Better late than never. We’ve been back a couple of weeks now and I thought I should write something about the eastern trip. And what better time to do this than on another west coast miserable soggy day. The previous 2 posts were done a while ago but never got posted then as we a) didn’t have the photos to go with it, b) were feeling lazy, c) in transit a lot, d) were feeling lazy, e) didn’t have internet (the ranch), and f) were feeling lazy.
Anyway, we spent the month of September in beautiful (sorry to steal BCs adjective) Nova Scotia including the couple of days in Halifax. A week of that was on the south shore (Lunenburg area) and we really liked it there. The weather was great and the whole area is a picture postcard of ocean, beaches, 100s of small coves, lighthouses, and lobster restaurants. We even got close to the Bluenose II schooner and saw her sailing about in the bay. I used the word quaint earlier and Lunenburg takes the top honours in that department. It’s very pretty and well worth the visit. The south shore we were told has its own milder micro-climate than the rest of NS with autumn usually warm and sunny and snow not showing up until January. But they do get the odd hurricane every now and then.
With a population of 950,00, the 2.5 million tourists every year inject some much-needed stimulus into the local economy. It’s probably no. 2 behind lobster fishing but I didn’t really check. And so, like good little tourists, we spent the rest of the time driving around the province starting with Sydney and the Cabot trail, winding our way down the southern side of the Bay of Fundy, checking out Yarmouth and Shelburne in the west and ending up back in Lunenburg. We took the slower roads where we could, so we had some sights of the water, beaches, and small towns along the way. We even tried a few of the ‘lighthouse’ route roads which hug the coast and we mistakenly thought that they would take us past some, well, lighthouses. And maybe they did, but all we saw was road and trees. They were probably down some side road or other but since we didn’t see any signs that said, “this way to the lighthouse”, we missed them. We didn’t see everything obviously so that may entail another visit at some point with Newfoundland on the bucket list as well. I did try a lobster sandwich somewhere along the drive, and it was pretty tasty, but at $20 a pop (plus $7 for the beer), I thought I’d just savor the one and reminisce about the Spanish seafood prices.
Overall, our month there was very enjoyable and fairly laid back even with all the driving and moving around. We found everyone friendly, easy to talk to, and full of interesting stories. The landscape, like BC, is gorgeous. Unlike BC though, the landscape is actually affordable. There are no lobsters in BC either but with those prices, maybe there should be. Fit right in.