I was just about to head off on the Salty Bear tour around Nova Scotia when I last wrote. We left from Halifax, a fully packed van with 14 people (with one more joinig us the next day), and we headed off to Cape Breton Island, which makes up about the top quarter of Nova Scotia. The first days was spent travelling mostly, and was filled with lies upon lies as we had to fabricate stories about ourselves in a get-to-know-you game. We took it very seriously so there were some pretty pointed interrogations and we'd continued to suspect each other of telling more lies long after the game was finished. If it did ever finish. We did stop off for lunch at Boston Pizza - something of a Canadian institution, and to toss a football around on a beach somewhere in L'Acadie (the Acadians were some of the original French settlers in Canada, who were deported and then came back and resettled). We had time for a quick hike up a hill near where we were staying at Club Cape Breton (as we came to call it) before returning for dinner and a night around the campfire. There were some experiments with marshmallow cookery and we discovered that Fabiana, a petite little Swiss girl in our group, could speak in a really creepy deep voice (much deeper than any of the guys could mange I have to admit) which sounded a bit like she was possessed. And when I tried to match her I found I can do a pretty good imitation of Gollum (precious!). So that's handy to know, in case they ever do get the Hobbit movie off the ground, could be in with a chance.
Day 2 was spent driving the Cabot Trail, through the National Park at the top of Cape Breton Island. We did quite a few hikes that day, the best being the Skyline Trail which had a great view along the coast. And I was lucky enough to spot my first moose here, I was by myself when he appeared out of the trees but was joined by two other girls in our group, so we were the only ones who got to see a moose on the trip. He was pretty big, and crossed the pathway just ahead of us so we got a really good look at him. Unfortunately he only had stubby little antlers, even though they should be fully grown at this time of year, so he was either still young or might have already lost them (they regrow them each year). On our way back to Club Cape Breton our driver Matt put on some local Nova Scotian music and started teaching us Barrett's Privateers, a sea shanty style song which gets everyone singing when it's played in the pubs here. We had to pick up Ben, our final passenger, who I think was a little bit bemused to find us all heartily singing along when he hopped in the van, and was then subjected to a full interrogation as he fed us even more lies. That night saw the inaugural Club Cape Breton Dance Party and the debut of DJ Wayne, picking the tunes to get everybody shakin' their groove things. It went off, with the Anne of Green Gables hat passed around with wild abandon and made-up games of Twister (we didn't have the spinner so we made up our own commands (left elbow blue, forehead green and so on) just to make things more amusing for the spectators.
Day 3 saw us off on the ferry to Prince Edward Island, whicheven though it's only a relatively small island is a separate province. It's very rural and quite charming - lots of well maintained old buildings and farmhouses - and is famous for being where most of McCain's potatoes are grown and Anne of Green Gables is set. We stopped in Charlottetown for a wuick look around in the afternoon, and spent the night at Cavendish on the north coast, right on a very pretty red-tinged beach (all the soil on the island is red because of the high iron content). That night saw another wild dance party (with DJ Wayne on the decks again) we all went out on the lawn at midnight to wave some sparklers around (provided by English Dave) for some reason.
When things finally wrapped up it was up in the morning for a bike ride, which we found quite funny given half of us hadn't touched a bike in years (myself included - I'd forgotten how uncomfortabel the seats can be). We went for a quick ride around the Cavendish area, some of us stopping along the way to check out the Anne of Green Gables house. Not me though - we had some readings from the book throughout the trip and I really think she may be the most annoying fictional girl in the world - so I went down to the beach with some of the others. Afterwards it was off on the long drive back to Halifax via the Confederation Bridge, which is really long and connects PEI to the mainland. That night we farewelled some members of our crew who were only doing a 4 day trip, so most of us went to the Halifax Alehouse to give Barrett's Privateers a spin in public - we were probably the most enthusiastic bunch there when they finally played it around 2am, and the second it finished, our duty done, we grabbed our jackets and were out the door.
Day 5 and we were headed south to Peggy's Cove, a popular little fishing village famed for it's picturesque lighthouse. It was very wet and windy when we were there so we spent most of our time huddled in the gift shop unfortunately, but it was impressive to see the ocean being whipped up by the winds. Next it was on to Mahone Bay and Lunenberg, two historic towns along the coast - lots of really nice heritage buildings here and quaint little churches. Very pretty places to just wander around. We then headed inland, stoping for a brief afternoon hike by a lake, finishing up in Annapolis Royal on the oppoite side of Nova Scotia (it's quite a small province). After catching a very pretty sunset over the river we headed out to our accommodation for the night, an old farmhouse which was somewhat rustic (a little bit too rustic some thought, but once you shook all the dead flies off the mattresses it was fine). DJ Wayne had to keep things a bit more chilled out that night, despite our initial plans to rock the farmhouse energy levels flagged early so most people settled in to watch hockey, sit around the campfire or were treated to more readings from Anne of Green Gables (I swear that girl needs a good slap. She's so annoying).
