Despite keeping busy this year with plenty of interesting and enjoyable outings, I've been remiss to report on them in a timely manner. [self-scolding]. So let's try to stay on top of my two week trip of Nova Scotia. Some of you might have already visited my past reviews from previous years here and here, I hereby present the 2016 installment of Nova Scotia.
Family+friends first
We arrived in the evening and were picked up from the airport and driven to the house in Middle Sackville that would be our primary base of operations during our stay. We had a late snack of bagels+cream cheese+candied salmon+capers+onion, and thus began my loose goal of eating seafood everyday while I'm here. In past years I've doggedly pursued the scallops and lobster that we can't get for a reasonable price on the west coast, but for ease of everyone around me I've broadened my parameters to just seafood. I do loooove salmon!
Aside from jet lag the bed creaked and the streetlight shone brightly through the window and the crickets chirped all night (the latter a welcome change from living in a city), Sleep was fitful, and the next day we drove down to the cottage in Chester. Here had no internet but did have some television, and more importantly a swimming pool and a warm glassed-in sun deck overlooking the cove. Nice comfy bed too. I slept well and woke to the stereo sound of a dove in the yard to my right and a loon on the water to my left, both eventually silenced by the crow which I swear has a different east coast accent than the crows we have back home. We always have such beautiful skies here too, this time featuring bright pink clouds at sunset.
We visited Lunenburg in the afternoon briefly, and had lunch on the waterfront. I had a lobster roll, yay!
After we went to a cabin in the woods (not to be confused with our usual cabin in the woods we'll visit later, although it is close by), and met up with a full house of relatives visiting from Lloydminster in the prairies. That was a nice evening with friendly people and conversation, with homemade seafood chowder and delicious chocolate chip coffee cake for dessert.
Then back to the cottage overnight, then back to the house for what I thought would be overnight till we got an invite to a nearby friends' place with a nice gazebo in the backyard and enough drink+talk that we stayed in his trailer overnight instead. We head back to the house for a quiet grey day of tea and phone/emails to organize the rest of our trip.
We enjoyed geocaching in Point Pleasant park on a beautiful sunny afternoon and had some high-end sushi (including scallops+lobster) on the Halifax waterfront with ever-popular Nova 7 wine, I'd note to grab a few bottles to take back west before we leave since it's unavailable in BC.
Far-flung fun
The timing of our visit to be on the east coast gave us the chance to attend a geocaching event in Kouchibouguac National park in New Brunswick. It wasn't really 'near' us and not even the same province, but Atlantic provinces can be crossed in a few hours and was deemed doable with friends that facilitated our camping with them. We arrived separately that weekend braving the torrential downpour that made driving a challenge, amidst our friends' urging to turn back we ploughed through. The rain cleared as we got to the park, and we saw a short rainbow briefly in the grey. These friends had loaned us their tent+mattress and even set it up for us with a tarp over top that we would be very glad for as the skies threw more rain that night, the sound keeping me awake but the comforter keeping me warm. Mentally I yelled at the tent roof "I dare you to rain harder!", and indeed it did.
Meals were in their camper, it was great to have access to a kitchen and good company for morning coffee and our friend's mom who made the best homemade fishcakes I've ever had. The next afternoon we explored the park with great admiration - the trails were well maintained, the footpaths we felt would be bike-worthy by BC standards and their bike paths able to support vehicles. This is a large park and I thought of plenty of spots I could sneak my tent onto a fluffy patch of lush moss. We found the geocaches from previous year's events which took us to some highlights of the park, the beaches and salt marshes that were nesting sites for the piping plovers and old areas that used to have Acadian villages. That night we had a campfire, I was the last one to go to retire as I watched the embers die. Here is a dark sky preserve so I saw many stars I hadn't seen in months, and if that wasn't enough I saw a single shooting star and felt that was my cue to bed. Somehow it felt like the land and every instance there was tailored to me somehow with some of my favorite things, and I felt very blessed.
The last day was finding that year's released geocaches, revisiting spots yesterday and a few new ones. The boardwalk on the eastern shore and the lookout tower in the bog were featured on our commemorative wooden geocoins.
