Thursday July 27 – Halifax, Nova Scotia

Lovely sunrise – well it would have been had we actually been up to see it. This photo shows it a little higher.

The pilot leaving our ship after getting us safely into harbour

We were piped onto shore

We docked at around 7.45am. Our tour for today is a 7-hour trip, The Best of Halifax. We started by driving out to Peggy’s Cove. On the way our guide, Barbara, told us many bit if information and set various postcards and photos through the bus to look at. Nova Scotia has its own registered tartan, of blue, green, yellow, red and white. Its number is NS001 –no ‘licence to kill, but a licence to kilt’, we were told! Nova Scotians are proud of their Scottish heritage.

The flag is the opposite of the Scottish flag!

This land used to have the steel works on it

Peggy’s Cove is part of Margaret Bay about an hour from Halifax, and is a quaint little fishing village built in and around huge rocky outcrops. It has a white and red lighthouse, and brightly-painted houses, and has become quite the tourist destination. It is a lobster area, and most of the fishermen will fish for lobster.

We were piped when we got to Peggy's Cove

This was carved by a man who died at 87 before he could finish it

This house had cats painted in the windows

On the way back to Halifax we passed a house where the owner had painted the Peggy’s Cove scene all over it. When we drove past he was in the front garden holding up a large fake anchor!

We had lunch (part of the tour) at the Steak ad Stein. It was to be a seafood chowder and dessert, but luckily they had an alternative option for those who had allergies to seafood. We are not overly fond of seafood so had the vegetable fettuccini (which was de-lish!).

We then drove to the lawn cemetery, where a number of the Titanic victims are buried. Some had proper inscriptions on the headstone where the name was known, some had just the death date, and others had the death date and a name (much later the name could be added when they were finally identified through DNA testing). The very detailed records of each victim found in the sea are kept in the archives here in Halifax. One such grave was of a tiny child, about 18mths old. No identification could be found but mitochondrial DNA showed the child was British. It was paid for and cared for by a man right up until his death. Eventually an identification was made and the little chap now has a name. An Australian, from Sydney University, was also a victim. The graves are all together and positioned in a ship-like shape.

Also in the cemetery are buried the victims of a huge explosion in the harbour at the end of 1917. One ship was carrying a load of explosives, but not showing the red flag because the captain didn’t want to be blown up. Another ship collided with it and some of the explosives spilled on deck. The effort to separate the ships resulted in sparks which ignited the explosives on deck. This caused a large fire and people came from all around to watch, not knowing what the cargo was. Eventually the entire ship blew sky-high, causing a massage explosion and tsunami, killing a great many people, and flattening a huge area of Halifax.

We then went on to the star-shaped Citadel perched on a hill overlooking the city, which was built to protect against attacks by the Americans. There is now a living history program which brings to life various elements of the garrison during 1869-1871, including the British 78^th Highlanders and the 3^rd Brigade Royal Artillery. In the summer people are paid to dress up and act out life in a garrison. Their marching efforts were pretty good.

This piper was at the wharf this morning piping a welcome for us.

We went to the Halifax Public Gardens, which is set out in true Victorian style with much symmetry. The flowers were lovely and we were amazed at the varieties of dahlias. The gardens have over 100 species of trees.

From there we drove past the health precinct and universities precinct, before heading back to the bus in time for boarding curfew.

Tonight is our second gala night where we dress up a bit.

We have to put our clocks back an hour, so we used the extra hour watching a late show done by some Filipino crew members. It was fun.