Halifax

July 17
Today, we made it to Halifax. Did I mention just how very much I love our GPS - our trusty Zumo??? (I know I did but I'm emphasizing it again...) The joys of a GPS, especially in a big city! It takes all the stress out of coming into a city you don't know and with complete ease, we've been able to effortlessly find exactly where we want to go... love it!
OK - enough about that...
The drive from Pictou  to Halifax was great, especially on the secondary roads... Route 2 runs parallel to the Trans Canada. It's a bit slower but it  meanders through rolling farmland. In this part of Nova Scotia, there are so many beautiful little farms everywhere!! Everything is green and lush and I can see how the Scottish who arrived here felt at home (based on photos I've seen of parts of Scotland). There are also a lot of dairy farms as well. This is such a huge change from Newfoundland where so much of the undeveloped areas are marshy and muskegy... here, you're into postcard perfect farmland, worthy of any rural calendar. The other thing we noticed - my God, do they love to mow grass here!!! Honestly, in Newfoundland, everyone has a 4-wheeler but in Nova Scotia, everyone must have a  heavy duty ride'em lawn mower! Every other yard is at least 3 acres of mowed and manicured lawn and I'm  not even exaggerating. This is a true story. I would have taken pics but it's hard to do from a moving motorcycle... but trust me when I say, we've never seen such HUGEMONGOUS lawns  anywhere!!
Halifax is a really great city, from what we managed to see today. We drove around Dartmouth (the other side of the shore from the Halifax waterfront) and then parked our bike. WHAT LUCK! The parking ticket dispenser was Out Of Order! Free parking!
We hopped the little shuttle ferry (like the Seabus in Vancouver) and it lands right in the middle of the Halifax piers. Yes, I know, it's a little touristy but what the heck - we're tourists! It was great fun to walk up and down the boardwalk and see all the goings on. We also went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic - a must see, honestly, if you're interested in history. In the museum, they have a comprehensive collection including Halifax's maritime involvement in the World Wars, the Arctic Expedition, they also have a great display on the devastating Halifax Harbour explosion in 1917. I was so moved by the little movie we watched, both a lady behind me and I were teary-eyed and sniffling. So incredibly, unspeakably tragic... and so unimaginable. It was the largest man-made explosion before Hiroshima. They also have a really great Titanic museum with quite a few artifacts. Even though the Titanic was on it's way to New York and the survivors were taken there, almost 200 bodies of people who died in the sinking were brought to Halifax and are buried in 3 of the cemeteries here. They also have a huge collection of artifacts from a whole bunch of other shipwrecks from this area, a boat building shop where they restore old boats  and lots of old, vintage wooden boats on display. They also have two boats at the pier you can walk on - the Acadien which is from 1913 and was used for charting coastal waters and a naval ship (can't remember the name!) A great museum.
After all of that, we were hungry so we sat on the pier and had some take-away dinner (I had a killer lobster salad!) and watched all the boats go by. We crossed back on the ferry and started to head out to our campsite (The Shubie Campsite - can you believe the name, Erica??) and we saw a bunch of rowers practicing on the little lake in the middle of Dartmouth. We stopped and watched for quite awhile - some were Dragon Boat racers, some were single and double racing boats.  Another great day...
Tomorrow we're off to Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg!
I'm not posting as many photos right now because the camera on this mini tablet isn't that great and its awkward but we have some great pictures on our big camera which I will add later, when we get home...