Driving east into Nova Scotia it really started to feel like we were really far from home. No longer were we just a long day drive away from Rochester nor were we even in a province still touching a U.S. state. We were out there. We stopped at the Nova Scotia welcome center to take a picture with the huge welcome sign. It was more of a structure than a sign with it being made out of wood and at least 30 feet across with a replica lighthouse to one side of it. Julie loved it of course!
Our stop for the night was at Amherst . We were not exactly sure what we were going to do in Nova Scotia yet besides go to Halifax and Cape Breton Island so we needed a plan. After studying some of the brochures that we picked up at the info center we decided to circumnavigate the province. The first day in we decided to drive to the point of the “mini” peninsula of Nova Scotia that juts out into the Bay of Fundy. This drive on the “mini” peninsula (those wanting to know this peninsula, Advocate Harbour is at the tip) went past scenic fishing towns as well as dense and hilly forests. We also made a stop at the Joggins Fossil cliffs on the recommendation of an Australian couple that we had met a few days prior.(Thanks Paul and Marianne) Joggins is special as it is a UNESCO World Heritage site where you can see fossils on the cliffside from 300 million years ago. We toured their small museum as well as took a guided tour of the beach and cliffs. We ended the day in Truro, which on the map isn’t too far past Amherst even though we had a full day of driving.
That evening we had our Newfoundland talk. Up to this point we were enjoying a leisurely drive every day going as far (long or short) as we wished. We knew that we had to be back in the Adirondacks by July 1st at the latest and were not sure if we would be able to do things as we had done up to this point if we decided to go to Newfoundland. We knew it would take 1 to 2 weeks on the island itself to see everything and it was a lot more driving. The island of Newfoundland is massive compared to all of the states and provinces that we had already been through. In the end though we decided to go for it as this adventure was about seeing and doing everything possible. We would be disappointed in ourselves if we came all this way and didn’t go. With that decided we purchased our ferry tickets and planned out the rest of our part 1 of Nova Scotia.
The next morning we woke up excited. The destination for the day was Yarmouth on the southern tip of Nova Scotia. We picked our route and headed south. The first stop of the day was at Burncoat Head Park. We sort of stumbled upon this as we just saw a sign for a lighthouse. As it turns out this was the spot that had the highest recorded tides in the world at just over 53 feet. This was a surprise to us as New Brunswick while not exactly saying they had the highest recorded tides sort of made reference that it was there and not across the bay in Nova Scotia. After walking around the park (and up into the lighthouse, Julie was soooo excited) we continued our drive south. Continuing south the next stop was the Nova Scotian wine region. Looking at Google reviews we stopped at 2 wineries, Luckett Vineyards and Benjamin Bridge. At Luckett we took in amazing views of the bay and to Julie’s surprise Benjamin Bridge turned out to specialize in (champagne) bubbles! Our van Bubbles also thought this was great! After our tastings, lunch and some coffee we hit the road again driving a few hours to our campsite for 2 nights in Yarmouth.
The next morning we woke up and took a short drive from our campsite to Yarmouth. Yarmouth is an old sea captain type town that feels like it doesn’t know what direction to go in. There’s a ferry that goes from Yarmouth to Portland, Maine. At least every other person that we encountered asked us if we had come over on the ferry and when we said no they all seemed very disappointed. We walked around the small commercial district stopping at the Nova Scotia visitor’s center at the ferry terminal. As the ferry was not dropping off anyone at the time we had the place to ourselves. We were told the thing to do was to go on a tour of the old captains homes. So we did…..and it was amazing. For being a smaller run down sort of town these old captains homes were meticulously crafted and huge. They were all built in the 1800’s in seven different architectural styles. What got us was the detail and color that adorned the homes. For all those that want to see what these homes look like here is a link(Julie also took lots of photos too). http://www.novascotia.com/see-do/tours/sea-captains-walking-tour/2382 There were blocks of these homes with a paragraph written about each in the guidebook. We even stopped and chatted with an owner (who turned out to be a Mountie) who was painting and selling the house. It’s for sale if anyone is interested in an old captains house. We eventually had our fill of houses and headed back to our campground and started to plan our next stop, Nova Scotia’s biggest city of Halifax.
