Exploring My Own Province (pt. 1)

Completed: August 21, 2020

This is really something that is ongoing but I spent three summer vacations concentrating on exploring as much of my province as I could so I am saying this item is complete. 

I have wanted to explore my own province for a while and in 2017, we finally dedicated time to doing it. I had done some travelling around Nova Scotia as my grandparents live in Annapolis Royal and New Minas and I played Ringette growing up so I was pretty familiar with the Halifax Regional Municipality. 

2017

In the summer of 2017, my mom and I were originally going to visit Toronto but decided against it. However, we had already booked our vacation time before we made that decision so I suggested that we do day trips around the province instead. I'm glad we did, it was an enjoyable time and we had some new experiences. This trip was from August 11 to August 21. Our first weekend, we went to the valley and saved some money by sleeping at my grandfather's for a few nights. There was a festival at Grand Pre National Historic Site celebrating the history of Mi'kmaq and Acadian people so we spent sometime checking that out. We shared Mi'kmaq taco, listened to some music and browsed the booths of people selling their crafts. It happened to be the same week the Annapolis exhibition was going on so we made a trip to Lawrencetown to spend the afternoon hanging out there. In the morning, we checked out the Historic Gardens in Annapolis Royal for the first time and Fort Anne. The flowers were so beautiful. 

Mid-week, we drove up to Sherbrooke Village which is almost 3 hours away from Dartmouth so that was a long day as we woke up early. It was like going back in time at the village, we saw a woman churning butter, an old machine that hand pressed notices and old doctor equipment. Sherbrooke is supposed to replicate life from the 1860's. Not all the buildings were open which sucked because I really wanted to look at the blacksmith stuff.  On our way home, we stopped at the Musquodoboit Railway Museum and looked at the train cars outside as the actual museum wasn't open. 

To end the week of actual exploring, we visited Mahone Bay and Lunenburg. There isn't much to do in Mahone Bay but we were able to spend an afternoon there. We ate our lunch outside by the water which was nice, visited a soap shop which creates soaps that looks like food and walked around the town. We had a yummy supper at Mug Anchor Pub before heading to our Bed and Breakfast in Indian Point for the night. The next day, we explored Lunenburg including the fisheries museum and we saw the Bluenose II. Our lunch was at The Knot Pub and I tried their peanut butter pie. OMG! It was so yummy. 

Family was visiting during the end of our vacation so we went back to my grandfather's for a weekend and spent time with them. We went to the look-off and checked out a waterfall at Baxter's Harbour. 

Extra trip

Though not during our vacation, we did go to Burntcoat Head Park to walk on the ocean floor and to Mastodon Ridge before the end of the summer. It was really cool to see Burntcoat, our shoes and legs got a little muddy. Mom actually got stuck in the mud at one point. We then had lunch in Brookfield at a restaurant called Hurricane Heidi's Bakery & Cafe. I've wanted to eat there for a couple of years after I heard who owned it; Heidi Cooke. Heidi used to be a professional motocross racer and I watched her race a number of times when I was younger. Mastodon Ridge boasts a life size mastodon statue, a mini-golf course and visitor centre. 

Check out part 2 next week.