Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Aug 27th

Monday started like ALL Mondays should start... we slept in.

Got up around 9:30 and had another leisurely breakfast. Then we headed down to Alderney Landing on the Dartmouth waterfront to get some nice views of Halifax...



After that we headed across the MacDonald Bridge...

...and drove through downtown Halifax, destination...

...the Public Gardens. Beautiful gardens, in the center of the city over 150 years old.



These gardens suffered terribly due to Hurricane Juan, losing countless century old majestic trees. Thankfully to a very concentrated and energetic volunteer force the gardens have recovered, and a new gate and fountain were just inaugurated and dedicated to the volunteers...

From the Gardens, we took a longer then expected drive to Peggy's Cove (this was to prove to be one of many many many inconvenient drives due to highway construction. What should have taken only 45 minutes took over 90 minutes!!! A 5 minute stretch was 30 minutes alone!)

We stopped off at Shad Bay to take a few pics...


And finally we were at our MAIN destination...

Peggy's Cove.

We were here back in Dec of 2005 But as Didier said... "The ocean water was freezing!!!" so that was a brief visit! This time however we took our time. We walked around the rocks, took a few pics...


Then went into the Sou'Wester Restaurant for Chowder, Crab Cakes, and Gingerbread.

After filling our bellies we walked around the village took some more pics...



And then ended up back on the rocks to watch the tide come in...





After 3 and a 1/2 hours we decided to call it a day and headed back home.

Mom and Dad prepared Fish Cakes and then after dinner Didier and I went down to Lawrencetown Beach to watch the waves and look at the full moon. There was a guy practicing his Fire Spinning... here's some video but I'm afraid the quality is a bit low... (HEY! it was dark ya know! Trust me we could see a lot better... The sound is nice tho... heh)



We then took a little walk on the beach, passed a few families and I wrote in the sand...


All in all, another wonderful day!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Within six months your video will be all over "Alien Sighting" sites as evidence...

Bruno Laliberté said...

so, this is peggy's cove.
pretty,
but too many tourists...
spoils the view...
:D~

Sean Newbury said...

HA! I like that! I'll have to lose a tooth before I'm interviewed tho...

TB... that was practically EMPTY! there were only 3 tour buses full of Japanese tourists... at times there could be 10 or more! (Why Japanesew?... dunno but they flock to places like Peggy's Cove and all over PEI every summer. They say that if the Japanese stopped visiting PEI that the province would go bankrupt! ... and that's likely not an exaggeration) It's funny, I only seem to notice the other visitors there when taking a photo... then I want it FREE of the 'clutter' otherwise I don't really see them at all.

Bruno Laliberté said...

japaneese buy package deals,
& end up in places they don't even care for,
but they just go with the flow,
"cause it's part of the package...
"comment" i heard here from tourists in montreal, who couldn't wait to get to toronto, where they menat to go...

Maria said...

Peggy's Cove looks so busy.. what else is there to do besides look at the water?? First time I heard about that place was when I was in Jamaica (had just arrived Sept.1 in the evening) and when we woke up in the morning the Swissair Tragedy was all over the Jamaican news!! Do people in the area still talk about that??

Bruno Laliberté said...

i think so...
wasn't there some memorial???some time ago???

Sean Newbury said...

...sure there's more to do. walk on the rocks, bask in the sun, smell the sea air, watch the cormorants fish in the water, hike, soak in the quaint maritime culture...

Trust me, if you go to Peggy's Cove once, you are bound to return again and again, it's a powerful place and was a well know tourist spot well before the Swiss Air tragedy. There is a memorial park near the Cove, I've never been myself, not because I don't feel bad for those in the accident, but to me, a memorial should not be a tourist trap, go because you want to, not because that's where a bus drops you.

As for the Japanese, in part yes they may not have wanted the Cove as a first choice, but I tell you it's damned near impossible to get them back on the bus to leave. The place hypnotizes you.

As for the Japanese and PEI trust me they want to be there! They are intensely enamoured with all things Anne of Green Gables and PEI. So much so that many tourist sites offer trilingual brochures... English, French and Japanese. The marketing of Anne is impressive and much of it in Japan is of their own doing. Friends of the family had a girl. red hair, freckles the works... twice she and her mother were flown over to Japan to portray Anne to the public, meet n greets, photo sessions, I assure you they pay he insane amounts of moolah! and she would have continued to go if it were not that she unfortunately grew up and no longer looked the child part of Anne.

All that said, of the top ten attractions / historical sites in Canada 4 are back East: The Citadel (second only after Parliament Hill in Ottawa), The Bay of Fundy, Cavendish PEI ( including Anne of Green Gables) and Peggy's Cove.

... and we would have done all four but had no time for the day trip to Bay of Fundy. It's incredible picturesque, and besides what could be more exhilarating that having to race back the incoming tide. It's incredible!

Bruno Laliberté said...

sounds like pride to me, here...
good for you, kitty!!
:)~

Sean Newbury said...

Might be a bit of Pride, sure, but go there yourself and you'll brag about the beauty! ;-)

JB said...

Meant to write this when you first posted Peggy's Cove stuff - The coolest thing (to me) is the way all the mountains of rocks in the area surrounding Peggy's Cove are sheared off and smooth, making them modern-day remnants of a centuries-ago ice age. We always called them 'moon rocks'. Again, there's really nothing like them that I've seen anywhere else.
I've got a pretty emotional story I'll share with you sometime about a brother of one of the victims of the Swissair 111 disaster, and what some friends of mine from the Halifax Regional Police did for him, but ...some other time. The Memorial is not far from the Peggy's Cove 'tourist site' - just down the road toward the main part of the village. It's quite nice, actually. Very reverent, and very tasteful.