We hit the road the next morning finally on the Atlantic side of the province for the first time. We planned two pit stops on the way to Halifax. The first was in the town of Lunenburg, home of the Bluenose II. Julie and I both loved this town. We compared it to a big, hilly Kennebunkport, Maine. It was colorful, charming and historic. It was home to Nova Scotia’s famed Bluenose II tall ship. The story of the Bluenose was that it won every race that it entered from 1921 through its last race in 1937. The ship is on almost every provincial publication that Julie and I were given. While the original no longer exists (it crashed off the shore of Haiti in 1947) a replica was built in the 1960’s, which you can now see at Lunenburg. The ship while normally docked does go to tall ship festivals so if anyone is going to the Boston tall ship festival this year you will be able to see the Bluenose II while there. The second stop of the day was at Oak Island. If you’re not familiar with the island you might have seen a show on the history channel called “ The Curse of Oak Island”. Legend has it that in the 1700’s or before, pirates or others buried a treasure. Ever since the late 1700’s people have been searching for this treasure. I’ve known about this and have watched the show on the history channel. While you cant actually go to the island you can drive right up the causeway that connects the island and take some pictures. These will be posted to the gallery. It was really cool to be there as I had seen it on TV so many times. Leaving Oak Island we drove to Dartmouth (right next to Halifax) for the night.
The next morning we woke up excited to hit the town. We were visiting Halifax, which is the largest city up to this point that we were visiting. We drove from Dartmouth to Halifax wanting to go to the Halifax Public Market first. We were pretty excited as our experience at the Saint John public market was so positive and we had read that the Halifax Market was first created in 1750 so we were expecting a historic building as well. We were also in need of some produce so it was a win win. When we arrived we found a brand new building, not the old historic building like in Saint John. Nonetheless we walked in and immediately found out that on that particular day that we arrived not much was going on. As big as the place was almost ever vendor was closed and the ones that were open were just serving breakfast. Disappointed we walked out and along the harbor closer into downtown. Next up for a us was a tour of the Alexander Keith’s brewery. For anyone that has ever been in a bar or pub in Canada you will most likely have seen a “Keith’s” beer. The brewery is in an old historic building in downtown Halifax. We signed up for a tour and paid the entrance fee. We thought it was a bit much at $26 per person but really wanted to see it so we said ok. As it turned out this was the best brewery tour Julie and I had ever been to. The tour was about an hour long that took you through the history of Alexander Keith’s life: his birth in Scotland to his building a beer empire in Halifax. They had even gone through the trouble of recreating rooms from Alexander’s home. Normally during brewery tours you are able to sample the breweries beer at the end of the tour. With this one they gave us beers as the tour progressed. Then the tour ended at Alexander’s historic 1800’s pub where you were treated to two more beers of your choice along with more history of the brewery as well as some songs sung by the staff there. It was really quite amazing. The only thing I could compare it to was the Disney of brewery tours. Two big thumbs up from Julie and I for the Alexander Keith’s brewery tour!
After a lunch of delicious sushi we started the 2nd half of our Halifax tour. One of the main attractions in Halifax (besides the Keith’s brewery) is the Halifax Citadel. This citadel was built by the British in 1749, which was also the year Halifax was founded. Today it is run by Parks Canada and is a living history museum of sorts with actors in British Army period uniforms from the late 1800’s. We witnessed the changing of the guard, bagpipe players as well as cadets learning their marching drills. Aside from the people watching it gave us a great 360-degree view of Halifax. It was really a neat area to spend a few hours in. After the citadel we headed back to our campsite to make dinner and plan our route north to Cape Breton Island where we would be catching our ferry to Newfoundland.
The next morning we woke up and headed back out on the road up the east coast of Nova Scotia. This ran for miles and miles through tiny fishing villages and parks. The road was pretty rough in spots but the scenery was breathtaking. Eventually we connected back on the highway and headed north across the causeway to Cape Breton Island. Cape Breton is the northern part of Nova Scotia and is separated by Canada’s biggest lake in the center, Bras D’Or Lake. It was a spectacular drive up and past the lake as the road curved almost right on the shore at times to going hundreds of feet up and down. Finally though we made it to our stop for the night, North Sydney. We stopped at our campsite and cleaned up Bubbles as it was a beautiful day and she had not been washed since we started our trip. We were very excited going to bed that night, as we were about to cross part of the Atlantic Ocean the next morning to get to Canada’s most eastern province.
For those of you wondering where the latest gallery pictures are, we are currently not having the best of luck with our internet and Flicker account. We will have them up as soon as we can but in the meantime please enjoy our blog post and video’s. ☺
Up Next….A long ferry ride to the most eastern place in North America, Newfoundland!
So cool that you passed by Oak Island!
Enjoy the trip to Newfoundland! It is great to keep up with your blog!