Odds and Ends

After the Parade

I mentioned in my last post that after the parade we headed up (not quite as bad as the hill from the harbour) to the Public Gardens that had been so damaged by Hurricane Juan.

We came in one of the back entrances, saving the new gates at the Main Entrance for later.

 
 
A peek through the tree at the fountain for those who served in the Boer War or as the fountain says the South African Campaign 1899-1902 (the Gardens date from 1867 - the same year Canada was created so there is a lot of old monuments etc. in it).

 
   
 
 
It was such a warm day out that walking through the Gardens was a really nice respite.   Soon though the 4 of us started feeling a wee bit hungry and JEM & T were trying to think of an outdoor patio near by when we noticed the balcony of the Victory Arms of the Lord Nelson Hotel just across the street from the Gardens.   We lucked out and found a table & 4 chairs - it's a pretty small balcony.  It was nice out there and a slight breeze picked up which made it even nicer while we ate our lunches.

After lunch we headed back to the Gardens this time walking on the opposite diagonal through it back to the house.

 
 
 
 Some definite Juan damage
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
From here it was a short walk back to the house where we headed upstairs to pack and then out to enjoy the day on the front porch followed by the deck when it came time for T to barbecue the salmon.   Dinner was really nice out on the deck and we stayed out there listening to the fireworks going off down in the harbour.

 

Our Last Full Day in Halifax

A week ago Friday was our last full day in Halifax and it just happened to be Canada Day - the 144th anniversary of Confederation.  I think there is nothing quite like Canada Day in Halifax.  It's certainly different from where we live. 

Days before we had decided we were going to watch the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo Canada Day parade.   It was supposed to start at 10:30 but we didn't leave the house till just before it started so we quickly decided we'd walk down to where it would finish by the Halifax Metro Centre.  We would have liked to have had some time to attend the tattoo but we just ran out of time as it only started on the 1st.   On the way there we walked through the Commons where they were setting up for the Mawio'mi International Pow Wow.

 
 
 

We walked past the Citadel and thought should we go up there and watch from there but thought instead we'd continue walking downhill instead of climbing that hill.  :)  Lots of people decided it was a great place to watch from them so long as you had something to sit on.

We missed the beginning of the parade unfortunately thanks to me - I just couldn't walk as fast as the rest of them.   I told them to go ahead and I'd catch up to them but they wouldn't have any of that.   I had to laugh as we neared the corner and some man in a car that was stopped because of the parade got out and said to his wife "we're going to be here awhile we may as well watch it".   We got to the corner where the parade turned down to the Scotia Centre entrance just as the German Bicycle Team got there. 

 
 
 
 
 

 

The mast at the Citadel
  

 

 
Town Clock on Citadel Hill

 
 My favourite part of a parade & J's too for that matter - the Pipe & Drums.


 
 
 

 A view down to the harbour - walking down is great, it's the coming back up again that's not.  :)

Once the parade was over we decided to head over to the Halifax Public Gardens.   They'd had a lot of damage in Hurricane Juan and some trees that were pretty old had not survived or been severely damaged plus the main gates had been replaced because of it too and we hadn't been through since then.   We slowly trudged our way uphill (trudging is definitely the way to describe it) J managed to take some pictures of other sites to do with the military history of the city.  I'll leave that for another post as this one is long enough.  :)

But before I end this one - how's this for a Canada Day picture, Miss K all decked out in her red and white Canada Day outfit? We didn't get to see them as they were flying off to surprise my niece with a holiday weekend visit. Photo courtesy of her Mum.
 
 

 
 

Lunenburg in Sunshine Yet!

Last year we decided to head over to Lunenburg the day after the wedding but Mother Nature decided it would be a nice day for a drenching downpour that lasted for hours.

This time though we actually managed to walk around it in sunshine.  It's a Unesco World Heritage Site and if you're ever in that part of Nova Scotia go see it.   It was picked as a World Heritage Site because of it being "the best surviving example of a planned British colonial settlement in North America" according to the Unesco website about it.  Ok enough of that - on to our day.

We made sure we got an early start this time because of running out of time on Tuesday when we tried to get over there.  We were worried about the weather as it was really foggy on the highway out there but it did make for some brooding pictures when we stopped at Mahone Bay once we moved over to the Lighthouse route.

  
 
 
 
 What would pictures from Mahone Bay be without one of at least of their 3 famous waterfront churches.  This one is St. James Anglican.

On our way back to Halifax we stopped again and got some of all 3 from across the inlet.

