Au Canada - Days 2, 3, and 4

Wendesday, June 24 - Baddeck, NS

Here we are at the entrance to the Cabot Trail. I have finally gotten the opportunity to blog, so here goes! I will not attempt to place any pictures here on the blog itself, because once again, I have a spotty internet connection.

On Saturday, June 20, we visited Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy. This is the area in which the highest recorded tides occur. We arrived at the park at low tide, which you will see in the pictures taken here. We visited the mud flats, Diamond Rock and Flower Pot Rocks. If you look at the pictures we took here, you can imagine how high the water level rises at high tide. In fact, there are signs here warning visitors about when they can descend to and walk along the ocean floor here. The tide rises so rapidly in this area that a person could get stranded once the tides begin to rise.

Here are the photos from Hopewell Rocks:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay2HopewellRocksNB?authkey=Gv1sRgCNWRxfHnzObNIw&feat=directlink

On Sunday, we left Hopewell and headed into Nova Scotia, bound for Halifax. We arrived in Halifax late Sunday afternoon, and just relaxed after the long drive. On Monday morning, we headed into Halifax at 8AM in order to catch the 9AM Grey Line bus tour of the city. We took the "Deluxe" tour on a double-decker bus, which took us through the city of Halifax, hitting all the historic points. The second part of the tour took us through the area of the city which was destroyed by a horrific explosion in Halifax harbor. At 9:05 on the 6th of December 1917, a French munition ship exploded in Halifax harbor, (Nova Scotia, Canada). This explosion was so vast that it killed over 2,000 people and completely flattened two square kilometers of northern Halifax. This was the greatest explosion of the Great war, and the largest man-made explosion until the dropping of the bomb at Hiroshima in 1945. As a result of this disaster, when the area homes and businesses were rebuilt, every building was constructed using stone, cinder block or brick, so as to prevent any similar disaster from causing so much damage.

From here, we visited the cemetery where 209 of the bodies recovered from the Titanic disaster are buried. The gravestones here are arranged in the shape of the bow of a ship. Many of the stones have no names inscribed on them, because the bodies were never identified. Some of the identifications weren't made until 50 years after the Titanic sank, when DNA identification was available to match the victims to families. In all, our tour took 3 hours, and was very interesting and informative.

Here are the photographs from Halifax:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay3HalifaxNS?authkey=Gv1sRgCKPxtPWLyt_OvAE&feat=directlink

On Tuesday, we spent the day visiting Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg. On the way to Peggy's Cove, we stopped at the Memorial to the Swissair Flight 111 crash, which occurred about 7 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia on September 2, 1998. At Peggy's Cove, we were met by 8 tour buses, which had just let their passengers off to walk the streets of Peggy's Cove. There are only about 5 roads in Peggy's Cove, and we only drove on one - the one where all the bus passengers were walking. The buses let the passengers off at the Visitor's Center, and they walked up to the Light House parking lot, where the buses were waiting to pick them up. These people were like cattle being driven down the road - they would not move to the side of the road so that cars could pass. We practically had to run them down before they would move over.

From Peggy's Cove, we drove on to Lunenburg. This was quite a quaint town to visit. There are many little shops and lots of restaurants there, and the food was excellent at the little restaurant we chose for lunch. We all ate seafood, which tasted like it had just come off the boat. While sitting in the restaurant, I noticed a tall ship moored in the harbor named "Picton Castle". I photographed the ship because I recognized the name as the ship which a former Manchester High School student sailed on for about 6 months. His travels were chronicled in the Manchester Cricket, detailing his trip, similar to my blog!

Here are the pictures from Tuesday's travels:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cbenoitiii/AuCanadaDay4PeggySCoveLunenburgNS?authkey=Gv1sRgCOLG_uvqxcHiDA&feat=directlink

This morning, Wednesday, we left the Halifax area and traveled on to Cape Breton Island and the Cabot Trail. We are staying in the town of Baddeck (pronounced b'deck), at the Cabot Trail Campground. Tomorrow morning, we will tour the Cabot Trail (all of it, 195 miles), so be sure to check back for the details.

So long for now!