So the week before Memorial Day weekend my best friend came to visit and we went on a Canadian adventure. I’ve been to Canada lots of times, but only the west coast – Vancouver, Whistler, Tofino, etc. We decided to do a LOT of driving and visit New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. It was pretty amazing. This blog post might be a little long, so feel free to just look at the photos.
Day 1 started pretty early, around 6:30am and took us from Mystic to New Brunswick. We planned to stop at the Portland Head Light in Maine because it is a lighthouse I have been wanting to see since I moved to New England. We got there, the sun decided to come out for a bit.. and then the lighthouse was covered in scaffolding. I was pretty disappointed. Even still it was so beautiful and we were still glad we went. I’ll just have to make another trip and make sure beforehand that it’s not being worked on next time. (I didn’t actually take a photo of the lighthouse with my camera because of construction)
Our next stop was also in Maine. One of my life goals is to stand in both the most eastern and western most points of the contiguous US. The eastern point is the West Quoddy Lighthouse in Lubec, Maine. Keryn also wanted to see #allthelighthouses because she lives in Arizona and there is a shortage of them there. Getting to this lighthouse proved a little difficult because as we drove further and further away from 95, our gps signal vanished so we took a few wrong turns. We made it there though, and because it was cold and dreary looking there was basically no one else there. However, this lighthouse was NOT covered in scaffolding. From there we headed to our final stop of the night – Moncton, New Brunswick. It was still quite a few hours to make it over the border and to Moncton, so we stopped in Saint John and had dinner at a brew pub overlooking the Bay.
The next day we got up early to go to the Hopewell Rocks on the Bay of Fundy. This place is super cool because it has the highest tides in the world. When they go out you can walk out pretty far on the ocean floor, and when they come in I think they said they rise at 13ft an hour. It was very cool, I just wish it had been a little sunnier.
From there we drove to Prince Edward Island. We drove over the 8 mile Confederation bridge, and when we arrived in PEI it was BEAUTIFUL and sunny. We first went to Cavendish, and went straight to the ocean. This beach had clay sand and rocks, and was empty except for us. We spent some time looking for shells and sea glass, and appreciating the view. Then we headed to Charlottetown where we were staying for the night. There was a big park with a walk along the water within walking distance from our hotel so we did that before finishing our day.
Day 3 we drove to Halifax. We tried to go to a park I had found with some lakes but we couldn’t find the entrance and ended up just driving around it. Haha thank you google maps for those useless directions. So we picked a spot called Herring Cove and drove there. It was very foggy and gorgeous. Big waves crashing on the rocks and we could have spent hours there. After that we went to downtown Halifax and walked around the waterfront and edge of the city.
Day 4 we drove to Cape Breton Island in northern Nova Scotia. We had originally planned to do the Cabot trail, however we were kind of tired of driving and didn’t want to add another 6 hours of it to the day. Not all of the trees were green either, and we didn’t know if the view would be as scenic as planned. Plus when we got to the town we were staying in we just wanted to stay there. We explored the cute little town area before finding out hotel. We stayed at a lodge in Baddeck with an amazing view of the water from our room’s front porch. We found a hike to a waterfall: Uisge Bahn Falls, and decided to do that hike. It was a pretty hike through the forest with a brook flowing over rocks most of the way. I honestly was not expecting the waterfall to be much based on the brook. However, right at the end there is a BIG waterfall and then another one that’s probably 15 ft or so? I’m terrible at judging amounts like that so it could be way more. SO beautiful, we just sat there watching it for a bit before hiking back out. After that we sat and enjoyed the view from our room. We didn’t want to leave.
Day 5 we drove back towards Halifax. We actually decided to see some towns south of Halifax first and stopped in Mahone Bay and Lunenburg. Both were adorable Scandinavian looking towns with brightly colored buildings lining the waterfront.
Our last destination for the day was Peggy’s Cove. I was really looking forward to this cove as I had seen a ton of photos online where it looked so beautiful. Big huge flat rocks, and a lighthouse on top. Peggy’s Cove didn’t disappoint. I know I have said this a few times but we could have spent all day there. The sun was out and it was really peaceful just sitting on the rocks watching the ocean.
Some other Canadian adventure musings:
- If you go to Halifax, don’t forget to save some Canadian money for the toll leaving. They WILL take half Canadian, half American money though as we found out.
- Tim Horton’s doesn’t really have a standard glazed donut, and they are always busy.
- Apparently Canada has some country wide rewards program called air miles?
- Canadians were very excited when they found out we were American.
- Changing your car to km/hr feels like you are going so much faster.
- They have different vegetables we had never heard of, like fiddleheads.