Just about 11 kilometres further down the road and we were in Lunenburg and the the fog was gone!  Yeah it was sunny (well at least in town)!  We definitely lucked out.

The first stop we made was at the boatyard where they are re-fitting the Bluenose II.  She was really showing the ravages of time and so it was decided to re-build (re-fit) her using the same plans they used for her and the original Bluenose.   The Bluenose is so famous in Canada that she is on our dime (10 cent piece). 

 

 
There's 3 marvelous webcams of the rebuild - a bow, stern and top view. 

We stopped on the way back from the boatyard to get a couple of pictures of the boats and some of the fishing industry buildings.

 
 
From there we were off to find a parking spot where we could walk around parts of town.   The funny thing is we found the same spot we had last year.  :)   Part way up a hill so it wouldn't be too bad walking back to the car.  While J had been driving, my sister & I had been conversing via Blackberry pins and she gave me a list of possible restaurants for lunch.  Too bad the one that sounded the best isn't open for lunch.  (:  But we did have fun walking around and checking them all out while getting pictures of the very picturesque buildings.

 
 
 The restaurant that unfortunately wasn't open for lunch.

 
 
 
The backside view of the buildings one street in from the harbour - in other words they've got fantastic harbour views and most of them are restaurants or inns.  :) 

 
 
The horses really must love those hills!

 

As we walked back from the Old Fish Factory (the restaurant we had lunch in) along the waterfront we came across a beautiful black granite monument to all the boats and men from the county who had not returned from the sea.  It's inscribed with all their names by the year they went missing.  There's a lot of families where it looked like 4 or more were lost in one year.  It's called the Fishermen's Memorial and is in the shape of a compass rose.

 

 I asked my sister if they had ever golfed at the course across the harbour and her response - you have to be a mountain goat.  :)  Funny I thought their club was pretty hilly.

We came across a couple of these benches just where we were parked and thought they were rather unique looking. 

On the way back down the Lighthouse route, we stopped in at Amos Pewter in Mahone Bay and finally this year our Christmas Tree will have a topper!  We bought a pewter angel for it and some of the collectible ornaments that were from before my sister and her family started giving them to us. 

J couldn't resist taking some pictures of the view of Mahone Bay from the Amos Pewter building.

 
We had thought about going to Chester to check out a store there my sister had mentioned but thought it was getting late enough in the afternoon that instead we'd get back on the highway and head back to the house.  Had to laugh - we debated on what exit to take - the rotary or the one where the highway basically ends.  After problems in the rotary the other day with some drivers not yielding to cars in the rotary we decided on the other one - WRONG!  Talk about bumper to bumper and dead slow.  You can't win.  :)  With all that though we managed to get back to the house at practically the same time as my sister and T who'd been out buying lobsters for dinner on their way home. 

After getting them put in the fridge the 4 of us were off again (good thing we'd forgotten about Chester) to buy the rest of the groceries for that night, Canada Day and Saturday morning.  They showed us some bits of Halifax we hadn't managed to see yet and their previous house that they had rented.  Land in downtown Halifax is pretty rare for developing and it had just sold to a developer for an astounding amount of money.

One regret from the day - no pictures of the lobsters or dinner.  Guess that will just have to wait for another time.

 

 
 

Swissair Flight 111

We decided to make a small detour when we left Peggys Cove after hearing about the Swissair Flight 111 Memorial being so close.  It sits out on a rocky, wildflower strewn piece of land that juts out into the sea just about a mile from Peggys Cove and the Peggys Cove lighthouse can be seen from the it.

 To get to the memorial you walk along a winding pathway between the rocks and wildflowers till you come upon the memorial.  It's very simple yet very moving to be there.

   
 
  
 
   
You know the whole time I was there I kept wondering about the 3 cuts in this portion of the monument.  It finally dawned on me today that it was Flight 111 and perhaps that is what the designer had in mind - the flight number.

We couldn't get a good picture of the 2 portions of the monument together from the ocean side as it would have meant walking out into the wildflowers and that was specifically requested not to be done as it is an environmentally fragile area. 
 

 
   
   

  
Views from the Memorial looking out towards the site.


While we walked back to the car we paid more attention to the wildflowers and lichen than we had on our to the Memorial.

   
 
 I was thinking when I saw these buttercups - I hadn't seen them in a long time and it seems I'm seeing them everywhere ever since.  :)

 

 

 

 


 


 

 

 

Tuesday - Peggys Cove

Hard to believe it's almost a full week since we were at Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia.

