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Published: October 2nd 2013
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Sydney
Today we are in Sydney, Nova Scotia - we decided to do a private tour to Louisburg Fortress which was a great tour. Louisburg has been perched on the edge of the continent for 300 years and was once a bustling seaport, a hub for trade and commerce on the Atlantic. A multi lingual, multicultural community and France's prize in the new world. The Fortress of Louisburg is North Americas largest historical reconstruction costing in excess of $160M. The tour guide was extremely enthusiastic about the history of Louisburg and was great to listen to. The guides and shop and other people there were dressed in period costume and you would think you were back in the 1800s'. It was a very cold, wet and windy day today and we were quite wet - too windy for umbrellas so had to make do with what we had - we kept warm but couldn't keep dry. We were thrilled to find the little house there which had some modern machines - namely coffee and hot chocolate - never tasted so good!
We missed the first bus back - only because that bus driver did a turn and
went straight back without waiting so we had to wait a little while inside an old woodshed, but it did have a beautiful roaring fire so we were very grateful for that and it helped dry us off a bit.
The whole reconstructed Fortress was really amazing and we loved the history the guide told us. Apparently the French kept impeccable records for everything which made it so easy to reconstruct including histories of the old days so you would know how they lived back then.
We are back on the ship and went to meet with the others for pre dinner drinks.
Halifax
We got off the boat early to find our hosts for the day waiting for us at the Port. Today we were going on a tour in motorbikes with side cars. We had the 2 bikes for both couples. The bikes were reproductions of Russian Ural 1930s style bike and side cars. Our hosts were Kevin and Vicki who organised us on the bikes - John on the back and me in the side car. This was great fun but got quite cold as we went along - ended up
stopping for a blanket to keep my legs warm under the leather cover. Thank God for the Kathmandu clothing we had on and the gloves - it was quite cold. During the day the sun warmed up and it was much better.
We stopped at a place owned by Ivan who has written books about Peggy's Cove for which he has won some awards for. He is quite a character who has painted a dead tree and done some weird and wonderful work around his childhood home plus he told us a lot about his family as he showed us around the house. He is also a well known painter and sells his books and paintings to people all over the world.
After leaving Ivan's we were all taken to Peggy's Cove which is named after a young girl who was the only survivor of a ship wreck. She was taken in by a family who had lost their young daughter a regale you with it here.
Peggys' Cove is very famous for its stories, history and lighthouse with around 1 million visitors each year. We counted around 15 tour buses there at the time! Decided we weren't going to stay at that place for lunch We found that the history around the whole area was very well documented and the locals knew everything about it and each one knew the story inside out.
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