Having now travelled around Nova Scotia the question arises…where exactly are we 🤔? Due to the significant immigration from the UK, specifically Scotland and the West Country (fisherman), and France there is a real mixture. Road signs in English, French and Scottish Gaelic. Place names we would all recognise – Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Halifax, Oxford, Plymouth, Truro, Dartmouth, Dorchester, Dieppe etc etc. – and accents to match….all with a Canadian lilt 🙂. Oddly, Truro has sections of the Berlin Wall in a garden behind the college. They are there all on their own, no explanation as to why 😄.

Halifax seems to be a bit like Bristol. Similar size, docks, redeveloped waterfront, lots of history, lots of great bars and restaurants, up and coming etc. The history was fascinating. Right from when GB took control, through to the more recent history of the Titanic, the SS Mont Blanc explosion and the world wars – big involvement in Atlantic Convoys during WWII. The Titanic displays at the Maritime museum were thought provoking, and the Titanic cemetery was poignant.

The SS Mont Blanc explosion was the biggest man made explosion in history, until the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945! A lot of people died and a large part of the town was flattened. Pictures actually looked like some of the Hiroshima photos. To provide some perspective on the size of the explosion, a piece of the anchor ⚓, weighing 1/2 ton, is displayed where it landed…..2 miles away…..yes that’s correct, 2 miles…a 1/2 ton piece of steel. Smaller pieces of the ship landed far further away.

Today we left Halifax, and NS, and drove to Prince Edward island. The sea bridge, as driven, is 14km long and takes 11 mins to drive across 🙃. The longest bridge either of us has crossed….for now 🙂. Charlottetown, the main town, appears lovely, but it was lashing down so we couldn’t do a lot. We drove back in to New Brunswick and are now in Moncton, going to see the largest tidal range in the world tomorrow at the Bay of Fundy.