0507 Halifax Nova Scotia

2^nd – 9^th May 2016

Waiting, waiting, waiting !

Having really enjoyed a proper bed for the first time since I left England over a week ago, I met up with Bernard and his wife Glenys at breakfast the next morning – I had met Bernard in Antwerp when we were both dropping our vehicles off for them to go on the ship to Halifax – The Atlantic Conveyor.  The ship was originally scheduled to arrive on the 3^rd May, but as soon as we conferred we knew we were in for a bit of a delay due to the ship being late.  While this is annoying, it isn’t a rare occurrence on commercial vessels – We ran into similar issues in Catagena Columbia when we ended up waiting for some 10 days due to delays and public holidays there.  Annoying, but c’est la vie.

Unfortunately, when this happens, un-budgeted hotel and food bills rapidly accumulate, making every day’s delay an added (and unwanted) expense.  At this stage all we could hope was that we would get our vehicles out before the weekend – The problem is that Canadian Customs require two full working days to clear a vehicle, so if the ship did not arrive before Midnight Wednesday, we would not see the vehicles until Monday or Tuesday.

So first thing on Tuesday morning I walked down to the ships agent in town to get the latest – And it wasn’t good.  First of all there was a new person handling the clearance – The lady who had done the job previously had received a promotion effective Monday morning, so when I walked in on Tuesday, the new person had a certain amount of “2^nd day on the job” hesitation – Uh oh !   Basically he said that he didn’t expect the vehicles to be available till Monday or Tuesday at the earliest, and he wasn’t sure yet when the vessel would arrive !  Oh well, time to see what Halifax had to offer in the mean time.

Bernard and Glenys had gone to the eastern part of town looking for various bits and pieces, while after visiting the shipping agent, I ended up finding a boardwalk along the water front down in the city.  This was really quite extensive, spreading about 2 kms or more along wharves that housed restaurants, shops, museums, ferry terminals, information centres, apartments, and even the town’s casino and ending at a naval dockyard. Due to it only being the beginning of spring here, a number of outlets were not yet open, After wandering around for a while, I ended up in the Information Centre where the people were most helpful and I ended up with a backpack full of brochures and a few ideas of what we could do while we were “stuck in Halifax”.

A couple of surprises.  First, and I felt really stupid on this one, but I am in a shop and everywhere I look is the Scottish Saltaire cross of St Andrew flag, including the Scottish Lion coat of Arms.  What’s the deal ?  Then I twigged – Nova Scotia – Couldn’t be “New Scotland” could it ????  Of course it is – Massively Scottish here, with Highland Games, bagpipes, haggis, and of course the Scottish flag !!  I had never realized that !!   Duh !!

Second surprise was that the SW end of Nova Scotia is called the “Acadian Shores”, and the Acadians are the descendants of the original French settlers.  Later on, some settled in Louisiana, where the name became “’Cajuns”, and because I lived in Louisiana for a while, I knew about this, but had not realized that the link was actually to Nova Scotia itself.  So for me, all quite interesting.

Nova Scotia and this area is known for its seafood – Specifically the crab and lobster, but also of course their fish, so for lunch I had some local fish & chips from one of the little stalls, and the fish was superb.  Might have to try some of their crab and lobster one evening ……….

After that it was a walk to the other side of town where I have ordered a couple of tyres for Troopie – They are half the price of UK or Australia, so now is a good time to get new tyres. I just had to make sure they kept them in stock now my vehicle is going to be late.

After all that walking for about 6 hours, I was pooped, so headed home.  There is a little pub just up the road which does good food, there is a little coffee shop run by a Guatemalan lady that does Central American food and empanadas, and there are a number of little coffee shops around, as well as a great laundry.  So despite the fact that the area immediately to the east is not too nice an area (several people have advised us not to walk down that way !), if you go the other way it is quite nice.

Another day I spent a few hours at the Natural History Museum, although that wasn’t desperately exciting, although the hoards of school children there seemed to be enjoying it !  Another day I went down to the Maritime Museum, and that was very good – A lot of history around here, especially in shipping.  Mr Cunard was born and lived here, and there are strong links to the Titanic and other famous vessels, and the number of very large models in the museum, as well as their display of full size local fishing and sailing boats was extensive and very interesting.  Another afternoon passed……!