On our last day we looked around town a bit, including the fortifications at Fort Anne. Then it was off to the Gaspereaux Valley for a wine tasting at the vineyard there. They had some nice wine, the maple wine in particular was delicious, a very sweet dessert wine sweeted with, you guessed it, maple syrup. Then it was off to Wolfville for lunch, another nice little town where we assembled an enormous collection of tables on the pub patio for a delicious lunch. Afterwards we headed to Blomidon National Park, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy which has the greatest difference in tides on Earth, with a change of about 17 metres. It's very pretty coastline, rolling farmlands stopping suddenly at reddish soil cliffs and huge stretches of mud at low tide. Walking right out to the water's edge you can see the tide coming in if you watch carefully - pretty much every wave comes in slightly further than the last, it's kind of weird to watch actually. And then it was back to Halifax at last, where I've been ever since.
Quite a few of the Salty Bear crew stayed around for a few days afterwards, which meant we of course had to have farewell drinks as each person departed. Luckily there's no shortage of bars in Halifax and plenty of live music. Most of my time has been spent at The Lower Deck listening to Signal Hill, a great cover band who play lots of old favourites as well as some great local songs (including Barrett's Privateers every time, which I now know all the words to - hurrah!), so we'd usually at least start each night there.
There's been quite a few people who've stayed on the last few weeks, Emily, Cielle, James, Ben and Matt (our driver) from the Salty Bear trip, Kamila, John, Mel and Alexandra from the hostel here and even Sandra, who I met back in Calgary and we'd always persuade to stay just a few more days until she finally escaped again last week. So it's been great having a little bunch of people to hang around with all the time, and really settle into in a place in a way I haven't since I left Vancouver right over the other side of the country. We've been busy doing all sorts of things, checking out the museums (on the nights they're free usually), the Halifax Citadel, regular walks around nearby Point Pleasant Park, a few expeditions over to Dartmouth on the other side of the harbour, we attended a Remembrance Day ceremony the other weekend, and went to my first hockey game (i really quite like hockey, it was a lot of fun - our time won too, wooo!).
But the main highlight had to be Halloween. Since most of us come from countries which don't really celebrate it we decided we were going to make the most of it, so there was a lot of hunting around for costumes the day leading up to it, and I was getting slightly panicky because I wanted to be a cowboy and couldn't find a decent coat until the actual day itself (I did though and it was awesome). It was cool to see the houses decorated up with their pumpkins on the porch, and the groups of kids trick or treating. And to dress up ourselves of course.
Once we were all costumed up we went and met a bunch of locals for this game called Manhunt, which is esentially hide and seek, although we found that if you hide too well you just get cold from sitting around too long. Afterwards Sandra, Cielle, Ben and I thought we might have a crack at trick or treating ourselves. It was very exciting, we carefully selected our first house because they had a lot of pumpkins out the front, and the door was opened by a very nice lady who was only slightly surprised to find a fully grown cowboy, pirate and vampire on her doorstep, several hours after all the kids had finished and gone home for the night. She gave us chips and candy though, and pointed out that it helps if you bring a bag with you, but we explained we were new at this, and the copious pockets of my coat were big enough to carry our haul. We tried a few other places (at one we were actually older than the people who answered the door, which was slightly awkward - they gave us lollipops), but I wanted to go back to the first place and get my picture taken with the nice lady who gave us chips. The others thought that might come across as stalking, but luckily when we passed her place again she was outside putting out her jack'o'lanterns so we ran over and ambushed her. Got my picture and we ended up cahtting to her, explaining where we were all from, as the rest of her family, extended family and even friends arrived in the driveway so we ended up chatting to all of them for a while, before excusing ourselves so we could join the hostel pub crawl.
The bars in town that night were packed with people in costume, there were about 10 people all night who didn't bother (and frankly I don't think they should have been allowed in at all), so it was a great evening. We finally rolled back to the hostel at around 3:30 (which has been a bit of a trend in Halifax, I've barely ever made it to bed before 2 in the whole 5 weeks) - I wanted to get full use out of my costume to be honest, and was even persuaded by the others to wear it back to the costume shop in Dartmouth the next day. Not that I took much convincing.
Almost forgot, some weather news - we had our first snow the other weekend. We've been lucky enough here that it's been quite a bit warmer than the rest of the country, but winter's finally catching up with me. And after two summers in a row this year I'd forgotten how cold 0 degrees is. It's really cold. And snow doesn't always just cascade softly to the ground, it can be quite vicious and smack you in the face and get in your eyes. But it was exciting to see it again. The weather's been strange the last few days though - 15 degrees, we've all been complaining about how hot it is. Oh and we nearly got hit by Hurricane Noel the other week. Wasn't a hurricane anymore by the time it hit us - was just a big storm with lots of wind (up to about 100km/hr) and a bit of rain but we stocked up on emergency snacks and stayed in all night playing bingo and cards. Wild times.
So that's been Halifax. It's been a lot of fun and is definitely one of my favourite places in Canada - I'm going to miss it when I leave but it's time to get moving again next week. I'll be heading back west to Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City before travelling down to the States to have a look around thereand spend Christmas in New York, which should be lots of fun. Already got my fingers crossed for a white Christmas, so here's hoping.
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