First thing Tuesday morning we made sure the card was in the camera. :)

We got off to a late start due to J's food issues but after that was settled and walking the dog we were finally off. We headed out on the highway planning to get off it at Mahone Bay and follow the Lighthouse route from there to Lunenberg. After lunch in the Inlet Cafe overlooking Mahone Bay we decided that we really didn't have time to do all that we wanted to do that day and get back in time for the dinner JEM had planned so instead decided to leave Lunenberg and Chester for another day when we'd get an earlier start.

We headed down the Lighthouse Route (with the aid of the GPS - boy did she ever want us to get back on that highway but the Lighthouse Route is just so picturesque) to Peggys Cove. A calm day doesn't really do Peggys Cove justice - you need to see it when the waves are really rolling in and then wonder how those people ever decided to live there and how on earth they get their fishing boats out of the cove. We have some old "film" pictures from a really stormy day that I should scan in to show how it can get.

We were lucky and managed to get a parking spot in the Souwester's lot and thought how glad we were that there weren't any cruise ships in Halifax that day. When there is you can barely move up there.

Ok enough talk for now.

Every year there are those who ignore the warnings and get swept off the rocks.

The walkway is new since we were here last but then I think that was winter of 1993. :)



We saw a bunch of high school graduates in their robes climbing up the rocks (in sandals yet).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

We've got pictures of the cove entrance where you can't believe they actually get their fishing boats out of it.  This day though was totally calm.

 

 
The final one from the highway out the car window.

Part 2 of the day to follow.

 

Monday in Halifax (Canada)

Thought I better say which Halifax we were in as there is definitely more than one.  :)

Monday meant my sister and BIL were back at work.   She had thought she'd be finished and could spend time with us but it turns out that there was more work involved than she thought at the time we talked.

After downloading the pictures from the day before and taking Calloway for a walk (where she conned J into giving her an extra treat) we decided to head back down to the Harbourwalk and Pier 21 Museum of Immigration.  Unfortunately we didn't leave for there till almost noon and finding parking was definitely a chore.  :)  Finally we found a pretty empty lot down where the 2011 Junior World Beach Volleyball Championships are going to be held in September.  It was a bit of a walk back from there to the Hart & Thistle Gastropub we'd seen yesterday that we'd decided we'd have lunch at but that was ok.  We got a great table on the patio looking out over the harbour.   I couldn't decide so I had the scallops, shrimp and haddock - hey I'm in the Maritimes I'm eating fish.  :)  For the life of me though I can't remember what J had.  While we ate the Navy towed the museum ship HMCS Sackville  (HMCS = Her Majesty's Canadian Ship) back to her moorings behind the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and J (being the ship nut that he is) took lots of pictures of that.

After our nice leisurely lunch we headed back in the direction of the car as I wanted to do a wee bit of shopping at Amos Pewter.  I'd seen a Christmas decoration of the Bluenose the day before that I wanted to add to our Amos Pewter Christmas decoration collection.

After a quick stop at the tourist bureau for some information on what was happening on Canada Day we decided that instead of walking down to Pier 21 and then back again to the car we'd just drive down there and hope for a parking spot.  There were 2 ships (Holland America's Maasdam and the Caribbean Princess) in that day and the Harbourwalk was pretty busy so bypassed all those passengers returning to their ships.  When we pulled into the parking lot where we'd parked the day before the attendant asked why we wanted to park there and we said we wanted to go to the Pier 21 Museum.  He waved us right in (no charge) and told us to enjoy it.    That's one thing we found in Halifax - everyone is so super friendly and helpful.

When we paid our fee and got our little badge type thingy they asked if either of us had a link to Pier 21.  I said I might as my Mum's family came over from Scotland.  When she asked what year and I told her she said that would have been Pier 2 as Pier 21 had not been built until 1928 but to check out the research centre before leaving.  We headed upstairs for the tour.   I only did part of it as by now my back was bad and I hadn't brought my cane with me so that I couldn't stand in one place for any extended period of time.  But what part I did see was very meaningful for J - he found a picture of one of the ships he had sailed on with his mother.  He took a couple of pictures of it and then continued on the tour while I headed for the theatre and it's comfortable seats.

