Nova Scotia Continuing with our enthusiasm for all things Canadian, we thought we’d try somewhere a little bit out of the ordinary. For anyone that’s not familiar with the geography of Nova Scotia, it is a peninsula about the size of England that can be found on Canada’s southeastern Atlantic coast. We did a one-week “Taste of Nova Scotia” tour, which was basically a loop around coast, starting and ending in the capital, Halifax.
Halifax Our flight was delayed by nearly three hours, so it was pretty late on Thursday night when we finally arrived at our hotel - the Westin in Halifax. And this is the view we woke up to on Friday morning. Torrential rain. Mmmm. Yummy.
Peggy's Cove As the weather was so bad, we thought we might as well leave Halifax immediately and begin the touring bit of the tour. The first scheduled stop was Peggy’s Cove, about 40 miles southwest of Halifax. Unfortunately this is what it looked like when we arrived. We decided to hang around for a bit, just in case the rain eased up enough for us to be able to at least get out of the car and have a bit of a walk about.
Post Office And 10 minutes later the weather was doing this. Worth the wait then. This is the only post office lighthouse in all of Canada apparently.
Peggy's Cove Peggy’s Cove is one of the main tourist spots near Halifax. Because of this, our guide reckoned that it had suffered from “over development”. The photo above pretty much is Peggy’s Cove in its entirety. It has a permanent population of 60. Apparently Nova Scotians have a different concept of “over development” to me.
Peggy's Cove Apart from its post office/lighthouse, Peggy's Cove is also well known for it's scenic granite shoreline.
Cruiser Now that the rain had stopped, it was time to put the roof down on our Chrysler PT Cruiser for the first time. All things considered, the Cruiser was pretty rubbish. It was noisy, incredibly slow and the rollover hoop looks awful, which is very much in keeping with the rest of the car. Still, we grew quite fond of it during the week.
Judith Left Peggy's Cove and pressed on with Judith at the wheel.
Kejimkujic National Park Despite the fact that it had been raining intermittently, we decided to go for a walk in the Kejimkujic National Park. However, we had not banked on the ferocious local mosquito population and, very shortly after this photo was taken, found ourselves back in the car nursing several itching bites. Later in the day we bought some bug repellent and we were not bothered by the little bleeders again for the rest of the week.
Sherman I think there's a law that says you can't drive past a tank without stopping to take a photo.
Digby Finally reach our Friday night accommodation - the Digby Pines hotel in Digby, home of the "world famous" Digby scallop fleet. The hotel is built on a hillside overlooking the Annapolis Basin and it has a fantastic restaurant. Needless to say, I had Digby scallops for dinner.
Basin This is (part of) the Annapolis Basin at low tide, looking across from the beach in front of the hotel to the town of Digby.
Port Royal One of our stops on Saturday was a place called Port Royal. It's a restored fort thing built beside the Annapolis Basin. Quite picturesque, in a boring, wouldn’t want to stay there for too long sort of way. On the plus side, because it was Canada Day, we didn’t have to pay to get in.
Wolfville It was only a short hop to our Saturday night stopover at the Blomidon Inn in Wolfville. Again, the hotel had a fantastic restaurant. Planked salmon for dinner. Awesome. Interestingly, we caught the England/Portugal penalty shootout in a bar in Wolfville. Lots of people rooting for England in there, which was nice to see.
Acadia University One of the buildings at Acadia University in Wolfville.
Acadia University The chapel at the Acadia University in Wolfville. Good clouds.
Scots Bay Scots Bay, about 20 miles north of Wolfville, is on the Bay of Fundy, which is famous for having the highest tides in the world. The water level changes by over 40 feet with every tide. To give you an idea how quickly the tide comes in, here's a picture of Judith standing by the water. Notice the rock poking out of the water (under the big red arrow that I have added for your convenience).
Scots Bay Two minutes later, the rock is submerged and Judith has had to retreat 10 or 15 feet. Unfortunately because of the fact that we were touring and covering quite large distances each day, we never got to stay in one place for long enough to see both a low tide and a high tide. Which was a shame. Should you ever feel the need to visit the Bay of Fundy, I would strongly suggest that you arrange to stay in one place for at least two nights.
Scots Bay A miscellaneous scecnic picture in Scots Bay.
Church A miscellaneous church near Scots Bay. There are literally dozens of pretty little churches like this scattered throughout Nova Scotia.
