After wandering down the west coast of Nova Scotia we cut across to pick up Lucy, Mona's daughter, who flew up from New York to be with us for a few days. We camped a short distance outside of Halifax and explored the surrounding area while she was with us.
Our good friend, Chuck, told us before we left about how the largest explosion in the world at the time occurred in the Halifax harbor during World War I when two ships collided, one of which was an ammunition ship. He had heard that the maritime museum in Halifax was a must see because of it's displays of that explosion. We made it our first stop. It was just amazing how much of the town was completely leveled. Hard to imagine really. It was like looking at Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb was dropped. The town was just starting to recover when boatloads of survivors and bodies arrived from the Titanic's sinking.
One of the displays at the museum was a mock up of a typical ships radio room. There was an operating amateur radio station in the display. The two amateur radio operator manning the display offered to let me use the station which I declined. They were teaching visitors how to send their names in Morse Code. Mona now knows how to send her name, or at least she did for while.
Everyone told us what a great place Peggy's Cove was and that we have to see it. It is indeed really cute and being situated next to the ocean with a shoreline composed of huge rocks makes it exceptionally beautiful. When we arrived we were in line for parking with a whole bunch of tour buses. Imagine a town, about one tenth the size of Bar Harbor with just as many tourist!
Peggy's Cove has this beautiful lighthouse perched on the rocks at the point. One
thing we have learned over the years is that as you get just a few
blocks away from the main tourist areas, the crowds drop to half and
continue to drop exponentially the farther you get.
And the lighthouse was not the only beautiful things in the area.
While we were in Nova Scotia, Mona really wanted to go on a boat ride so she treated Lucy and I on a cruise around Mahone Bay. There were lots of little cabins, like this on, that we went by. The captain said that the owners of this one maybe spend a week a year there. As part of the tour we went past Oak Island. Apparently there is a reality TV show, The Curse of Oak Island, in which some guys are looking for supposedly buried treasure. We haven't seen the program and it sounds pretty "hokey" from what the captain had to say about it.
The weekend of our boat trip the town of Mahone Bay was having their annual "Scarecrow" Festival. What a Hoot!! Most of the homes and stores had scarecrows in front of them like this one of Marilyn Monroe. At first glance, both Mona and I thought that was a real person taking the picture instead of being another scarecrow.
The next day we visited The Bluenose II, a replica of the original Bluenose. The original was a fishing schooner in the 1920's which was famous for being a racing schooner as well as a working fishing boat. Turn your Canadian dime over and you we see it depicted there on the back of the coin.
We were allowed to wander the deck. Everything was immaculate! I can only imagine the amount of man hours it must take to keep this ship in such pristine shape.
Ok....... I can't help myself.....
Just one more picture.
After wandering around the town of Lunenburg where the Bluenose is moored we went for a little exploration drive and came across this little cove in an area called Blue Rocks. Like so many of the little coves and inlets in Nova Scotia, it was quite picturesque. (I'll be dammed, did I spell that right?). I wonder if there is a correlation between the name Blue Rocks and the fact that The Bluenose is moored nearby?
Well NUTS....
Lucy had to leave us the next morning.
It sure was a real treat having her with us. We both were wishing it could have been longer.
After dropping Lucy off at the airport we headed north to catch the ferry to Newfoundland.
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