Continuing the exciting drama from Part 1…
Wednesday saw us exploring the rest of the Cabot Trail before heading to Sydney to stay the night. After stopping in Tim Horton’s for breakfast again we quickly drove the bit of the trail we had explored to the day before and headed to the out of the way beach I’d found my last visit. Despite the slightly overcast weather both my mum and I went for a paddle (I wonder if that’s a Britishism?). My parent’s were rather more impressed with the beaches in this part of Nova Scotia as they had sand and were rather more like what they would consider a beach! Next up we drove to Middle Head, had a picnic lunch at the parking before going for a short hike. Photos from the beach and Middle Head.
After driving some more of the trail we drove up to Mary Ann Falls which I think my parents enjoyed. We got very lucky with the weather as just as we got back to the car it started to rain and it wouldn’t stop until we reached Sydney a few hours later. I had planned on showing my parents the views from Cape Smokey park but as we were in the clouds at that point and couldn’t see a hundred meters there seemed no point so we just kept on driving. This was the only point during the whole time my parents were here that my plans got derailed by the weather – we were extremely lucky! Photos from the falls are here and general driving photos are here. That description makes it sound like we didn’t get up to a lot that day, and I suppose we did get up to less than the day before. Still my parents enjoyed themselves and it led to some discussion of what side of the trail they enjoyed more. My personal opinion is that they’re both nice in their own different ways.
Thursday would mainly be spent driving back to Wolfville with a few stops on the way. This time I managed to get the right road out of Sydney towards Iona – this time the scenic one – and it was an enjoyable drive. After showing my parents the weird “island” at Iona (see my previous trip to Cape Breton) we headed to Baddeck. We had a walk around the town before getting some lunch. It really is quite a nice little town and my parents agreed. Photos from Baddeck are here. As we continued our drive of the island we drove past a house with cut-outs of lots of Simpsons characters in their front garden / yard, and that resulted in several more photos.
We continued the drive as far as Truro with nothing of notice happening. As we had enough of the day left to take a slow way back to Wolfville we decided to take the coastal road back from Truro to Windsor, something I’d been meaning to do for a while but had never got round to. It’s a reasonably scenic drive and our first proper stop was at Anthony Park, which rather unexpectedly had a pier out into the bay. What with the cool light at the time it was all rather scenic and so there are more photos. We next stopped at Walton lighthouse. I’d seen signs for this on the drive to and from Halifax and wondered what was so special about it, especially as we drove up and it was just another small Nova Scotia lighthouse. However this one you can go in and up to the top and there are also several history displays inside. All in all rather cool, and of course there’s more photos.
As the weather was nice Friday we headed over to Mahone Bay and Lunenburg. It was nice to look round both in the warm weather – the last time I’d properly visited both it’d been far too bitter to spend too long out of the car! I think my parents enjoyed both but there’s not too much exciting to report. the most interesting thing to report was probably quite how much my Dad hated the gothic church in Lunenburg, which was a little unexpected. Still I took photos in both Mahone Bay and Lunenburg. We got back to Wolfville in time for our second barbeque which went better than the first but still required some grilling (sorry my American friends – broiling).
When coming up with a vague plan of what to do while they were here my parents and I had left one day with nothing really planned in case we had a day with bad weather. This hadn’t happened so I didn’t really have a plan for the Saturday. My mum was quite keen to see Baxters Harbour again so we headed there (photos) before heading to Halls Harbour again, where the highlight was seeing a gull eating an eel. We’re not entirely sure it went entirely to plan for the gull as he seemed to be having problems swallowing it as you may be able to see from the photos. We had planned on eating there but my parents didn’t like the menu so we headed to the Port Pub in Port Williams – the normal pub of choice for my lab – instead.
After that we headed to a winery tour which was pretty cool. They certainly seemed determined to get you drunk. You could get four small tasting glasses in the main building and if you did the tour they gave you another seven tastings. I definitely had to refrain from some of them as I was driving. If any of my friends visit at the right time of year I definitely recommend it. After that we headed into New Minas to get food for the third barbeque of my parents visit which, while not perfect, was still really enjoyable.
Sunday was the day my parents flew out so we decided to do things around Halifax. On the way I showed them Mount Uniacke and took more photos – because I don’t have enough photos of there already. Next we headed into Halifax and wondered around the waterfront for a bit which involved more photos, including some of a tug boat tourist attraction – it had a face on it! The last place I took my parent’s was Peggy’s Cove. Again this was another case for me of being nice to visit in good weather as the only other time I’d been there it had been cold and raining and again I took lots of photos. After that we started heading towards the airport, getting dinner on the way. We sat chatting for a while I burned photos to a DVD for them before I saw them on their way.
It had been a great week and it had been really nice to see my parents and have them visit me here. However there would be little chance for a rest for me after the hectic week – I’d driven 1,500 miles – as I flew to the US on the following Wednesday for a conference and then seeing friends.