Nova Scotia

We returned to N.S. on the overnight ferry from Newfoundland and headed to our next base of Halifax. We first ventured south to explore Peggy’s Cove…

… with its “famous” lighthouse. Apparently this may be the most photographed lighthouse in Canada. Check out my video, complete with bagpiper, by clicking on the link at the end of the post to open it in your browser -

I thoroughly enjoyed wandering over the rocks…

… and watching the ocean -

The town itself was charming with picturesque coves -

… as were other small towns along the east coast -

Guess what we found? Wineries! Leave it to us to find wines to taste just about everywhere we go. They were located in the interior of the province and near the west coast.

Back to Halifax…this is the provincial capital and it lies on the east coast. We visited the Botanical Gardens…

… getting our fill of rhododendrons -

We also checked out The Citadel (not too exciting)…

… and walked along the waterfront…

… where I found this whimsical art piece -

And I liked the juxtaposition -

Probably one of the highlights of our entire Maritime driving tour was getting to experience the tidal bore coming into the Bay of Fundy up close and personal. This helps explain it a little (from the website of the company we rode with) -

“The water from the Bay of Fundy gets funneled into the shallow Shubenacadie River channels to create a surge of water. The front wave of this surge is known as the Tidal Bore. There are very few places in the world that have a tidal bore and even fewer that can compare in size! After the tidal bore goes by the river reverses direction and starts flowing inland at nearly 30km/hr. It is because of the huge volume of water forcing its way into the shallow waters that creates our rapids ranging from 4-12ft standing waves!” (We were there on an “extreme” high tide day, and the waves were truly 10-12 ft high.)

Because of the conditions, Steve did all our filming on his GoPro, so there will be a series of short videos. First, here’s a pan of the river (and how low it was) just before we headed out to the zodiacs -

You may want to watch the next video a couple of times to see how fast the water was rising, and to notice the white line of the tidal bore in the background. Also, notice where the sand bar is still visible (to contrast with the video after this one) -

Steve and I had been standing on the huge sand bar, watching the tidal bore coming in (seemingly still very far away) when our zodiac driver called us back in. The next video shows how fast the water was coming in (and the complete disappearance of the sand bar), as our driver struggled a little to join the rest of us already in the boat -

In a little out of order, this video shows the river back where we put in, just a couple of hours earlier…

… and a still showing what it was like inside the zodiac -

There were 2 drains in the bottom of the raft, with one-way valves to let the water out. After a series of standing waves calmed down around us, the boat driver would speed back down the river to catch another group of them to roller-coaster through them. I’ll end this post with the video showing the highest waves we rode -

We had a blast!!