Peggy's Cove

After Cape Breton Island, we began the trek back to western Nova Scotia, towards Liverpool, which lies south of Halifax along the Atlantic coast. We spent the full Monday on the road, which wasn’t a horrible thing as it was a very, very rainy day and rather cold too. So the kids and I played and read and played some more. We reached Halifax in the late afternoon and found a mall parking lot to spend the night.

The next day we headed off, initially taking the coastal road to visit Peggy’s Cove.

Having experienced it once back in ’92 or ’93, I knew what to expect and so the startling landscape didn’t’ come as a surprise. But it was just as impressive as I remembered, despite the foggy day. The gigantic moon-like rocks jutted out from the barren ground forming a peak of land around a small cove dotted with houses and fishing boats, gulls screaming overhead…

We spent a good couple of hours scrambling over the rocks. The kids helped me where I needed a hand over a gap or up an incline, and Mo followed us up, down, and around. Mustang in particular wanted to investigate the various tide pools formed by waves crashing over the rocks, and she found a few little fish, crabs, and various seaweed. But I warned them to stay well back of the waves, as they were powerful and could easily drag a child or even adult into the sea, never to be found again.




As we departed, I told the children (and reminded Laolao and Laoye) that this was the site where, some ten years back or so, a Swissair jet crashed into the sea, just off the coast, and all the passengers were killed, despite the good people of the cove heading out to sea in their fishing boats to provide any help they could. After the crash, the people of Peggy’s Cove hosted investigators, journalists, relatives, and officials as they attempted to recover bodies and what of the wreckage they could to determine the cause.

We would have liked to visit Lunenberg, home of the Bluenose, as well, but after spending such a long time in Peggy’s Cove didn’t have the time as we had an evening date in Liverpool. So we headed back down the coast – eventually getting onto the main highway as it travels so much faster than the winding coastal route – and made it into Liverpool just in time for supper.