When the blog left off a few days ago we were hunkered down in our little cabin just north of Peggy's Cove while the rain poured down and the wind lashed the nearby ocean. We did find the courage to walk about 400 m across the road to a tiny little Acadian restaurant that was, oddly, open. We were soaked when we got there and were the only customers. But the guy who ran the place was wonderful. He regretted that he'd sold his last 2 pieces of "Rappie Pie" a few hours earlier (a traditional Acadian meat pie that takes a few days to prepare) but talked us into a delicious meat pie. He entertained us with stories of his family and how he came to run a little restaurant in Peggy's Cove while we swilled down a few beers.
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| Acadian meat pie |
The rain and wind were relentless most of the night and it was tough to sleep. The little cabin shook with each monstrous gust. We wondered whether we'd be able to ride to Halifax in the morning. But about 0300 the wind stopped and the rain abated, and this is how it looked in the morning.
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| What a fast turn around! |
Since we had no food, again, we swilled some instant coffee and headed toward the actually village / harbour of Peggy's Cove, just a few km down the road. It is a very picturesque spot and is easy to see why it is the single biggest tourist draw in Nova Scotia.
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| Peggy's Cove |
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| Peggy's Cove Lighthouse |
We were there a few minutes ahead of 0800 and the parking lot was already filling with tourist buses and cars. We skipped the cafe and $10 for coffee seemed a bit too much. With Halifax only 50 km away, we took off with the big city in our sights. Our route:
The final 50 km flew by and we got tucked into our AirBnB place downtown right away. We then dashed over to the local bike shop and grabbed 3 bike boxes to pack our bike in for the flight home (I'd called the bike shop earlier in the week and gave them a heads up -- local shops are always very willing to give away bike boxes).
We have a few days so we set out to explore a bit.
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| We even found a negroni. Nice. |
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| The Old Town Clock |
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| Halifax skyline looking from a local ferry |
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| The waterfront |
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| Old Town Clock, again |
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| Downtown from the Citadel fortress |
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| Entry to the Citadel |
Halifax is a very vibrant, walkable and approachable city. It is much smaller that we'd expected and it has a very small downtown area. There are a couple of universities and it has a nice feel.
One more blog post to wrap things up tomorrow - I will summarize my thoughts on the trip and Nova Scotia and offer my opinions, as I usually do at the end of a trip. We are packing things up and taking the bike apart and all that kind of stuff. And the US just today canceled the requirement for a negative COVID test before boarding the flight to the US (we're trying to recoup the $150 each of us paid for the test that we were supposed to get tomorrow).
