LeHave River Valley

24^th August (Sunday)

Had a lazy start this morning after a good night's sleep, full English breakfast eaten on the picnic bench overlooking a lazy Sunday on the river. The guide with the accommodation told of a local swimming place at a nearby freshwater lake. So drove to Beck's Lake about 5minutes away, parked up, beautiful small lake, a couple of elderly gentlemen with a '69 drop-head caddi were sailing radio controlled yachts, kids were swinging from a rope tied high up in a tree and dropping into the water, others were swimming out to, and from an old piece of wooden decking floating out in the lake. Went for a swim, the water lovely and warm with a wonderful landscape of trees down to the waters edge. Later drove down the side of the Lehave river to Riverport where river meets sea. Came back to relax on the the deck and later cooked steak on the barbecue for supper.

LeHave River, 'A river to sea!'

25^th August (Monday)

It rained during the night and the morning broke to an unpromising start, cloudy and overcast. We had already planned to go to Lunenburg to visit the Atlantic Fisheries Museum. Earlier in our stay we had made a brief visit to the town, but it was late in the day and the museum was about to close. Just 20mins from where we are staying, by the time we arrived the sun was out and it was already quite hot! A fascinating museum which explore the growth and development of the fishing industry which played a very important part in the commercial success of Nova Scotia in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The museum originally started in 1967 based on board the last dory schooner Theresa E. Connor, this ship is still moored there and we were able to go round it, noting that it finished fishing in 1962, the year that the Cape Sable started fishing a side trawler which later 'retired' in 1982 when stern trawlers took over as being more efficient. As well as going round the the museum based in an old fish processing plant on the the waterfront we were able to tour both ships which was fascinating. The day continued hot and sunny, with a lot to see we did not leave until the museum closed at 5.30pm and then took a walk round part of the old town including the old railway wharf.

We had an ice cream, it is worth noting that a single scoop is more like about 6 scoops rammed into a home-made or proprietary cornet. The option is always there to have 2 or 3 scoops! We have yet to work out how i) they can be fitted into a cone or ii) you can manage to eat the quantity! It is worth noting they average about £1.25 each. Also it should be noted tea and coffee cost on average about 75p to £1 per cup, coffee usually comes with a refill and tea, the pot usually holds two cups, furthermore the the prices at the airport are about the same.

We returned to cook fresh salmon with Hollandaise sauce, on the price theme 750grams (about 1 1/2lbs) salmon about £3.50!

http://museum.gov.ns.ca/fma/http://www.town.lunenburg.ns.ca/

26^th August (Tuesday)

The morning broke clear and sunny, we drove down the side of the LeHave river towards Riverport but crossed to the other side on the cable ferry and then drove up towards Mount Pleasant and along Huey Lake, then onto Crescent beach a fantastic long curving beach of fine sand, Cris swam, sea being the Atlantic a touch chilly. We then drove along the causeway between Green Bay and Dublin Bay to Bell Island (in the 18C it was an island, which could be reached at low tide-shifting sands and the need to preserve the coastline meant that the dunes have been stabilised and a road laid. We visited the LeHave Island Marine Museum housed in a former church built in 1913 and decommissioned in 1972 to become the museum in 1975. It contains an eclectic mix of marine, fishing and local community related articles. It is a community museum operated by volunteers.

We went on to Rissers Beach at Rissers Provincial Park, another sweeping sandy beach with nature walks, a long board walk over wetlands and excellent facilities in toilets and hot showers and a beach canteen-all open to 8.30pm-we sat in the sun and had another one scoop ice cream before walking along part of the board walk. We just missed the return ferry and had to wait about 20mins for its return, it operates from each side of the river every half hour from 7.00am to 11.00pm, interesting to note outside of these hours you can summon it between 11.00pm and 7.00am by using an intercom on a pole one side, on the other side you flash your headlights-its hard to imagine such a service in the UK! We returned for dinner and a fine sunset over the river.

http://www.destination-ns.com/common/property.asp?DirectoryID=1812

27^th August (Wednesday)

Woke to a wet morning, decided to go down to Bridgewater and visit the Wile Carding Mill

http://museum.gov.ns.ca/wcm/

This water driven carding mill 'carded' wool ready for spinning and only ceased operation in 1968, it never had electricity and at one time the owner realising the mill wheel was quite powerful, delivering more than needed to run the two carding machines, also operated a grist mill and a sawmill driven by the same wheel.

