CA: The One with the East Coast

After twenty months of living and breathing in Canada, I have finally managed to reach the destination that I wanted to visit from the day I landed. I took a direct flight from Ottawa, the capital, to Halifax, Nova Scotia. About as far east as I can realistically get in this country without a car.

It also signals (another) return to the hostel life which, as always, I have mixed feelings about.

The hostel I’m staying at isn’t the best ever. Far from the worst but not great. It’s essentially split into the cafe downstairs that’s open to the public, and the hostel upstairs that’s reserved for guests. The hostel isn’t very well maintained; the cafe is. So as long as I only use the hostel for sleeping, I’m fine.

But you’re not interested in that; you’re interested in hearing what the delights of Halifax has to offer.

It reminds me of Wellington, in New Zealand. My home-away-from-home that I still rate as my favourite city in the world. Both set on a harbour, both smaller than other cities I have lived in. The heat, also, seems quite similar.

Top things I’ve done in my week in Halifax include: a(nother) brewery tour, a visit to a national historic site, a(another) lake, and a bus tour. Let us begin.

 

Alexander Keith’s Brewery is Canada’s oldest beer company, founded in 1820. It’s one of the top-rated tourist things to do in Halifax and, continuing upon my alcoholic course from the past months, it seemed the thing to do.

The tour was good, but not good compared to the money we paid for it. The tour was good from the history-side of its founding and so on, but a bit disappointing in terms of the brewing process. This could be because of my recent alcoholic tendencies and the three/four brewery tours I have been…

We did have a few free beers at the end, as well as enjoying several sea shanties that the employees sang for us as we drank. A strange experience, and definitely not one I expected on a brewery tour. But, it was enjoyed by all.

 

Also rated highly on the tourist scale is Citadel Hill. Built in 1749 by the British (naturally), the “citadel” was originally a wooden guardhouse. Using the hill made the harbour much easier to defend, as the view was unobstructed. Halifax itself would not have been built without the Citadel being built first. Most of the town, and eventual city, was created to provide essential supplies for the garrison and off-duty entertainment.

It’s a fun walk around, most definitely. Nova Scotia, as you would guess, has strong Scottish heritage, so it was only with a little surprise that we saw men standing guard in their kilts, despite the heat of the day.

We must’ve wandered about for a good two or three hours. The fort itself is impressive, ahead of its time when it was first built. We were allowed to witness the changing of the flags, something I’m sure my step-dad would be have enjoyed. I now carry a (very) small amount of knowledge regarding what different flags mean. Test me and I’m sure I’d fail, so let’s not.

One of the exhibits they had on whilst we were there was called “Hometown Heroes”, which featured personal stories from Canadians involved in the First and Second World War. This was probably my highlight. They had actually built trenches, covering a good portion of the fort’s walls, that were made to look and feel like well-maintained trenches during the wars.

There was something gritty about walking through it, distant sounds of battle (played over loudspeakers) ringing in your ears. Not to mention the medic’s cabin with its fun blood all over it.

All in all, if someone ends up in Halifax, I strongly advise gritting your teeth and doing the touristy Citadel Hill. It’s one of a kind.

 

There’s something very appealing about a lake. Less so if it’s called Chocolate Lake but it was our only option (apart from Long Lake, which is just a nightmare to get to on public transit). A lake/beach day is something I haven’t done in a long time (last time I think being last summer in Vancouver?), so when suggested by one of my new hostel friends, I jumped at the chance.

We decided to walk there. A foolish decision in hindsight, considering it took us fifty minutes in high-twenties sun. But get there we did.

It was not made of chocolate. We debated whether this was a good or bad thing. Overall, we decided that swimming in warm, sticky chocolate would not have been a pleasant experience, regardless of how much we loved the taste.

Though the lake was not “clean” as such, it was fresh, and was the perfect cure for a sweaty back and tired limbs. There were, of course, people, because apparently I am unable to escape people no matter where I go.

 

If you ask any Nova Scotian what the top spot is, what their favourite place to go is, they will all tell you Peggy’s Cove.

This iconic image of Nova Scotia is plastered everywhere around Halifax, from murals to posters to information boards. It seemed a shame not to go when given the chance. There was a bus tour I find that seemed the easiest way to go. Nova Scotia has made me realise the benefits of a car. Getting around the beautiful province would’ve been much easier if I’d access to one. Alas, expensive bus tours it was.

We were told numerous facts about the town itself. My favourite was that only thirty-three people at Peggy’s Cove. The rest of the mad rush is made up by tourists. I feel quite sorry for the residents… day-in day-out they have to cope with the tour buses (of which I counted seven just when I was there) and the thousands of tourists that come to look at the iconic lighthouse.

We had about an hour and a half to explore the Cove. So, naturally, we went rock scrambling. It was great because it provided us views not many people have, whilst also getting us away from the tourist hub around the lighthouse.

Look how far we ran away!

Another highlight was the stone mural at the entrance to Peggy’s Cove.

It depicts the history of the founding of Peggy’s Cove. Don’t ask me what every carving means. The only one I  know for sure is  that the woman with the long hair in the middle (just to the left of the cleft) is Margaret, supposedly who the Cove is named after (Peggy being short for Margaret, after all).

So, that’s Peggy’s Cove.

