Where We Saw Highlights of Halifax, But Can’t Seem To Count 10 Of Them As Promised, and
An Interesting Visit to Cape Breton (Sydney)
Day 3 Halifax
To everybody out there who really like Halifax, apologies in advance. We found Halifax to be: Ok.
We booked an excursion through the ship called “Top 10 Highlights of Halifax”. Knowing absolutely nothing about Halifax, this sounded like a great idea. It was an all-day excursion, so we assumed there’d be some kind of lunch break.
As the bus left the cruise terminal, our tour guide began describing the sites around us: a grocery store (“Different from *your* grocery stores!” – because you can by legal marijuana), a junior high school, and a few other equally mundane buildings, all on our way to our first stop: the cemetery where some of the victims of the Titanic were buried.
There are about 100ish Titanic victims buried in this cemetery, some of whom were eventually identified, and some not. Each of the bodies that were buried in this cemetery were had a number assigned to them as they were pulled out of the water. The graves are not in number sequence.
Apparently there was a real person named Jack Dawson (per the John Cameron movie from 1998), but his full name was John Joseph Dawson. Since he was in the 3rd class level of the ship, in reality there would be no way for a 3rd class passenger to ever meet a 1st class passenger. But that’s the stuff of movies, literally. We managed to pass by his headstone without taking a photo, mostly because we were in a group of 50, and we didn’t even see it.
This is a photo of the headstone of the “Unknown Child”:
When the bodies were retrieved from the water, their clothes were removed and burned. The person tasked with burning the clothes plucked a pair of children’s shoes from the top and kept them in his attic. Fast forward about 80 years, the family house was sold and the shoes were donated to the Canadian Titanic museum. After much detective work, the shoes were finally identified as belonging to Sidney Leslie Goodwin, who died at the age of 18 months with the rest of his entire family.
You might just be able to make out from this photo that the Titanic victims’ headstones are lined up in the shape of a ship’s hull:
Next up was a long (1 hr+) out to Peggy’s Cove, a beautiful little lobster fishing town, known for it’s fresh lobster rolls and scenic lighthouse.
When we arrived at Peggy’s Cove, the tour guide told us we had an hour before returning to the bus.
It had been 3 hours since the last bathroom break (before we left). The line at the bathroom was formidable. It was also after 1:00, so we had the issue of what to get for lunch that was not lobster (which we don’t eat). We ordered take out turkey sandwiches at the coffee shop that took 20 minutes to arrive. Of our 60 minutes, we had already spent more than half of it just taking care of business.
Andy was able to capture a photo of a schooner going by, apparently something that is a bit rare:
If we’d had more time, we would have been able to wander around the pathways just a bit, but after finishing our sandwiches, there was barely enough time for another bathroom break before getting back on the bus.
We headed back to the city for our next stop. We were dropped off on a street in (what I’m guessing?) downtown Halifax:
We wandered up and down the street a bit, bought something in a shop the tour guide recommended, and then went back to the meeting spot at the entrance of the Halifax Public Gardens. The Halifax Public Gardens were established by the Nova Scotia Horticultural Society in 1834. It’s one of the few remaining examples of a Victorian garden in North America.
Here’s the gazebo restored to its original colors:
This a photo from the “Wedding Bridge”, where people come to stage their wedding photos.
These succulents are dug up every year and kept in the hothouse over the winter
At some point it started to rain, so the group sped up to exit the garden and board the bus.
The bus drove to the top of the Halifax Citadel National Historic site – a 19th century fort. It doesn’t look like we have any photos of the view from the top (the bus didn’t stop and we were on the wrong side of the bus).
That was the end of the tour. It was a pleasant enough day, but not a “wowza”.
Day 4 Sydney
Because we booked this cruise kinda “last minute” (for us anyway), many of the ship’s excursions were already booked up for some of the ports. Sydney was one of them. Instead we booked a private tour through Ventures Ashore. This was our first time using this company (usually we use Viator or ToursByLocals).
Possibly there was some confusion on the company’s end – we met our tour guide, Bill, right on time after disembarking the ship, but he seemed to think there would be more than two of us. Nope, only us two. And when I handed our voucher to Bill’s boss when we exited the cruise port, the boss said he tried to call me. I had no calls from them on my phone, and I had wondered about that.
Good news: it didn’t matter and we were on our way.
The first thing we learned was that Sydney was on an island called Cape Breton. Who knew? Sydney is the only city on the island, though there are towns and villages.
It was a good hour to our first stop: the tiny postoffice in Christmas Island (which is not really an island), Nova Scotia. We’ll be getting our post card that we mailed to ourselves with the “Christmas” postmark.
Next up, the Highlander Village, where a small village was reproduced (maybe some of the buildings were authentic?), and re-enactors dressed in period costume worked in each building (similar and an on a smaller scale than Colonial Williamsburg in VA). Each house seemed to be in a different year in the history of Cape Breton. We spoke to a young woman in a one room log cabin house who’s story was set in 1850.
In another building, we spoke to a carpenter. There was an antique carriage in the work shed.
And here’s the pig. She was busy doing pig things.
Andy visited a couple of buildings that required climbing uphill and/or steps.
Our tour guide had sorta mentioned we had about an hour, but between totally losing track of time and me having to walk a good chunk of the trail (the transport chair doesn’t do well in gravel), I’m pretty sure we had been gone about 90 minutes when we finally surfaced. Well worth the time.
It was about lunch time as we headed to Bedeck, where Alexander Graham Bell had lived with this family. Because we were running late, we opted for a diner instead of the regular spot he brings his customers. Good food, and we were in-and-out in 30 minutes! We were back on track.
Our tour guide dropped us off at the Alexander Graham Bell museum, where we spent at least an hour, maybe a little more.
Bell was a contemporary of Thomas Edison and Guglielmo Marconi; sometimes their work overlapped.
Bell was involved in the invention of the hydrofoil in the earliest history of flying in Canada:
We had seen a tour group from our ship in the Highlander Village. They had followed us to the diner in Bedeck, and we saw them once again coming into the museum as we were going out. Our tour guide said he’s always happy when he’s just ahead of a ship’s tour group, because then he knows that the ship won’t leave before that group is back on board!
On the way back to Sydney, we stopped a couple of times for scenic photo ops.
Just before returning to the port, we drove through one of the Native American reserves. Their leader, Chief Paul, has done such a good job of improving the lives of his people on the reserve, there’s a running joke (or maybe not) that the city of Sydney wants to recruit him for the next mayoral election.
We had a fantastic day in Cape Breton. It is stunningly beautiful, with super friendly people who are very happy to see tourists!
Tomorrow: Sea day (which is when I’m writing this blog).
Maryland Meshugas 