We went on to the DesBrisay Museum which is essentially a collection of artefacts assembled by Judge Mather Byles DesBrisay in his lifetime from about 1870 following his publication of his essay 'History of the County of Lunenburg'

http://www.bridgewater.ca/desbrisay-museum/judge-desbrisay.html

We then took a walk round the the Bridgewater Woodland Gardens which adjoin the museum (the public swimming pool is next door and has a nice outdoor pool). We saw a woodpecker busy at work in a tree and a squirrel high up in a fir tree biting through the stems of green fir cones sending to the ground with a 'thunk' (Canadian red squirrels are quite a bit smaller than our grey or red squirrels in the UK).

28^th August (Thursday)

Overcast morning but dry, tried to make an earlier start as we planned to spend the day in Halifax, set the satnav for a downtown car park it took us to a car park 5.4km from the city centre! We have found the satnav sometimes more of a hindrance than a help. Canadian six digit postcodes do not seem to be terribly place specific-enter them in and it lists loads of areas across the country (whole of Canada). We have noticed some places including B&B give their full geographic coordinates-obviously this is an issue here!

After some frustrations we found our way to Pier 21, this is now a museum based in the former immigration shed on that pier where migrants entered Canada for the first time, from 1928 until its closure in 1971 it is estimated that 1M people passed through it on their way to a new life in Canada. (Immigration is now based at Halifax Airport)

https://www.pier21.ca/about

We were going to take the the free shuttle bus (FRED) to down town, but realised that it probably would not give us enough time as we would need to get the bus back to the Pier 21 car park ($3 for the day, entry to museum $8.50). So drove down town, using the Halifax metro map, it only took 10mins and there is plenty of waterfront parking ($3per hour or $12 all day). Took a walk up George Carmichael St to the Citadel

http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/halifax/index_E.asp

and then walked the down town shopping streets of Granville and Hollis, stopping for a coffee and breakfast bun ($3.75). Continued down to the waterfront and walked the board walk, seeing luxury yachts, pilot boats and tugs. The photographs you see of Halifax paint a picture of a large cosmopolitan city with high rises, by Nova Scotian standards that is correct, by UK standards it is quite small, in population it is about the size of Coventry-although I have to say rather more attractive. We experienced the 'rotary' twice, going in and out -its a traffic island, by some UK standards quite small, apparently it causes locals all sorts of stress and we were told it has been rebuilt three times-the real problem is the signage, if they used UK style roundabout signs showing clearly exits there would be no problems.

Arrived back about 8.00pm quite tired, cooked a quick supper, checked for e-mails about 11.00pm to receive one from Rachel telling us of the collapse of Zoom airline who we were due to fly back with on Saturday....... OK plan 'B' thank heavens we had decided to take a laptop, firstly we got the news promptly (I did not get a message from Zoom until Friday morning, 200 people had been stranded at Halifax Thursday). Checked airlines and schedules, rather than being panicked into an early flight we delayed by 3 days to get a better price and are now flying back with Air Canada via Ottawa-there is one plus, the baggage allowance is better. Bit bullet booked flights, hopefully will get some refund on our Zoom return flights as they were booked via American Express.

29^th August (Friday)

Thursday night wind howled and it rained on and off, we were so bushed we had a bit of a slow start. Called our car hire company (Budget) and extended hire by 3 days-no problems my Skype calling account off the computer worked very efficiently the call cost 12c (everything other than a call to the next street is counted as long distance here, many people block their phones for long distance and use calling cards) a payphone costs about $4 per minute long distance (there is very little cell and landline competition here). We then checked out some accommodation for our last 3 nights and decided to stay on the coast on the Eastern Shore (East of Halifax). This extension to our holiday will be a bit of a bonus in a way as we will get to see an area we had not managed to get to. It is hard to believe we have been here 4 ½ weeks and there is still much to see and do.

By afternoon the sun was out so visited the Railway Museum just out of Lunenburg, a fine warm afternoon. An interesting private museum, we were shown round by the owner Duane, he helped by volunteers are building a model of the South shore railway as it used to be in its heyday. He also has a collection of interesting photographs and artefacts. Returned to tea and cake on the deck over looking the Lehave river-that is until the sky darkened and there was a shower. Tomorrow we should have been going to the airport-instead we have a further 3 days to enjoy.......

http://www.trellishouse.ca/