We left the event and drove down with friends in two cars in search of a place for dinner, which seemed oddly challenging given that this was a scenic drive by Acadian neighbourhoods showcased by New Brunswick tourism. I could not explain this dearth of restaurants - in tourist season nonetheless - only to suggest that everyone eats at home all the time? There were a few pizza joints, but I did not cross the country for common pizza... Our third attempt led us to a diner with an expressive and openly overworked waitress, and generous portions of seafood dinner. After this we parted with our friends and had a long drive back to Sackville in the dark along a plain highway, I think I fell asleep in the car.
That long weekend was followed by a leisurely Sunday drive around scenic Hants county back in Nova Scotia. The roads wind gently over and around hills like a sea of green farms dotted with houses and rural towns, with fingers of red mud tidal rivers reaching in. We visited a few spots on the coast; Burntcoat Head where we watched the highest tides in the world come in and cut off Flowerpot Island in a matter of minutes, a slight waterfall as Cobequid Bay closed in around it. We scored some huge field cucumbers left at the end of a driveway with a sign saying "Free", so it's always nice to find unexpected treasure! Next was a little beach at Tennycook with fossilized sea/riverbed flaking off the cliffs. No obvious dinosaur finds, but fossils are all over the Bay of Fundy shores once your eyes adjust to focus on the patterns and shapes of simple plants and animals of the Carboniferous Period. We stopped at Walton which boasted a lighthouse and little else, then onward to Avondale Sky winery we'd visited before but thought we'd sample some since we're in the area. From there we backtracked to promising dinner prospects only to be thwarted again, and just drove back to Sackville for whatever creative dinner we could compose from the fridge.
We rented a plane to take a flight around the Minas Basin to retrace from the air the places we'd visit by car. My headphones didn't work so the pilot and I couldn't have a real conversation, so I sat there like a sack of potatos and looked out the window at the pretty land below. Some areas were best viewed from the air, like Boot Island, and the sheer cliff of Cape Split which we could hike to the end of but not really view the sea stacks the same way from land. On our way back we stopped off at Truro and I had delicious baja fish tacos at The Nook and Cranny on the patio. Then was the drive across to visited our friend in Grand Pre again, it was great to see that family again and they had an energetic new young cat that the girls put on a leash to come geocaching with us. The fantastic chef made moussaka and peach cobbler.
We stayed overnight and the next day drove out to Scots Bay and Blomedon, the former being the prettiest rock beach I've seen yet here with agates and jasper, and the latter being one of the most famous cliffs and sand all red. An easy walk on beaches, I'd love to return there. Later I would hear of Amethyst Cove where one can find amethyst straight on the beach, and I mentally filed that away on the To Do list next year.
Back with family
As our trip closed to an end was a few days of visiting more family; celebrating anniversaries and scattering ashes of the deceased (which culminated with dinner at the Blue Olive and my first saganaki). We went for a drive+geocache around Lawrencetown beach and Musquodoboit Harbour, and some around Sackville. We had one last overnight at the cottage with the half moon shining bright as a streetlight. There was a hearty brunch in Maplewood that we've attended in past years put on by the community at the museum grounds and served by volunteers, featuring the German-immigrant delicacies of Lunenburg sausage and Tancook saurkraut, with blueberry grunt (a kind of bread pudding/dumpling) for dessert. There was an overnight stay at the usual cabin in the woods; with no Internet or cell service or even running water it is a sort of imposed tranquility to immerse oneself. We took the small kayaks for a gentle cruise along the dead calm lake. We didn't bother with dinner at all and the children were fine with chips because it was a Saturday... We had a campfire with some novelty powder that turned the flames to greens and blues, and plenty of stars above, again I was the last one to sleep.
The next morning after the challenge of making kids eat their breakfast was a drive through the middle of the province south to a reunion with a friend from Yarmouth and one visiting from England, an easygoing afternoon in a backyard and I finally couldn't avoid eating the pizza they'd got for lunch, which was really good. A few carried on to see a particular 'hidden gem' beach, with pale powder sand and generally quiet and overlooked, that on this day was foggy or misty and we could appreciate it without lingering long. I don't mind the grey finding us here as we've been lucky with great weather for most of the trip and are just leaving now.
