The Eastern Shore

On my way out of Halifax, I met a fellow Portlander. This is Patrick and he's a juggler with Cirque de Soleil. He travels all over for ten weeks and then gets two weeks off at home. What a great career!


I took the ferry across the harbor to Dartmouth, bought a new rear tire and headed for the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. This is the view back towards Halifax.


I camped at Murphy's Cove where they had a nice campfire at night and fresh cooked mussels. I met Barbara a retired British bobby and a fellow solo cycle tourist who was finishing up a cross--country ride across Canada.


We hit it right off and spent hours discussing gear and sharing stories. I can't remember ever running into a solo woman biker who has about as much experience as I do. I decided to stick around for the day and took a boat trip out to some islands with the campground owner.


Roy and Brenda also went on the boat and then invited Barbara and me over for dinner.


Roy is from Lancashire, England and Brenda is a retired school teacher. They are traveling around for a year in a nice new Airstream so hopefully, they come stay with me when they go through Portland. Roy is an amazing adventurer and is how I've always imagined British explorers to be. He is very understated but every once in a while he'll say something like, "when I sailed around Cape Horn" or,"when I kayaked down the Colorado."

People tend to be impressed with my travels but I've learned a long time ago that there is always someone around like Roy who beats me by a mile. For some people, travel is a competition to see how much more they can do than the next guy. For me, travel is all about seeing what is around the next bend in the road. It is a physical and mental challenge that I set for myself and the only one I compete against or have to answer to is me.

I spent a good half day at the living museum village in Sherbrooke. The village is a restored 1880s Canadian village with all sorts of shops and artisans. It was absolutely fascinating!
Sam posed with a Pennyfarthing.


There was a printing press.


A pharmacist.


With, the precursor to Rogaine.


Open wide. These are dental instruments.


This was the potter who turned bowls and such using a foot driven kick wheel.


The telephone switchboard.


A weaver.


A modern kitchen.


A blacksmith.


Wool that needs to be picked clean of debris, carded to get the fibers running the same way, and then spun on a spinning wheel.


All I can say is thank God for modern appliances!

-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Nova Scotia

Peggy's Cove and Halifax

I rode around St. Margaret's Bay yesterday. This was a fun post in someone's front yard.


I spent some time in Peggy's Cove. It's a lovely village on a pretty bleak coastline full of granite outcroppings. There was a major plane crash, Swissair flight 111, off the coast in 1998. There is a memorial outside of town.


The town has some quaint houses.





I had a real Cornish pastie for lunch made by a real Cornishwoman. I haven't had one since I was in Cornwall in 1999. It was as yummy as I remembered.


Peggy's Cove has the most famous lighthouse in all of Nova Scotia. There was a girl playing bagpipes.


I continued on to Halifax and passed a park with a nice statue of Robbie Burns.


Today, I spent the day wandering Halifax. I went to the Maritime Museum where there was a nice exhibit on the Titanic disaster. Halifax is where most of the recovered dead are buried.

There was a display on pirates. This is a replica of the cage that a local pirate's body was hung in in Halifax harbor as a warning to other pirates.


There was a restored chandlery store from the early 20th century.


This gentleman explained how cod was salted, dried and later cooked.


This is what dried, salted cod looks like.


To cook it, it has to be soaked in water for several days to rehydrate it and dilute out the salt. Another visitor said that it is actually quite tasty though it smells pretty awful when being prepared.

After the museum, I wandered the docks. I talked to the captain of one of the harbor pilot boat captains.


Harbor pilots are responsible for bringing in and taking out ships over a certain size in their harbor. The harbor pilot boat ferries the pilot on and off the ships.

I had to try the food at The Bicycle Thief. It was fantastic!


This is a tour tug dressed up as Theodore Too, a Canadian children's show similar to Thomas the Tank Engine.


This was a commemoration of the the two waves of displacement of Acadians by the English showing where the French were sent.


I spent several hours in the Halifax Citadel.


They have a period garrison in residence dressed as they would have in 1869. The garrison consists of members of a Highland infantry regiment and an English artillery regiment. The park service hires college students who provide the period reenactments. They fire muskets, drill, fire a cannon, and play the bagpipes. It's very cool and has to be one of the best summer jobs ever.












The garrison is a star-shaped fort, common to the period. This is the trench between the two walls.


Instead of a medieval square or rectangular fort/castle such as the Tower of London, star-shaped forts are much better suited for repelling more modern cannon fire since they provide much better overlapping lines of fire. Despite English conflicts with the French and Americans, Halifax was never attacked.
-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Halifax, Nova Scotia

Riding in the tracks of the Terribly Slow and Wobbley

On the way to Halifax, I stopped in a factory that makes pewter jewelry and tableware. Pewter is a metal alloy made mostly of tin with small amounts of other metals such as silver, copper, and antimony mixed in. It, along with gold, is the only metal that can be bent (remains malleable) without hardening from being bent. Other metals become very hard after being bent a few times and must be heated to soften them up. If you've ever watched a farrier shape a horseshoe, he pounds on it and then reheats it several times. Pewter doesn't ever have to be reheated.

They demonstrated how they cast jewelry. This is the pot with the liquid pewter.


They pour the pewter I to a rubber mold that spins in a centrifuge.


They then pop the molded pieces out of the molds.


All the excess, unwanted bits are re-melted down.


Shortly after the pewter factory, I stumbled on a rails to trails path.


This path follows the old Halifax- South Shore Railway that ran until the mid nineties. The train was called the Terribly Slow and Wobbley by the locals. It ended up being the longest off road path I've ever ridden at over 45 miles long.


There was a long trestle bridge to cross.


Along the way, I passed through the lovely village of Chester.


I glimpsed this sign on a downhill heading into town. I did a double take after I misread it as 'Vandals. Hair Removals'.


The harbor was very pretty. There's another drumlin.


The trail got a bit rough For a while testing my riding skills on the fully loaded touring bike. The scenery was quite nice.


Another bridge.


An old train depot.


And, the best camp site of the trip so far.

Location:South Shore of Nova Scotia