All too soon my stay in Quebec City came to an end and so too did my pre-arranged planning. I’d always intended to do Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City in about two to three weeks, but before I came to Canada I didn’t have a plan for the remaining time there. I didn’t decide on that till I was in Montreal: my last stint in Canada would be to go to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, specifically Halifax and Charlottetown.
From Quebec City I took the overnight train to Halifax, economy style. Which meant sitting and sleeping in a chair the whole 19 hour journey. I can’t complain about the legroom, but even with the leg space it’s hard to fall asleep while basically sitting in a chair. Somehow I did manage to sleep in one to two hour bursts, but it wasn’t the best rest I’ve ever had. It was better than sleeping on an airplane though. Some people even slept in the luggage spaces, since they were unfortunate enough to be seated in seats facing other seats, and so had no leg room at all.
I spent most of the trip talking to the French Canadian in the seat next to me as well as sitting in the dining car. In all the trip went by pretty quickly. It wasn’t the most scenic trip I’ve ever had, since most of the view consisted of trees, trees and more trees with the occasional tree for variety, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Halifax is a small city, and all the points of interest are in easy walking distance, such as the hostel which was about a three minute walk from the train station and the harbor boardwalk where I would end up spending a lot of time. The boardwalk was also the site of yet another Jazz festival. Ended up checking that out with some people who had come in on the same train on the first night.
And then again the second night with some other people I met at the hostel barbeque. Afterward we went drinking in a pub, which offered beer tasters. Instead of one big glass you got four smaller ones, each with a different beer. Now, since I’m always keen on tryiing out new local beers this was ideal for me.
And, you guessed it, the third night I went to the Jazz Festival once again. This time with another roommate from the hostel. We also went out to eat lobster, a dish you should really try while in Halifax.
So I spent most of the evenings enjoying the Jazz festival, but during the daytime I went out exploring. I did two tours from Halifax, both with a small company, which (as I’ve said before) is how I prefer to do tours. I like the more personal experience that these smaller tours offer.
The first tour went to the Bay of Fundy, which has the world’s highest tides. We started close to high tide and ended the tour close to low tide and the differences between the water levels was enormous indeed. On route we stopped at a farmer’s market (great for souvenirs), a muddy beach, a coastal inlet, and the Bay of Fundy. On the way back we stopped to overlook one of the valleys, stopped close (but not close enough to disturb) to an eagle nest and had a wine tasting at a local winery. I liked the wine, but I am still not a wine drinker.
The second tour I wanted to do was a tour to Peggy’s Cove on a Monday. And it was touch and go for a moment there. I was told on a Saturday that it wouldn’t go (nog enough people) and then on a Sunday morning that it actually would go. Very nice. This tour was a bit shorter than the previous one and had some additions that most other tour companies don’t do. Close to the cove we stopped at the side of the road to do a bit of hiking. Without someone knowledgeable you’d never know the hiking path was there. First we went through some tall bushes to end up on a rocky moor-like area, on a path leading to the coast. There was only an inch or so of top-soil in this place so you had to stay on the path or damage the delicate eco-system. The top-soil is created by decomposing lichen over many years, so a misstep there could ruin years of progress. It’s a beautiful place, with edible plants, pitcher plants and rocks resting on smaller rocks. A fog bank created a mysterious atmosphere, which was great for ambience, not so great for photos.
After the hike we drove to Peggy’s Cove. The cove is named after the little girl who was the only survivor of a ship wreck and it is one the most promoted tourist attractions in Nova Scotia and that shows. It was crawling with tourists. The place wasn’t that big either so you’re through it rather quickly. What made this tour so good was that we also did the hike, so we could see some of the beauty of the area as well. Other tours just go to the cove and back, which is a bit of a rip-off in my opinion – just like the tours that offer whale watching off the coast of Halifax. As any local will tell you, there are no whales off the coast of Halifax. Sightings not quaranteed, indeed.
Aside from the tours I also went to Point Pleasant Park. The park has a lot going for it, forest walks, hills, a beach, dogs. You can spend hours here just leisurely walking, which I did, until it started to rain. I remember this day clearly because once back in the city I sheltered for an hour under the trees of another park, just watching the ducks, until the leaves above me were too saturated by rain and couldn’t block the drops anymore. The rain and hunger brought me to Tim Horton’s, where they had Wi-Fi and I discovered that Pokémon Go had been released in Canada. Everyone was playing it, and from that point so was I. I downloaded it right there while I was easting my Panini. It also happened that the boardwalk was a free Wi-Fi zone. Lucky. I caught quite a few Pokémon there, let me tell you. At least when the servers weren’t being overloaded.
After Halifax I went to Charlottetown, on Prince Edward Island, by bus. I was worried at first because I had to switch buses and there was only a five minute gap between them, but it turned out that all the buses waited on each other so there was never any danger of missing one or the other. Prince Edward Island is beautiful, but I didn’t see much of it. Anticipating my upcoming stay in New York I took this opportunity to relax and basically not do anything at all. I walked around Charlottetown, listened to some live country music down by the boardwalk, and just plain relaxed. It was nice to have a few days where I didn’t have to do anything.