 

Those are the highlights. I have done plenty more in my week here (including a lot of drinking) but failed rather spectacularly at taking pictures. I went to two museums (The Maritime Museum and The Immigration Museum at Pier 21), both of which were interesting but not really photogenic…

There’s also a lovely walk you can do round the harbour called the Harbourwalk, which I did, sadly when the skies were clouding over.

And that’s Halifax for you! Today I move to a new place where I’ll spend an undetermined amount of time.

 

Stay tuned!

CA: The One with the Return

It’s always a surreal experience returning to places I’ve already lived. My visa is up in just over four months, meaning I find my mind evermore frequently turning to thoughts of home. What will it be like? Will it have changed? Will I have changed? The last one seems very likely.

This week I returned to Toronto, my home for six months when I first arrived in Canada. If I’m honest, the city has not changed in the past year. It feels much the same. The only difference that’s really bothered me is that my local cafe/coffee house (called ‘Rick’s Cafe’) has closed down. That was a sad blow.

Apart from that, it is the same. Oh, apart from the heat.

I was never in the city during summer. I managed to escape that hell, fleeing to the far west of Canada in June. This year, though, Toronto is stuck with a heat wave that’s left everyone a little singed. Mid to high thirties everyday with humidity at its peak. Another reason  I don’t like big cities.

The main reason (there are two, actually) is that Toronto is a good stopover point before I head further out east. We gave ourselves a week here (meaning me and Sam, my roommate and now travel buddy from Vancouver), which I honestly thought would be too long, that I’d run out of things to do very quickly. I was very wrong.

Most of my time was spent either showing Sam round the city, or catching up with old friends (which there were more of than I realised). On our second day, we did escape the confines of the city and drive out, along with some of Sam’s friends he met in New Zealand (Chloe and Conrad, Rugby Sevens picture), to Niagara-on-the-lake.

Now, I have been before. I went on a bus tour to the famous Falls with a few hours in Niagara-on-the-lake included. It was a very different visit this time.

We rented an AirBnB, one of the nicest I’ve stayed in. It was a full house, fit to house the group of six that we were.

Only one night there, but the day was jam-packed with activities. Niagara-on-the-lake came first (I’m getting very fed up of typing that name), where we spent a few hours before departing on several wine tours.

I think there were five in total? All very nice, and all fairly priced. One took us down into their cellars where we were allowed to study the many barrels stacked together. That was pretty cool.

As you can guess, there was plenty of wine drunk during the tours. And more bought afterwards to take back to the house.

Not to mention being surrounded by vinyards…

The following day we left the AirBnB and headed to the dreaded Niagara Falls. Now, going back to my time in Niagara, all those years ago (meaning about a year and a half) it was the last day that the boat tour out to the falls was open. This, mixed with the pretty cold weather, meant that it was all but deserted. It was wonderful.

This time, however, in the height of summer, was prime tourist season. It very quickly became apparent that we would not be doing the boat tour.

All that red on the boat? That’s all the tourists.

 

The Falls themselves were as spectacular as ever, terrifying in their power. The amount of people swarming around them for pictures? Not so much.

I think, if it was my first time visiting, like everyone else I was with, I would’ve been more impressed and inclined to go on the ‘Behind the Falls’ tour most of them did. Sam and I, after due consideration, decided it would be a more beneficial if we went to a pub in the tacky town and watch the football instead. It was quite a good lunch/afternoon if I’m honest.

 

Okay, the other highlight, and the other main reason we went to Toronto, was that it was Sam’s birthday on July 4^th.

Because I am a kind and gracious friend (and also because Sam is an alcoholic), I organised three brewery tours around the city. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a common theme of a lot of alcohol being consumed in Toronto. This day was by far the worst of the two.

Our drinking started at midday, when we arrived at the first brewery (Amsterdam Brewhouse). This was the quietest of our three tours. Just me and Sam and a friendly brewer, who talked us through their process of making beer before letting us try two of their most popular beers.

Then, naturally, we were convinced (though it didn’t really take much) to try a few more at the bar. So two beers down before even one o’clock.

The second brewery (Steamworks) was the big big tour we did. We had a great start. I asked the bartender if there was anything special we could do for my friend’s birthday and he gave me a badge, and two free beers. Dangerous.

The tour itself involved three more free beers, I think? As well as a tour around their (very large) brewery, of course. It’s interesting to see how the smaller breweries work differently to the big ones.

The third and final brewery (Mill Street) was in the between the two in size, but is also older than both. Actually located in the Distillery District itself, we had a nice time walking about the area before having a tour of their brewery and trying four, maybe five of their beers. We then also bought more beers for that night because, of course, we had also organised to go on a pub crawl.

I won’t go into great detail about the pub crawl. We hit four different places and, safe to say, we were fairly drunk. I did manage to get Sam to sing, though, with a live musician. That was a fun birthday for him.

 

The next day, we recovered, before venturing out to see my all time favourite place in Toronto: Casa Loma.

We didn’t go inside, nor did we spend a long time out in the heat. But I didn’t think a post about Toronto would be complete without the confession that I’ve been, once again, to the castle-above-Toronto.

 

As I write this post (not at the point that I post it, though), I am on a train to my next destination. Hopefully somewhere slightly more exciting than the past few.

 

Stay tuned!