Timber and sailing and UNESCO World Heritage

Saturday, October 20, 2012
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada
Lunenberg is a pretty little town on the coast of Nova Scotia, south of Halifax. It was originally settled by the French but the English, wary of those Roman Catholics, imported a whole bunch of French and German protestants who started by farming and then got into boatbuilding and fishing and built themselvs a solid community and some beautiful fishing schooners, prominent among them the Bluenose which spent the summer fishing then took on all comers in the Fishing Schooners international sailing race and won every year, and i s now featured on a Canadian 50 cent stamp. It was eventually pensioned off and sank somewhere on the other side of the world but now they have Bluenose II which takes tourists round the bay.
Seriously though they have an impressive collection of large sailing vessels, several streets of old and beautiful wooden houses and shops which are the World Heritage bit of it, some good restaurants and it all sits in the middle of drop dead gorgeous coatal scenery consiting, largely, of peaceful sheltered inlets where fishermen moor their boats near their wooden houses balanced on the rocks . Some bits aren't so peaceful and tranquil, Peggy's Cove (a famous bit) is a granite outcrop assaulted by the seas with an inconic lighthouse.

Our journey down here, previously described, was a lovely sunny day and our first day here was equally splendid and we drove down the coast to a park where there was a lovely walk through woods, marsh and stuff to some isolated beaches. There was a seal perched on a rock just offshore, some piping plovers - a threatened species which you aren't allowed to let your dog chase, and a couple of Monarch butterflies who were clearly too lazy to be bothered with heading off to Mexico so, we fear, are doomed to perish. Peter managed to catch one so we make up for having no photos of our butterfly tagging by bringing you a photo of this one, which flapped off happily after beng released. 7
We also passed through the town of Liverpool which stands at the head of the River Mersey, nothing there to make us want to linger, but a bit different from the other Liverpool we know about - and no sign of the Orange Order!

Today the clouds returned so we explored Lunenberg, found out the Drug Store did a neat line in changing dead watch batteries, just over 1 Canadian $ - a bargain . And drove up the coast to the already mentioned Peggys Cove. Our hotel room in the Smuggler's Cove looks up the main street so we follow the trickle of locals and tourists as they wander the streets. We have found some excellent sea food meals here and been entertained by our chats with the hoteliers and gift shop owners about life, both summer and winter in this attractive village. The wacky book shop owner, straight across the street, provided conversation late into the evening. He claimed he had a stream of interested customers between 8.00 pm and 12.00 am when everyone else was long gone, but we weren't convinced. We've certainly enjoyed the history of sea faring, rum smuggling and hurricanes, bought home by the whistling winds and howling gale on our last night, amazingly warm, blowing from the South East, at 17 celsius today, a complete contrast to the cold northeries two days ago. Good to be in touch with the elements.
We have a seriously slow upload link here, and photos on another camera which I can't transfer because the adaptor is broken. So 5 pics for now - more later
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