Road Trip

(^Photograph: Wouter Walmink)
Waiting for the bus, raining

Snow Flakes in Wouter's hair.

On tuesday this week we rented a car and headed into the wilderness of south Nova Scotia. We got on our way around 9am, bought some coffees, our map spread out, and lost in the burbs of Halifax. Highway number 3 allowed our escape and we were on our way once again. We decided to take it really easy and travel along the smaller roads along the east coast, and to stop whenever a photo opportunity or otherwise popped up. Nova Scotia is really really small so we only had about 100km to travel that day.

We stopped in a bunch of little towns along the way, including Chester where we bought some chocolate fudge.

We arrived at the Spinnaker Inn around 5pm in Lunenburg. We were greeted with a KING size bed in a really nice old fashioned room, a nice change from the futon we have been sleeping on for the last couple of weeks.

(^Photograph: Wouter Walmink)

We had our complimentary breakfast at "Large Marge's", a funky looking diner that played 50's rock and roll on a juke box so we played of our favourites. (They dont usually give complimentary breakfast although i think because we were from Australia and Holland and travelling at this time of year is a bit strange, they felt sorry for us. In fact we had a lot of trouble finding a place to stay as the majority of accomodations close for the season, as well as resturants! I am really baffled as to what people do for the whole of winter! People really do hybernate here!)

We went for a walk around the Lunenburg Golf Course which has a really nice view of the townscape of Lunenburg (which also closes for the season, they were covering the greens up when we were there. I also noticed that people wrap up their gardens in wheat bags so they dont get damaged by the snow.

An eagle circling the highways.

One of the many risky stops we made to take photographs.

On thursday, after spending the night in Annapolis Royal (the oldest settlement in Canada and apparently voted one the best places to live in the world), we got up at 6am and went for a walk around Fort Anne (also closed). The mist was thick and there were small bits of snow laying around. There was a very evocative atmosphere.

As we headed out of Annapolis Royal we came accross an old run down building on the side of the highway with junk and stuff everywhere. We took some photos in the paddock nearby and i wandered closer to the building. I noticed some really cool metal scultpures and around the side some sculptures made from bicycles. We were just leaving when a ute pulled up in the driveway, a man got out and introduced himself as Brad Hall. We got talking and he invited us into his shed, which was, his studio. It turns out that he is quite an important artist in the area and accorss Canada. He explained that the bicycle sculptures we saw were the leftovers from a collection of 80 sculptures which were made to auction off for a fundraiser. He was also a photographer and worked professionally when he was younger, a weaver for 25 years and worked in a hospital for prostitutes and the homeless, he had some very interesting perspectives on things, such as the individual and the abandonment of free will in modern society.

(^Photograph: Wouter Walmink)

After the enlightening chat with Brad we headed up to the west coast of NS and travelled along the winding unmarked tracks. After getting a little lost we ran into this sign, the town we wanted was not signposted and so we thought this view was just a little ironic. We eventually found signs to Cape Breton, where we were heading. Cape Breton is a cliff in Fundy Bay, it sort of pokes out of NS, there is a 4 to 5 hour bushwalk up the hill. When we got there we were confronted with a sign:

'Visitors must wear Hunters Orange'

and then a long list of dangerous aspects of the walk and reccommended bushwalking equipment, with none of these at hand and far from discouraged, we decided to walk just a little way. The track was really muddy and wet so we went off track a little onto the grassy areas and took some photographs and enjoyed the beautiful view of Fundy Bay, unfortunately no whales were to be seen.

After our walk we started back to Halifax, only a 45 minute drive from one side of NS to the other. We got back into town in the early evening and grabbed some pizza and beer. Later on we had to take the car back to the rent office, but beforehand top up the fuel. We ended up getting lost twice in the terrifying suburbs of Halifax but eventually made it back downtown. I'll never ever go out of downtown Halifax again, the burbs are really scary.

Highlighted in green is the route that we took.

xx.

To see more photographs of our trip go to Wouter's website:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/walmink/