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Published: September 8th 2008
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Yarrrrr
Enjoying a tankard of the cold stuff. Okay, so after a fairly long break from Travelblogging, I've come back onto here to write a secret update all about our Honeymoon. So if you're reading this, don't mention it to Laura as it's a big secret...
So why Honeymoon Canada and not somewhere like the Seychelles? Well, the bargain price flights in August was a big reason, which was pretty much why we didn't have a clue what we were actually going to do for our three weeks until we arrived! And anyone who's read out other blogs probably knows that we're not really sit-around-for-two-weeks type holidayers so we had to keep it interesting, and this seemed like a good opportunity! (By the way, nothing in life is free, and cheap, indirect flights are no different - half the money we saved got blown in Oslo airport on the world's most expensive beer - 2 for £15.)
Anyway, we arrived late on Halifax Monday evening, and got a taste of the weather to come when we had to sit on the runway for an hour waiting for the rain to ease just enough that the groundcrew would actually come outdoors and let us get off the plane!
Winng and dining
An extravagance, but deliciously worth it. When we finally got out and through customs, we cracked on with our everything else we had on our itinery so far... by which we mean we went to our hotel in town. Luckily it turned out to be pretty nice and we were more than happy to spend our first three nights there. We spent our three days in Halifax town doing a little shopping, a bit of exploring, and a lot of eating and drinking (local beer, fresh seafood and poutine are absolute musts). We squeezed in plenty of shut-eye (much needed after the 2 month wedding build up), a brewery tour (brewery play may be more appropriate with all the singing and dancing!), museums, historic forts, not to mention checking out the brilliant buskers festival that was just beginning and was a definite "come for 5 minutes, stay for two hours" type event. Pus devouring a 20" pizza (over a couple days).
Our plan had then been to pick up a car and head out of town to see some more of Nova Scotia and beyond, and it was at this point we hit our first problem: with the festival and it being the middle of
Halifax Harbor Sailing
Beautiful tall ship, the Mar, with a somewhat "colourful" history! summer it turned out that rental cars were in short supply. So much so that we couldn't get one for at least 2 more days. Okay, we thought, that's fine and we'll just stay a bit longer for now. Problem number two: no hotel availability either! And so we found ourselves on a Wednesday afternoon with nowhere to go and nowhere to stay! Luckily our dilemna was solved by the incredibly helpful staff at the tourist office, who managed to book us a room at the Dalhousie University dorms (unoccupied for summer vaction). It wasn't glamourous, and definitely wasn't romantic (twin single beds pretty much bolted to the wall on each side of the room!) but it was cheap and gave us time to formulate a plan B.
Plan B was derived at something like this: we can't get a car for as long as we'd like now, and low availability means we'll have to pay a higher price. So how about someone else drives for us? And that's the short version of how we ended up jumping on the Salty Bear Adventure Network for 7 days, visiting Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island and southern Nova Scotia. Once we'd
Buskers festival
Crazy guys, put on an amzing show. persuaded our fellow travellers that we weren't completely nuts (who goes on a group tour for honeymoon!?), we all got along brilliantly and had a fantastic time for our week together. The only thing letting us down was Maritime Canada's weather, which meant that more than one instance of climbing hills/trekking parks etc was thwarted at the end when our promised spectacular view turned out to be nothing but fog or cloud! But even with the weather as it was, we quickly realised that Canada is a truly beautiful place and we found it reminded us of New Zealand on more than one occassion (which can only be a good thing). Big highlights on the trip would include whale watching in Cape breton, micro-brewery touring on PEI, kayaking in Cape Breton, $7 fresh crab, sleeping in tipi's in Annapolis Valley, mountain-biking on PEI, Luke going river-tubing (best $4 ever!) and everyone agreeing Laura is the slowest go-karter in the world... ever. And the sun even came out for a couple of days too! Not to mention both our guides for the week, TJ and Miles making breakfast (blueberry pancakes, waffles and maple syrup etc) nearly every morning... om-nom-nom!
By
Buskers Festival
Fire Dancing. 30 pictures and this is about the only good one! the time we finished our week with Salty Bear, we'd seen most of the things that were recommended to us and weren't sure what to do next. We'd booked ourselves a car for our last week before we headed off on Salty Bear but weren't sure where to go (pretty much the opposite problem than we'd had about 10 days ago)! We thought about trying to get to Quebec City but it wasn't practical in the end, and nor was Newfoundland when we worked it all out. In the end we postponed both those ideas for the next trip and took the advise of our SB guide TJ and decided to go and explore New Brunswick (Nouveau Brunswick if you're Acadian). Any sceptical feelings we had, bearing in mind TJ was from NB and so may have been tad biased, soon disappeared when we arrived at our first B&B we'd booked down near Fundy National Park. We stayed in the first of many beautiful rooms for the week, and ate the first of many huge breakfasts that made it a struggle to eat two more meals in a day! All for generally less that the price of a Premier Travel
Dalhousie Halls
The Honeymoon Suite Inn!
As well as exploring the Fundy Bay and National Park, our tour around NB also took us to Parlee Beach (great sandy beach on one of our few proper hot days), Bouctouche (a beautiful little Acadian harbour town), Miramichi (a great place to let our muscles relax for a couple of days), Kouchibouguac Park (with crazy rental bikes with no handbrakes) and Fredricton (incredibly picturesque and brilliant for some near-end-of-tour wining and dining). We came across some great places and people and felt like we were off the beaten track a bit (for Europeans anyway!). We finally took the long drive back to Halifax on Friday afternoon (after indulging in a little shopping in Fredricton) and spent our last night and day in Halifax (tucking into some last minute Poutine) before flying back to the marital pad and reality!
Final thoughts:
* Canada is real nice, eh.
* Canadians are real nice too, eh.
* Canada is real big, eh.
* Lighthouses can be very noisy places.
* The Canadian mosquito has anger management issues.
* Tim Hortons rules.
* Poutine rules more.
* It's easy to win a stone skimming contest if you're the only
Scarecrow Village
The freakiest place ever. Ever. man!
* Left hand drive cars would be fine if it wasn't for all the extra car you have to account for on the right hand side.
* One scoop of ice cream is always two, and two scoops is always four.
* Icelandic Schnapps is probably an aquired taste.
* Laura and Lucas make pretty good travel buddies together.
Until next time (...?), bye for now!
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