We were up pretty early to start the next stage of our adventure - heading out towards the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island. Before leaving town, we made a quick stop at a local bakery to grab some treats for the road. From there, we made a short drive to the Fairview Lawn Cemetery, which has about 150 graves from the people that did not survive the Titanic disaster.

THe gravestones are laid out in the ship of the bow of a ship. It’s a solemn, somber reminder of the disaster.

A short distance away, there was also a monument to the survivors of the Halifax Harbour explosion.

While not as substantial, still an important reminder of the events all those many years ago.

Seeing the two together, it made you realize that they happened only a few years apart, these two unimaginable disasters. The Titanic gravesite is quite moving, especially the headstones that were erected for a couple of the crewman that did not survive and heroically went down with the ship.

After visiting the cemetery, we headed out of town and had decided to spend part of the day exploring the Annapolis Valley. The drive was about an hour north and west of Halifax, and it was pretty easy on the main highway. The drive continued to expose the fact that Nova Scotia just has a lot of trees. It’s all trees, all the time.

The main town in Indianapolis Valley is Wolfville, but we decided to bypass it and head north for a little bit to see if we could get close to the Bay of Fundy. The drive took us up high to an overlook, which they refer to as “Lookoffs” in this part of the world. We had climbed quite a bit (my Maritimes standards anyway), and it gave us a first look at the Bay and some tidal rivers.

Looking more to the south, you got a great view and understanding of the agricultural nature of the Annapolis Valley. It’s all farms and orchards as far as the eye can see.

The other way we could see the Bay of Fundy, from the Nova Scotia side, with one of the tidal estuaries laid out below us. I think we were about “mid” tide, so hard to get a good feel for it.

This lookoff gave us a great view of the Bay of Fundy from the Nova Scotia side. From there, we continued a little bit further north to Scots Bay Provincial Park. This might be the worst marked provincial park on the planet. There were just no signs, and we had a hard time finding it. Actually drove past the park entrance on a small, two lane road. But eventually, we found the small parking lot and were able to walk out onto the beach on the Bay of Fundy. The tide was way out and it was probably one or 2 km out to where the water was. And that was about mid tide exchange. We weren’t walking that far out but instead, explored the shoreline for a little bit before heading back towards Wolfville.

A small bridge leads you over a tiny river, out to one of the largest expanses of beach I’ve seen.

There were some remnants of an old pier or dock.

It is one large, rocky beach.

There was a small river that flowed out into the Bay.

Justine on the Bay of Fundy!

Before heading into Wolfville, we made a stop at Barreling Tide Distillery, that was just a few miles outside of town. It was right on one of the tidal rivers, and it gave us a chance to have a look at the crazy size of the tides. The river was really low, even though we were still a few hours from low tide, and the banks must have been 15 feet high. You could see how much the water must rise as the tide comes in. The distillery was nice, they had a couple of good things that we tried and we ended up buying some mixed drinks and a bottle of their haskap berry liqueur.

Hanging out on the bank of the river.

We made a quick stop at the distillery and sampled their wares.

You can see the size of the tide exchange - look at all that wet mud!

Wolfville Is the home of Acadia University and as we drove into town we went past some of the beautiful old buildings of the university. We quickly parked, choosing to walk along the main street of the pretty little town. It was really quite nice and there were a couple of different options for us to have some lunch before we tackled the long 5 hour drive out to Cape Breton. We ended up at Church Brewing Company, well named as they had taken over an old church and converted it into a restaurant and brewery. It was incredibly beautifully done, and we sat on the outside patio despite the strong winds. Other than the wind, it was a really nice afternoon and we very much enjoyed a flight of beer and some food sitting in the sunshine.

Such a great sign!

They did just an amazing job in converting the church. The entire grounds and landscaping were beautifully done.

Even the inside was well done in the conversion. Love the little stage area up where the alter and pulpit would have been.

Even the way they presented the flights was unique!

Another view of the inside.

One last look outside. Such a great spot!

After lunch, we walked back along the main street and popped into a yarn shop that Justine had noticed. We looked around for a little bit, but she didn’t buy anything, and we headed back to the car to head back out of town. Leaving the Annapolis Valley, we were heading mostly north maybe a little bit east as we were heading up to our first stop on the edge of Cape Breton, before making our drive around the Cabot trail.

So many shades of green. This was one of many stops that we made to enjoy the amazing scenery. I can only imagine what this must look like in the fall when the leaves change colour.

Our destination was a small town called Boularderie, About a 4 1/2 hour drive away. The drive took us northeast across Nova Scotia, and was a beautiful drive. As we made our way through the Bras D’or lakes region, we really got a feel for the spectacular scenery. We were trying to get to Baddeck, the closest town of any size in time to pick up some provisions for dinner, but we didn’t make it. The local grocery store was closed, and only the convenience store was open. We still had a baguette from the bakery that morning, so we picked up some cheese and some meat, and figured that would do us. We would come back in the morning to grab a few more things.

It was another half hour from Baddeck to our ‘cabin in the woods’ in Bouladerie. The drive was spectacular, climbing up to a great viewpoint overlooking the bridge we would cross a few minutes later. Eventually we found our way to our cabin. Which was very much in the woods. It was a cute little cabin, perfect for our needs. And even better, you could hear a ton of birds! So that caught our attention and we went out exploring. There was a rough road leading town to the water, which had a nice view of the water and the bridge. The only issue was that the bugs were awful! Black flies everywhere! They eventually drove us inside. We made up a rough dinner, which was all we needed. We had some food, had a couple of drinks and played crib until it was time for bed.

Our cute, rustic cabin in the woods.

And I mean deep in the woods - the black flies were atrocious! It was a good thing Justine had planned ahead and bought us these great little bug nets.

Walking down to the water we had a great view back at the bridge.

While we heard lot’s of birds, this was the only decent photo I got in the late evening light. I saw a hawk in the bushes, we heard lots of warblers and we saw a few things dart away, giving us hope for the morning.

The local wildlife - we saw this guy a few times!

Justine’s collage of our cute little cabin in the woods.

the Aurora forecast was “high”, so we set the alarm for 3 am to get up and see if there were any northern lights. Sadly, when the time came there was a weird fog/haze that had set in, so there wasn’t much to see. So it was back to bed until about 6:30, when it was time to try and find more birds!