Burncoat Sunday now. Judith on the beach at Burncoat, location of the highest recorded tides in the world (at nearly 50 feet). You can barely see the sea in the distance, but in a few hours where Judith is standing will be under over 20 feet of water. Interestingly, the second highest tides in the world can be found in the Bristol Channel.
Glenora Inn Sunday night stopover is the Glenora Inn and Distillery at Glenville on Cape Breton, which is at the northern end of Nova Scotia. Until 1955, when a causeway was built, Cape Breton was not actually attached to the rest of Nova Scotia. I get the impression that a lot of the Bretonians quite liked it that way. The Glenora Distillery is the only single malt whiskey distillery in Canada. The attached inn also has a very fantastic restaurant. Digby Scallops for dinner again today.
Glenora Inn What are the chances. Two green PT Cruiser convertibles in the same place. Mine’s the clean one.
Cape Breton Highlands National Park Monday, we've left Glenville behind and are pressing on into the Highlands National Park, probably the most scenic bit of Nova Scotia. Unfortunately it's starting to get a bit misty.
Skyline Trail We decide to start the 6 mile "Skyline" trail anyway. This trail leads to "a dramatic headland overlooking the rugged Gulf coast" where "whales, eagles, moose and bears" may be seen. I'd quite like to see some whales, eagles and moose. Not so keen on the bears though.
Skyline Trail Unfortunately visibility is getting worse...
Skyline Trail ...and worse. We could have almost walked past a moose and not even know it in this soup. Luckily the gadget boy brought a GPS with him, so not much chance of getting lost. There were no whales, eagles, moose or bears to be seen, which was not necessarily a bad thing.
Home! Seemed like a nice place. Obviously.
South Bay Ingonish Now that we're back at sea level, visibility has improved significantly. This is a view across South Bay Ingonish to the Keltic Lodge Hotel. This looked like a very nice place to stay, but unfortunately wasn't on our itenerary.
South Bay Ingonish A view across the bay from the Keltic Lodge.
Louisberg Stayed Monday night in the Gowrie House Country Inn in a place called Sydney Mines. Apparently it also had an awesome restaurant. However, we never got to find out because we had a cheap, quick dinner for a change in Tim Horton's (a sort of Canadian Dunkin' Donuts, but with sandwiches too).This is a picture of Louisberg, a historical town thing, which is probably the most boring place on earth (in my opinion). Apparently this was the first fog-free day they’d had for over a week.
Louisberg Nice view though.
Liscombe Lodge Spent Tuesday night in the Liscombe Lodge at Liscombe Mills. Much of their accommodation was "cabins" (i.e. wooden sheds) in the woods by the river. You can just see a couple of them in the photo. There was a massive thunderstorm while we were in our cabin. Simultaneous lightening and thunder that shakes the ground and causes the electricity to stop is a bit unnerving when you're staying in a shed in the woods.
Suggestions Welcome I photographed this in the grounds of the hotel. No idea what it is. The hotel was, you might not by now be surprised to hear, home to another fantastic restaurant. Planked salmon for dinner again. I would have had something else for a change, but the salmon was their "signature dish" and they appeared quite proud of it.
Brewery Wednesday and we're back in Halifax again, which provided an excellent opportunity to visit the Alexander Keith's Brewery. Really weird tour. Nice beer though.Also managed to find two curry houses - the Taj Mahal and Curry Village - and managed to eat in Curry Village. Good, ferociously hot food, but ropey service. The strangest thing was that they treat popadoms as an actual starter. We ordered popadums for two and got two popadums. We then had to order individual condiments separately. Not what we’re used to, but then I suppose that’s half the fun of being somewhere else.
Tourist Information A tourist information lady on her Segway "scooter" on the Halifax Boardwalk. How cool is that?
QM2 Thursday. Last day and the Queen Mary II had docked early in the morning. This was about as close as it was possible to get. Halifax really needs to work on its cruise ship facility because it’s a shabby shambles compared to the one in Vancouver that affords excellent views of the ships.And that was it. The end of our week in Nova Scotia. Seven hotels in eight days, 2,051km driven. Not the most interesting place I’ve ever been to, but there’s some nice scenery (when it’s not foggy) and loads of awesome food and local wine to be had. Don’t forget your bug spray thought, and be prepared for all sorts of weather, probably in rapid succession.Interesting factoid of the week - I managed to put on 6lbs in 8 days. That’s how good the food was. Just got to work out how to get it off again now.