Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Aug 26th

So this was our first totally stress free day of vacation. No getting up early. No long distance drive ahead of us...

Sleeping in was the first order of the day... We got up around 10am.

Breakfast with the parental units and then it was off to the Schubenacadie Wildlife Park.



Not quite a zoo, not quite a park. All the animals are native to Nova Scotia. Everything from the small: turtles and Martens ands Fishers and Ducks, to the large: Deer, Bear and Moose. Personally I would have preferred to see many of the pens to have been enlarged since the last time I was there (June 1980) and maybe a few were, but then seems still too small. I guess though for the animals it's better than nothing. All animals are those that were injured, attended to and recovered but not able to be returned to the wild, or were the offspring of other zoo without the ability to keep a growing population. At any rate all seemed well looked after and certainly happy to be there.

It even seemed to me that some KNEW they were there to be seen and would actually 'take the stage' only when someone stood in front of their pens and gave them attention. The Timber Wolves, Bob Cats and even the Otters were especially 'on' when you went to see them, coming up to the front to grant photo ops! Really makes you wonder just how intelligent they are and what they understand.

Others, like the Porcupine and raccoons couldn't have cared less! Granted it was like 32' when we were there, precious little breeze and no cloud to offer shade.

Anyhoo, here's some pics...

Dall's Sheep...

Moose...

A Peahen and her brood...

White Rabbit!...

One damn lazy ass Raccoon...



Two damn lazy ass Porcupines...



River Otters...

Black Bear...



After the Wildlife park, we were a little peckish and went to, now don't hate us, KFC/Taco Bell. It may not have been seafood, or gourmet, but it was good!

We then went to the Mastodon Ridge MiniPutt. Some local attraction near where a complete Mastodon Fossil skeleton was found, and not so coincidentally in Stewiake... Stewiake being exactly 1/2 way between the North Pole and the Equator. Aside from a Mastodon replica and some 'Flinstonesque' sculptures, and some other interesting sites, there was the aforementioned miniputt.


Didier thought he'd impress me with his MiniPutt prowess... All I can say is... Final Score: Didier74, Shawn 42. Granted it was Par 36, but nonetheless I was the winner...

Mom and Dad took us out to dinner on the Wharf at Eastern Passage. We ate at Wraps. Had some good Calimari and the biggest pieces of haddock ! Fish 'n chips like you've never seen before! Huge mothers! I took the two piece fish and was barely able eat one and 1/2 the fries on my plate! A doggie bag was created and I second meal was taken home for another day!

After dinner it was across the wharf to "What's the Scoop?" for our first official ice cream of the vacation. Here you will see Mom and Didier in the foreground trying to decide on what flavour(s) to get...



After a promenade along the boardwalk we sat for a few minutes watching the last fading glimmer of twilight...


...before making a hasty retreat from the mosquitos.

From there we went home, chatted a bit before we all succumbed to the fresh salt air and wen to go count sheep.

5 comments:

Bruno Laliberté said...

i see i've got myself some relatives over there...who knew???
:D~ love those rams!!!
love the menu so far, except for kentucky fried caca...

JB said...

Having grown up in Eastern Passage, I can't begin to tell you how jealous I am...but I also can't believe you got a picture of a moose at Shubenacadie!
I've been to Shubenacadie a LOT - it's one of my favourite animal places, because I used to interview some of the animal rescuers who work there on my morning show in Halifax. Some of them have taken black bear cubs INTO THEIR HOMES to make sure the babies would be properly looked after, nursed back to health, whatever the issue. They're awesome people who truly love animals...but I've NEVER seen a moose there. Gone to look for them a ton of times - nada. They're always hiding...but - and maybe it's my imagination - the black bears there seem genuinely happy to be there, and very social / friendly.

Bruno Laliberté said...

@ jb

as long as you keep the buffet coming, bears will be happy. this said, from a bear!!.... ;)~

John Mielke Photography said...

Welcome home Kitty!!

GREAT shots, as always! Me thinks you've taken a lesson here or there!

You're making me wish I'd done a bit more driving in Halifax and checked out Eastern Passage. I just get sooooooo comfy along the waterfront that I don't wanna move. I'm the lamest tourist EVER.

Lookin' forward to more pics and hope your Dad's doing well!

JB - I'm with you... everywhere ya look in NB and NS there's signs advertising these supposed moose. Never seen one. Ever. Came WAYYYYYYYYYY too close to a deer once though. Ack!

Ticklebear: GREAT line! LOVED it!

Milky

Sean Newbury said...

TB...

The Sheep were great. and they too hammed it up for the cameras! Only one male was out of their barn when we walked up to their enclosure.. within minutes 3 more were outside, hamming it up. They were beautiful, and WOW! what racks on the rams!

JB...
We actually got about 6 halfway decent shots of the moose. and many more so-so ones. There is one male and 2 females... not sure if one is an offspring or not... at any rate we saw them grazing near the pond for about 10 minutes and then they went into their enclosure... It was such a hot day and they had A/C ! lol As did the Caribou and Sable Island Ponies!... so no pics of them. Many other animals were sweltering under the heat... the Cougar, the foxes (red and silver) Martens, Fishers, Skunks, Deer and so on... I even thought the day was a bit of a dud, but well, we're quite pleased!

Milkie...
I could so easily have been the waterfront tourist... as a matter of fact we did do the historic properties (on the 28th, still to be posted...)

Not so sure the pics are that much improved... Thankfully Digital cameras allow me to continue my typical process of taking pictures. just take a shit-load of em, some are bound to be good! heh