Day Trip from Halifax: Peggy’s Cove and Lunenburg

It’s been so hot here in Orlando that I actually want to write about the coldest, most miserable day of our road trip–our day trip from Halifax.

I originally planned three full days in Halifax–two to enjoy the city and one to do a road trip.  But I lost one to Cape Breton.  Yet I still wanted to ‘do’ Peggy’s Cove and Lunenburg.  Travel Tip:  When you start thinking in terms of ‘doing’, you’re probably planning too much.

We woke up to a steady sideways rain, yet still pushed on with our plans.  There was one point, maybe ten minutes outside of the city, where we contemplated just turning around.  We’d stopped for gas and it was raining so much we were even getting wet under the little gas station roof thing.  But we continued on.

Peggy’s Cove was our first destination.  I was wearing a black dress and sandals.  That was quickly–yet awkwardly–remedied.  My hiking boots were in the car, and I threw on a pair of my husband’s jeans–in addition to an old waterproof golf shirt that I brought along on the trip ‘just in case’.  I looked super hot.  Here I am…

Peggy's Cove in August is cold!

I realize I’m really little, but my husband has photography issues.  I’m also wearing ‘the hat’–but it’s around my neck a this point.  I’ve never looked more stupid–but I was happy because it briefly stopped raining long enough to take some photos, which was my main goal for this stop.  I wanted a good lighthouse photo, damnit, and I was willing to stand in the rain for really long periods of time, waiting for that one moment where there wouldn’t be another tourist in the photo.  Here’s one of the results…

Peggy's Cove Lighthouse, looking very postcard-esque.

We then continued to Lunenburg, a good hour farther away.  Of course it started raining as we drove, but we eeked out maybe 45-minutes of sightseeing in the town itself before the weather became unbearable again.  Is Lunenburg beautiful?

Lunenburg--maybe more quaint than beautiful. But I love quaint!

Yes.  But so is Paris–and I didn’t like it there, mainly because I made everything we did into a checklist.  I feel that this portion of the trip suffered the same fate.  Because we had such limited time–and so many things we wanted to do–AND such crappy weather…it turned into a Louvre-like march to check things off of our must-do list.  Mona Lisa?  Check.  Winged Victory?  Damn it is surrounded by tourists…but check.  That’s how we approached Halifax–and it was the wrong way.  But it taught us an important lesson–and we did not repeat this mistake for the remainder of our trip.

And really, that’s the best kind of lesson.  The kind you actually learn from!