Our Bridgewater Base

Our first Nova Scotia was spent in a budget hotel near Halifax railway station. As we only slept, showered, ate breakfast and waited for our hire car to be delivered, I’ll skip straight on to Bridgewater, just over an hour south of Halifax.

Our accommodation was an Airbnb in Upper Lahave, a small, riverside boathouse with open plan living downstairs and two ‘haylofts’ above, and our own jetty. Racheal had a double bed, while Summer and I each had a ladder to climb to our ‘bedrooms’. Sean, the owner, had made a ramp up to the decking so that Racheal could get into the tiny house. Once we had moved some furniture, it was perfectly adequate for our needs and a beautiful place to stay. I won’t describe it further as the photos do a better job.

Our first day at the boathouse was spent stocking up on supplies at the local supermarket, spending some time at the launderette, visiting the local museum and exploring the town centre The DesBrisay Museum was small but had some interesting information about the local area, and the curator shared ideas for places to visit. The town centre was not particularly inspiring, but we were impressed with the lengths they had gone to to make small parks accessible. One park had a zigzag of ramps leading down to it from the main street.

Having got the essentials sorted out, the second day we set off for Lunenberg, a town on the coast which has many original buildings and is a UNESCO world heritage site. After a picnic lunch we looked in the museum which was housed in an old fisheries building. The museum told the history of the fishing industry and the town, and had an area dedicated to the indigenous Mi’kmaw people. From the museum we climbed the steep hill into the town and enjoyed looking at the old buildings and inside some shops. Access wasn’t always easy due to the steepness of the streets and steps into buildings, but Racheal probably preferred sitting outside in the sunshine while we took it in turns to go in the shops anyway.

Day three saw us return to Halifax to have a proper look around. I would like to have gone to the Immigration Museum, but we ran out of time. Again it was a lovely, sunny day. First we explored the waterfront, mainly because it was flat. Halifax is built on a steep hill, a common theme in this part of Canada. We managed to book onto a Harbour Hopper tour. This is a guided tour on an amphibious vehicle, part of the journey being through the roads of the city, and part seeing the sights from the harbour. They had a portable wheelchair lift which they wheeled to a door on the side of the vehicle and, having removed some seats, raised Racheal manually using a crank handle. Our guide, Riley, was fun and informative. It was a big improvement on the tour we did in Toronto earlier in the trip. The splash as we entered the water was impressive and Racheal loved it.

On our final day around Bridgewater we didn’t want to go too far as we needed to pack. I visited the laundrette for the third time in four days, while Summer and Racheal went thrift shopping. This was the first big thrift shop we had found and great excitement for Summer! Then we drove along the south side of Lahave river (the Boathouse was on the north shore) to Lahave Bakery - a spot recommended for coffee and treats! There we also found a craft shop and bookshop. The building was an old ship’s outfitters and chandlery with the bakery still using the original tills.

From there we found a road onto Lahave Islands, first driving along a spit of land before crossing a number of old wooden bridges between the small islands. It was great fun. We could even drive on the beach!

I’ll finish with some photos taken from the Boathouse. The reflections were incredible and the mist made the place feel eerie. We took far too many sunsets and even a sunrise! We loved it here, but time to move on to another part of the province.