Travelling around NS with Yvonne - part 1

It's been over a month now since I've been back home in Nova Scotia, so I thought it was probably about time that I post some of the pix from Yvonne's and my day tripping activity in mid-June.

We arrived by train in Halifax on Thursday, June 14th from Toronto, were picked up by my parents and somehow managed to jamb ourselves into the car with all my luggage (and Yvonne's one little bag...that one almost put us over the top ;) We spent the next three days taking day trips with my parents, down the valley to Annapolis Royal, over to the south shore to Lunenburg & Mahone Bay, over the 'mountain' to Margaretsville (on the Bay of Fundy) for ice cream on Father's Day, and stopped off at many other small communities along the way. We also made several trips to Frenchy's to complete Yvonne's summer wardrobe. (Frenchy's is a Maritime institution and probably warrants its own blog! Maybe there's already one out there...oh look, there's a post on one here.)

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures on these trips, so you'll have to ask to see Yvonne's, if you know her (she posted some of them on Facebook).

Mahone Bay

We picked up our rental car on Monday and headed off for trips on our own. We explored the area of the valley where I grew up (New Minas and area), hit the university town of Wolfville (Acadia University) and waited by the river to watch the tidal bore near Windsor. There was much discussion about what the tidal bore looked like, was it just the salt water running under the fresh water...kind of cool, but somewhat disappointing. The tourist info people said that sometimes it can be quite small and disappointing in that area. Then came the wall of water up the river and we KNEW what a tidal bore looked like. I think this was the same day that we stopped in Baxter's and Hall's Harbours as well. My family had a cottage at Baxter's, and the area is one of my favourite places.

Baxter's Harbour, near the old wharf

Seaweed on rocks

Green seaweed on rocks

Looking over to Cape Split

Hmmm, where exactly are we??

Baxter's Harbour: view from the public beach

One beautiful day we headed down to Brier Island in the Bay of Fundy for a bit of seabird watching on a 5 hour whale watching tour. Yvonne and I were quite pleased and busy all the way out (a couple of hours), as we saw tonnes of seabirds like greater shearwaters, gannets, petrels (a couple species) and a murre. We did not see the elusive puffin that Yvonne was seeking, which means of course that she has to come back. The tour operators finally located a few whales, which we watched happily but they soon disappeared as the fog rolled in. Luckily Yvonne and I were prepared with much warm and waterproof clothing, but many of the other passengers were not. Between the seasickness and the cold, there were several very miserable people on the boat by the time we got back to port.

Greater Shearwaters

A little humpback whale action

The whale's had enough of the tourists

The choppy sea

And the fog rolled in - Brier Island somewhere there

On one of the ferries, returning from Brier Island

Ferry bits

We also had a couple days just hanging out at and near home, catching a few zzz's & rays, doing a bit of backyard birdwatching and some unpacking (well that was just me).

Backyard birding included a lot of blue jays at the feeders

Stay tuned for part 2 of our great adventures in NS, where we'll return to the south shore and then head into the midst of the big city via a famous fishing village...