Halifax and Peggys Cove

Good news! The rain has stopped - but the maximum for today is 5' that's FIVE degrees Celsius!!! On our free morning David and I walked briskly along Barrington Street then separated, him to the secondhand book stores and me to the shops of Spring Garden Road. I couldn't find a department store but lots of small shops in malls; in fact our hotel is connected to a mall by an overhead walk called a pedway so that you need not go out in the cold. The most interesting shop I checked out was a pet supermarket with every imaginable accessory for your pet but I don't want to try to bring catnip through customs.

I had a pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks in the lobby: very nice, not that I could taste the pumpkin.

The afternoon trip started with a detour to the bus station to pick up my adaptor and charger which took us through the dock area where we saw 5 (the magic number for today) huge cruise ships: that is an extra 10,000 people in Halifax today. And a lot of them went on buses to Peggy's Cove.

Merryle did a good job describing the charms of this little fishing village and had reserved our seats in the restaurant for afternoon tea but it was a battle to fight your way through the gift shop which was shoulder to shoulder with Texans buying red plastic lobsters. The queues for the washrooms and checkout were horrendous and there were 35 buses
in the parking lot. (The permanent population of Peggy's Cove is only 34 people.) Then outside we were stunned and shocked by the howling wind which combined with a temperature of 2 was enough to drive us back to the bus. There's a nice little lighthouse but none of us cared as it was swarming with tourists.

Much more interesting was a gallery of local art by the painter William deGarthe and it was only us, no cruising Texans, and a chance to see the real side of fishing here - a hard life. A bit further along the coast is a monument to the victims of the crash of SwissAir flight 101 in 1998, very tastefully done and you can look back at Peggy's Cove - the best way to see it.

COLD!!! This is only fall. What must winter be like?