.

If you're going to find a place to shelter from the cold, then this was a pretty good place to do it.

October 12th – Montreal Part Deux

What a fantastique day. Our lovely friend Manon kindly volunteered to be our local guide to the day, and to show us a few things that tourists don't normally see on a visit to Montreal.

We started with a trip up to Mont Royal (the hill that gave the town its name) to see its unrivalled views over the city down below – the leaves of the trees were turning some beautiful goldens, yellows, oranges and reds. Then, we travelled out of town, into the tree-covered Laurentian Mountains, where the autumnal colours were even more impressive. We were fairly glad to discover that the ski lift that we'd intended on taking up to the top of the mountain was only open at the weekend, because it was even colder than yesterday, so dangling on an open chairlift would have frozen us solid. In fact, it had actually started snowing gently – I think that this was the first snow I've enjoyed in my cruising experience.

Instead, we took an exhilarating hike along a trail beside the icy Doncaster River, through some rugged terrain in amongst the autumnal trees. This was about as unspoilt as you can get, plus the exertion kept us from getting cold – truly beautiful.

Manon's brother lives close-by in a beautiful house in the mountains, so we popped in to say bonjour. As a wonderful surprise for us, he was preparing a superb meal for us all, with his three impeccably behaved children. As we drank wine, talked the night away, and enjoyed the homely family atmosphere, it couldn't have felt further away from being on a cruise ship. A perfect end to a lovely day!