A Rainy Week in Halifax

Leaving Cape Breton Island, we headed west towards Halifax. It was a little too far of a drive for one day, so we had a stopover at Boylston Provincial Park outside of a small town called Guysborough. This is a very quiet park with not a whole lot going on, but there is one campsite in this park that is simply fantastic, and lucky for us I had reserved it for us in advance. The spot is huge – you could probably fit 3 RVs in here side by side, but best of all it has a wide open view onto a beautiful lake.

This was one of those campsites that really made we wish we had kayaks! We could have launched right from our site. And the first night there we had a pretty amazing sunset. The colors in the sky were just gorgeous, even though at first the sun was hidden behind the clouds.

But then the sun finally peeked out for a few minutes, and then it dipped behind the trees.

After that first night, the weather got a little worse. Lots of fog and rain. We didn’t mind because we were planning on a couple of days of rest anyway, so we just hung around the campground, went on walks, and read books. It was nice to just do nothing for a couple of days. On Friday, we headed into Halifax and our spot at the Woodhaven RV Park. I chose this campground because it is supposedly one the closest one to town, but it was still a good 20-25 minutes to drive into town. Unfortunately, we brought the rainy, foggy weather with us. We managed to get into town our first night and had a nice meal at the Stubborn Goat and walked around a town a bit. But the next day it poured down rain all day long, so we didn’t do much.

As it turns out, we had overcast and rainy weather the entire week we were in Halifax, which put a bit of a damper on things. I’ve learned over the past 2 years of RV traveling that the weather has a tremendous impact on our experience/opinion of a place. A couple of years ago, we visited a park in Oregon that had been highly recommended to us by some friends. They had 70 degree temperatures when they were there and loved it. We had temperatures in the 100s when we went and we hated it! And so our rainy week in Halifax limited some of the things we could do, and left us with just a lukewarm feeling about the city. And I didn’t take too many pictures, because I’m a big chicken about getting my camera wet!

There are several nice city parks for walking dogs, including Point Pleasant Park where we took the dogs on one of the few non-rainy mornings.

We strolled around the huge (and indoor) Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market, and then shared a flight of beer at Garrison Brewing Company.

We drove across the river to Dartmouth and strolled along the waterfront path there, which gives you a nice view back towards Halifax.

And one day I went into town by myself and went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which has a great display on the Titanic. Nova Scotia played a big role in the story of Titanic, in that Carpathia brought all of the survivors there, and all of the bodies that were recovered were brought to Halifax as well. There is cemetery in town where many of them were buried. I wanted to visit the cemetery too…but it was pouring down rain!

Even with all the rain, we still had to eat – and we tried two uniquely Canadian dishes. The first was poutine, which I had heard much about but never tried. Basically it’s a bunch of French fries covered in gravy and cheese curds, and can also include different ingredients such as pork, BBQ, thai chicken….really we saw all kinds of version of it. We finally tried at a place that was somewhat unique itself – an indoor food truck mall called Truckside.

We ordered up some Thai chicken poutine, and despite Deas’s apparent enthusiasm in the picture, I don’t think we’ll be ordering any more poutine again for awhile. It was just way too heavy for us.

The other thing we tried was called donair. We kept seeing signs for it all over Halifax, and so I googled it and we went to try some at what is reportedly the best place to try it – King of Donair. Donair is similar to a gyro, but with a sweet sauce. It’s actually quite delicious – but decidedly not very healthy.

Toward the end of our stay in Halifax, we took a day trip over to nearby Lunenburg, which I had been told is one of the prettiest areas of Nova Scotia. And it really was a beautiful, charming little town with lots of colorfully painted homes. Unfortunately we still has some rather dismal weather but we still thought the town was adorable.

We walked the dogs around town for a couple of hours and then had a fantastic meal at the Savvy Sailor. A scallop sandwich for me and seafood chowder for Deas.

There is a campground right in town at the Visitor Center/Board of Trade office. We liked this cute little town so much we booked a spot there for the next few days and were looking forward to experiencing the area with some better weather. On the way back to Halifax, we made a quick side trip to Peggy’s Cove, which is supposed to be another cute area with the most famous lighthouse on Nova Scotia. The weather seemed to be clearing a bit during our drive, but as soon as we made the turn towards the coast the fog got heavier. On the way there we drove past the memorial for Swiss Air Flight 111, which crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1998.

Peggy’s Cove really is cute, but the weather was 100% gross.

If you want to see some beautiful pictures of the area with better weather, please check out this post from Roads Less Traveled. They visited Peggy’s Cove a couple of weeks before we did but had much better weather!

We were disappointed with the weather but were hoping it would improve when we returned in a couple of days. However when I checked the forecast, there was nothing but rain predicted – 80-100% every single day. We decided it just wasn’t worth going if we were going to be stuck inside the RV most of the time, so we canceled the reservation. And instead we headed east along our planned return route, with our fingers crossed for better weather….