It was now looking more and more certain that Monday would be the earliest we could expect to see our cars – The ship finally came into port early on Friday morning, the 6^th, so 3 days late.  With our weekend now certain to be in Halifax, Bernard, Glenys and I set off on the ferry across to Dartmouth one afternoon – It was cold and Dartmouth (where there was supposed to be a nice waterfront boardwalk similar to that in Halifax) was rather disappointing and industrial.  But at least we saw it, and once back on the Halifax side we headed to a restaurant I had spied earlier – We had decided to splash out and instead of the pub or local pizza place (which are both excellent, I must add) we were headed for a seafood supper with all the trimmings.

And it was excellent.  As always in this part of the world, the service was very good, and we tucked in to various seafood options – chowder, dips, scallops and lobster among them, all washed down by some local beer.  To say we enjoyed it would be n understatement – We had a very pleasant evening, and Bernard, Glenys and I seem at have a similar sense of humour and really enjoy each other’s company. Having them here to share the enforced week in Halifax has certainly been great, and we have had a lot of laughs and some interesting times while here.  Glenys reckons that Bernard and myself must both be considerably taller after the week, because we have been joking and pulling each others legs so much !

Monday finally came around, and we packed out bags for (hopefully) a hotel check out later, and headed off to the shipping office, making sure we were there some 15 minutes before opening time.  And it was a good job we were because by 8.30 when they opened, there were some 20 other people there, all trying to do the same thing !  They had been staying in other hotels so we hadn’t seen them, but a lot of German and French couples had loaded their cars in Hamburg (where the shipped called after Antwerp where we loaded our cars.) 

So we were first out of the shipping office after about 15 minutes, with our stamped papers in hand, and headed down the road to the customs office for the next clearance. Somehow a couple of people managed to get there before us (Bernard was navigating !!) but without too much drama or too many questions about what was in the vans, we soon had our Customs stamp and  then had to head for the port to actually collect the vehicles.

The port is some distance, so for the first time this week we had to catch a taxi – We have walked a LOT of kms – Most days walking into town and the distance is probably at least a couple of kms each way.  As a result, we didn’t know where to catch a taxi !! None seemed to be driving around, so we ended up down on the water front and asked the Information Centre to call us one, which they did, and we were off to find our cars. 

Once at the port, I saw Troopie sitting there amongst 20 or 30 other vehicles – Some Land Rovers and Troopies, some regular motor homes, and a couple of big German 4 WD Unimogs or similar vehicles.  Somehow, once again, others had managed to get there before us despite being behind us at Customs (!?), but after a short delay of very repetitive paperwork by the Port clerk, we were finally allowed to get our cars, inspect them for any damage (none), and head out of the port.  We were off and running in Canada at last, and it was only 10 am !! 

Bernard and Glenys had a new Sat Nav so I followed them back to the hotel (they did take an interesting route, blamed later on their new sat nav !) where we checked out, through our stuff in our vehicles, and headed out.  We both had to get food and fuel and propane etc, and I had to check on my tires, so we agreed to meet at a campsite outside Dartmouth in the evening, and set off to do our chores.

I have to say here that the  Commons Inn where we have stayed in Halifax has been excellent, and so accommodating in rolling over our bookings with our day to day extensions due to not knowing when our ship was coming in (?!).  Commons Inn is in fact one of the cheapest hotels in town, and is on the edge of, shall we say, not the best part of town, but it turned out to be excellent with several good restaurants, a Laundromat, and supermarkets all in easy reach, and town just close enough to walk to. Apparently it was once 5 separate houses, and some years ago they were all joined together to make a hotel, and as a result trying to find your way around inside is quite interesting, to say the least, with corridors leading all over the place.  But for their service and help during our visit, they cannot be faulted. 

I then dashed down to the tire place hoping they could fit me in today, but unfortunately they were fully booked up, and 8 am tomorrow was the best they could do.  So I headed off to the supermarket and stocked up before heading towards the camp site across the bridge in Dartmouth.  On the way I passed a gas station with fuel at a good price (Can $0.90 per litre) so pulled in – And there were Bernard and Glenys in the car park having a cup of tea !  It turns out this gas station had propane and water as well as gas, so after a quick cup of tea together, I managed to get everything filled up before heading off to the camp site.

Not a bad camp site, but a bit expensive – But both of us needed some time to unpack and re-sort everything in our vans.  Luckily it was a fine but quite chilly evening, and by about 7 pm we were all done.  Glenys kindly invited me over to their van for supper and we had a lovely meal and a good bottle of Chilean wine I had found for supper before I headed back to my van for the night.  At last, I had Troopie back, everything was OK after the shipment, and tomorrow, once the tyres were sorted, I was off round Nova Scotia.

Photos are here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/6284561864262077089?authkey=Gv1sRgCOnV9ICCrbPD2wE