I Love Nova Scotia

"There's just so much of Nova Scotia to explore, we'll never see it all," said I, "There's so much of the world to explore," Sam replied.
Canada is just the beginning.  Next time: South America, I've been thinking.  First, I need to settle down for a little while.  So smaller trips closer to home until then will do.

I still haven't posted PEI pictures... but I'd like to write a bit about our recent travels while they're still recent!  We've been to Martinique Beach, Ovens park, Hirtle beach (in an attempt to find Gaff Point) Cape Split, Kejimkujik seaside National Park and Cape Sable Island (We got to take a Nova Scotian with us for that one! Yay Michelle! :) )  I guess we have done a bunch in the past couple days, and honestly, as much as I love hitch hiking, having a car has made everything so much easier, less tiring and so much more accessible.  We've been staying in Halifax and making a few day trips, and as much as we don't generally like to stay in the same place when traveling, that has been really nice too. But no matter how many places we go or sights we see, there will always be so more more to discover.  Speaking of which, I really haven't seen much of Manitoba or Ontario, my home provinces.

I had a dream last night that a reporter wanted to interview a few hitch hikers to demonstrate a different perspective on hitch hiking to the public.  The first think I wanted to say was that hitch hiking saves relationships, thus helping your love life.  You learn a lot about yourself and the people around you in a really short time span.  You learn to trust yourself, your hitchhiking companion, and whoever is driving you.  You learn to be more tolerant of many different perspectives.  It makes you learn to get along with all kinds of different people. As for trusting your hitch hiking companion, not that I've ever not trusted mine, but he's the navigator, which is the most important thing. When driving, I try to navigate and it usually ends with an "I don't know which way!" and Sam would say, "well you have the map!"  I have a tendency to question directions too much and get confused easily, so even with a map I would still get lost.  So it's really best, or easiest when Sam knows where he's going, but it's good that I learn too.

Since I'm sure you would love to know about each place, I'll make it a bit shorter:
Martinique Beach: lovely wavy beach, but there were quite a few people, even when it wasn't blistering hot!
Ovens park: The sea caves were so beautiful, and there's quite a lot of infrastructure that allows the tourist to see things from under the caves, above and all around.  But, it was much more expensive than we wanted to pay.  But I was tired, wanted to get out of the car and walk around and we couldn't find Gaff point (which we got directions to after we paid :/)
Hirtle beach (in an attempt to find Gaff Point): Nice beach, really close to Lunenburg, lots of people, and great sand! Apparently you can walk to Gaff Point from there, but we didn't have enough time.
Cape Split: One of my personal favourites of the east coast!  It was a total 3-hour hike and on the way, we found some good wild edibles, and the view from the tip was incredible.  It made me feel so small because there was such a massive drop-off, and the powerful currents we could see below just reminded me of how powerful the sea could be.  It's not a well known spot, not overly busy or monitored, and just so breathtakingly beautiful.  It was something we would have expected to find in Newfoundland.
Kejimkujik seaside National Park: We took a short walking trail and found it reasonably priced and rather lovely.  Sandy beach, cool, clean water, healthy environment with piping plovers, frogs and more, and there are seals there, though we didn't see any.  But the rocks in the sand were really interesting too.  Oh and the sand was a mix of white, black and pink in some places!
Cape Sable Island: foggy!  But the fog came and went so quickly, making it feel so mystical.  Like Kejimkujik, there was a nice mix of sand and rocks, even some singing sand! Looking out to see there is really looking out to sea because it's the southernmost tip of Nova Scotia and anything else is pretty far. There's an underground forest there, somewhere, but the tide wasn't low enough so we didn't see it.