At the base of Blomidon Park, we were able to walk out on the floor of the Bay of Fundy. When the tide goes out you can walk on the rocks and mud flats of the bay floor. We walked out rather far towards the edge of the water, and the tide visibly receded before our eyes. It was really muddy. Water runoff from the previous night’s storm was creating small little streams of water running toward the bay. While searching these little streams, we discovered a few small hermit crabs moving very quickly trying to get their next meal of what appeared to be little transparent shrimp. At least, that is what they looked like to us. We thought there would be tons of seagulls looking for their next meal, but there were less than we thought. As we looked back toward the shore, we gazed upon huge reddish sandstone cliffs. At the base of the cliffs we found a variety of stones of all different sizes, colors, and shapes. This was the first of many times in Nova Scotia where the rocks on the shoreline were interestingly shaped and colored. It was a very cool and interesting experience.

After Blomidon we drove towards Halifax. Halifax is a fairly large city that has nice waterfront and downtown areas. We parked by the water and visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. The museum had lots of exhibits about shipwrecks, model ships, Titanic artifacts, and information on the big explosion in Halifax in the early 1900’s. The explosion occurred when two ships, one carrying explosives, collided in the harbor. Many neighborhoods were totally destroyed, and thousands of people were killed. It is said that the explosion was so dramatic that huge pieces of metal were flung as far as 5 km away.

We ate an early dinner at a waterfront restaurant named Salty’s. We had a great seat outside right on the water. Of course I had the seafood chowder. We also had sweet potato fries with curry mayo, sautéed scallops, and I tried the fried clams. Everything was good, but the clams turned out to be mostly batter, and were quite disappointing.

We then walked up a few steep streets towards the Citadel, a landmark historic fort in the city. Needless to say with our luck, when we got up there, it had closed 20 minutes earlier at six. We decided to head towards our campsite and try to come back the next day.

We started the drive towards Peggy’s Cove and our campground, and arrived at Peggy’s Cove right when the sun was setting. The road to the lighthouse was fairly empty, and it was late, so we assumed there would be no one there. We turned out to be completely wrong. There were lots of people there waiting to take the perfect picture of the lighthouse at sunset. It was an amazing experience: watching the sun set, looking at the lighthouse, and listening to an enterprising young woman playing the fiddle. The huge rocks by the lighthouse and throughout the small town and surrounding areas were impressive. The windy road through the town was scenic, with nice small houses and a pretty church. Visiting the lighthouse was one of the highlights of the trip and we would definitely recommend going there for the sunset.

By this time it was getting dark, and we still needed to drive to the campground. We made a few wrong turns and arrived at Graves Island Provincial Park around ten o’clock. They only had overflow spots available, which was fine by us because we went to sleep as soon as we set up the tent. Graves Island looked like a nice place, but we got there so late and had to leave so early the next morning that we didn’t get a chance to explore. One thing we noticed was that the Provincial Parks we stayed at in Nova Scotia were reasonably priced, clean, and well maintained.