We left Lunenburg the next morning and continued along the Lighthouse Route. This is the road that winds along the coast as opposed to the highway, all along the south shore of Nova Scotia. We joined the route at Lunenburg that day and followed it to Halifax, stopping at Mahone Bay, Chester, Queensland Beach and Peggy's Cove.
The route is a great one to drive, winding coastal roads, almost always with the sea within view to one side. As the route takes you though lots of little towns and villages it's really easy to just stop and get out whenever there’s something that takes your fancy.
Not far from Lunenburg is Mahone Bay, a pretty little town set at the end of a small inlet. Lots of yachts were all moored up in the bay. We carried on to Chester. The guy that ran the B&B that we were staying in had suggested we stopped there, so thought it might be a good stop for a late morning pit stop. He was of course right. I really liked Chester. It’s a very picturesque, clean, idyllic little town. (almost stepford wives but not quite!) The houses were all perfectly painted and the place just seemed super relaxed. There’s a yacht club which I can imagine gets pretty busy in the high summer season, and a nice headland which you can walk around. We came across the Kiwi Cafe, and boy am I glad that we did. I immediately felt at home, from my days in New Zealand. The cafe is bright and cheery, with super friendly staff and a great atmosphere. I sampled a Nanaimo bar and a fresh lemonade and Tim had an espresso, apparently so good it was in his top three best espresso's ever, so that’s saying something! They had some yummy looking things on the menu too, all beautifully fresh and organic. Highly recommend stopping there.
After feeling refueled we headed back onto the road and came across Queensland Beach, in Hubbard’s Cove. Gorgeous white sandy long stretch of beach grabbed our attention and made us stop for a walk. We had a lovely time playing in the sea and wandering along the beach. Some crazy souls were even brave enough to get out into the water!
Our penultimate stop of the day was Peggy's Cove. We had made sure we had the whole afternoon there to check this infamous place out. Peggy's Cove is a tiny settlement of about 50 people, a small fishing community and its main attraction is the lighthouse set on top of the rocky outcrop sticking out into the Atlantic Sea. It s a pretty busy little place, there were a couple of tourist buses there whilst we were, but it wasn't too bad, I wouldn't imagine it’s that fun during the main summer season. There are a few houses, most of which are gift shops or art galleries. There’s the main gift shop, post office and restaurant up next to the lighthouse. Tim and I got a hearty feast to take out from there of actually reasonable fish and chips, and a lobster roll (the main staple of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick it would seem!) sat ourselves down on the rocks and had ourselves a lovely afternoon chilling out. There was a pesky giant seagull that seemed intent on stealing my chips but I was having none of it. It is quite a special place, I really felt happy there. We had been blessed by beautiful sunshine for our whole trip, but just as we sat there on the rocks some clouds came rolling in off the sea which made from some quite cool photos.
We ended our trip to the Maritimes with a night in Halifax and then Moncton. Which was pretty odd for me as my younger brother had done his initial pilot training in Moncton a couple of years back. Small world. And possibly one of the only airports that I know where you can buy live lobsters to take home with you….
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