Once the movie presentation was over we headed back downstairs to the research centre where I chatted with one of the research assistants there.   I told her I didn't know the exact year my Mum and her family came over or whether they even came through Halifax.   After a few questions she got onto the database and the first screen she called up with my Grandfather's name was actually HIM.  What were the odds of that.  I mean I was guessing at his year of birth and year of his immigrating.  But I recognized that signature plus some of the other information fit.  From there we started looking for my Grandmother, mother and my mother's sister and brothers.   I couldn't believe it we found all of them and now I've got a lot more information than I had before.   I've now got copies of their passenger declaration forms.   That truly made my day!  I couldn't wait to tell my sister & BIL (he's also working on the family tree so he was delighted).   I couldn't believe with my BIL living right there that he had never been to the research centre.  J meanwhile was having her help with finding out his info as he came over as a child and there is no one left in the family to fill in the information for him.  She gave him some forms to fill out and send to Ottawa to see if they could help him get the forms from Scotland or England (he didn't know which one he'd left from) and also gave me forms to get my Dad's records from World War II from Ottawa.  Like I said it made my day and she even gave us her card with her e-mail address if we needed her help with anything else.  Like I said - Haligonians are so friendly and helpful.

Now I bet you're wondering - so where are the pictures.   Well, the next morning I realized that the card was still in the computer and all those "pictures" J had been taking didn't exist.  ARGH!

Harbourwalk in Halifax

One week ago today (boy am I ever late posting this) we (JEM, T, JPM, JM, Miss K, J and I) all headed down to the harbour to check out the market down there and then go for a walk on the Harbourwalk as it was such a nice day. Everyone else must have thought so too because it was pretty difficult finding a parking spot but luckily JPM & JM found one near the market’s entrance and were waiting inside for us once we finally got parked.

On the way up from the car we passed Pier 21 the Canadian Museum of Immigration where thousands of people entered Canada from 1928 to 1971 and Canadian troops left from during World War II and returned to. Now it’s where cruise ships dock (as I write this the QM2 is tied up alongside). We saw a few though while we were there.

 
 
 
 The market was a mixture of foods, crafts, plants etc. and also included some permanent stores – like the fish monger.

 
 JPM and JM managed to find a gelatto stand and enjoyed it while they walked Miss K around.

 
 
Just to the north of the market is a statue of Samuel Cunard – he has to be the most famous Haligonian (someone from Halifax) in the world. It is just beyond his statue that the boardwalk starts.

 

From the left 2 strangers and then JPM, JM & JEM. Guess I must be with T & J.

All along the harbourwalk there are various memorials and monuments. This one was dedicated to the ships and men of the Royal Canadian Navy who failed to return.

 
  
Georges Island National Historic Site across from Pier 21

 
Dartmouth (the other side of Halifax harbour)

 
J is famous (thanks to getting the idea from our friend Darrell) for rearview shots and in this one he got all of us. That’s me 2nd from the right between my sister JEM and BIL T

 

Theodore Too (based on the Theodore the Tugboat children’s TV series that was based in Halifax).

 
 

Dedicated to a dark day in Canadian history – the Grand Derangement when the British expelled the Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755.

 
  
 
 
 
Right after these pictures were taken, JPM & JM decided it was time to take Miss K home (it was close to eating time). J, JEM, T & I continued on and finally ended up at almost the far end of the Harbourwalk at Salty's for some lunch before heading all the way back (with a few stops - like Nova Scotia Crystal and Amos Pewter) to the car.

 
  

 
 A Royal Canadian Armed Forces or as we prefer to call it Royal Canadian Navy SeaKing Helicopter flying over the harbour.

Happy Canada Day

We're 144 today and planning on doing some celebrating.   We're in Halifax visiting my sister and brother-in-law right now but lots of photos and stuff to share once we're back home.  

Off to see the Tattoo Canada Day parade this morning.   It's been so long since we went to one and then both the kids were in it and now they have kids of their own.  :)

Hope you're enjoying Canada Day.

 

Enough Already With Attack Campaign Ads

We have a federal election coming up on May 2nd.   It’s only been 3 1/2 weeks and I’m already fed up of all these ads.   It might be better if they stuck more to issues instead of attacks.   We’ve got another week and four days of it.  Its got to the point if an ad comes on I change the channel but usually that doesn’t work because there’ll be one on there too.     Hopefully they’ll lay off a bit over the Easter weekend, course we probably won’t have the TV on much so we won’t know.    I don’t know how my American family/friends can go through all the months of campaigning they have every 2 years.   Sometimes it seems like as soon as the election is over they start campaigning for the next one.  I see on the Buffalo channels that we get they already have campaign ads out – isn’t that election still 1 1/2 years away?   Sorry about the gripe, hope I haven’t offended anyone.