Saturday, July 13 – Peggy’s Cove & Halifax

The night was filled with wind and rain. The dawn is grey and without rain. Wayside Camping Park is a bit on the dilapidated side of things, lacking the shine and luster of most campgrounds we’ve visited. We had the required services and the washrooms were better than expected, at least for the men. Apparently, the women’s weren’t up to standard.

 Peggy’s Cove is only a few kilometers down the road. Parking was a test. Saturday at the cove is very busy and a painting festival was taking place. We managed to sneak into the information building's parking lot and weren’t served a parking ticket, a notice, or towed away. Success!

Peggy’s Cove is one of the great tourist spots in Nova Scotia. It’s a working community of approximately 30 permanent residents. Lobster fishing is still the main industry for the locals. The area is renowned for its natural beauty and the lighthouse is perhaps the most photographed in the world, standing on barren granite, thrashed by the waves of St. Margaret’s Bay.

Ant-people Crowd the Rocks Surrounding the Lighthouse.

Tourists ignore dozens of warning signs, clamber down onto the wet, slippery rocks and some inevitably drown. While there one large, overweight man slipped, landed with an audible ‘thud’ and injured his ankle. He lay there quite a while. We moved on. Don’t know when he did.

Peggy’s Cove is Highly Picturesque.

We all had fish and chips at the restaurant at the top of the hill, the Sou’Wester. The haddock was delicious.

From Peggy’s Cove we made our way toward Dartmouth and an oil change at a Jiffy Lube. The Ceilidh was sucking air from time to time but we feathered our way there. The gang were friendly and efficient. We have now established that The Ceilidh is slightly more than ten feet tall. Once Sven scrambled onto the roof and removed the vent covers, we nosed into the bay. Oil drained and refilled (we’ve travelled some 7,000 kilometers), tire pressure checked, greased. Transmission fluid leaking, brake line from master cylinder leaking at the front distribution block end, still leaking air into the fuel delivery system.

One of the lads at Jiffy Lube recommends the Shubie Campground. Cools. We head off by GPS, avoiding the toll routes, that is, the bridges. The Ceilidh is hunting for fuel a few times. I manage to play the accelerator in a way that keeps her running. We crawl up some of the hills. 

Alas, we cannot crawl up the hill just north of the A. Murray MacKay Bridge (Toll road) on Highway 111. Four-way hazard lights on. Finally, we phone BCAA/CAA for a tow. A ‘special constable’ walks to my driver’s window. He has his red and blues flashing behind us, alerting traffic. Our four-ways aren’t too bright, so this is a big help. He also let’s us know our exact location which will help CAA find us. 

We chat about things policing and I find out that the Halifax Harbour Bridges polices the bridges, not the Halifax Police. Every few minutes I crank the engine over hoping she’ll ‘catch’ and we can move out of the traffic. After about half an hour of intermittent efforts she catches and dies. In my mind this is at least progress. I continue chatting with the officer and continue cranking from time to time. He shakes his head at each failed attempt. He does acknowledge that our stoppage is legitimate and that we are trying. 

Another twenty minutes passes. No tow-truck. Luckily it’s a Saturday and the traffic is relatively light. Crank her again…she fires up! I tell the officer I’m going to try to get up the hill and at the very least pull over onto the ‘on’ramp up ahead, if necessary. He runs back and jumps in his cruiser, we drive up the hill, take a right and pull into a small mall parking lot. Yay! I thank the officer for standing by while we were on the highway. He’s cool and heads off. The tow-truck arrives within three minutes.

We phone around for auto/RV repair shops to which we can tow The Ceilidh. No success. They’re either closed or not answering the phone. We decide to tow it to Nova Automotive. The tow-truck driver, Mark, says it’s a good choice as they handle RV’s and trucks. He says they’re reputable. He backs The Ceilidh onto Nova’s lot and uncouples the towing gear. 

We hear a strange whirring from the hydraulics of the tow-truck. Mark can’t retract the tow-bar set, the hydraulics aren’t working properly. We call it the curse of The Ceilidh. He phones his boss. Just shut down the engine and let her sit for fifteen minutes, then try again. Hmmm, sounds suspiciously like our Ceilidh. After fifteen minutes he starts his engine and the hydraulics work again. We part ways.

We phone a cab, pack in our guitars and valuable goods, lower the blinds and lock up The Ceilidh. I slip an explanatory note, including cell phone numbers, through the mail slot of Nova Automotive explaining our situation and stating we’ll come by at 8 AM Monday.

The cab shows up within minutes. He seems surly. Perhaps because we’re only going a short distance. We load our gear and drive a few hundred meters down the road to a Comfort Inn. The cabbie is Russian. Sven talks with him and soon he is laughing and shaking our hands. Leprechaun magic I say. We enter the lobby.

Do they have a room with two queen sized beds for two nights? Yes. Yay! Sven mentions our BCAA cards and we get a decent discount. I’m looking forward to a long, long, hot shower and a really decent bed.

We get stowed away, polished up and head across the street for dinner and a beer at Hugo’s Bar and Grill. It’s 7 PM and the end of a stressful day. We enter. It’s a strange place, filled with various gambling machines and a half dozen locals. It advertises bottled beer. There’s a door into a much larger hall with tables and music. No one there. We sit down at the bar. A larger, friendly woman dressed in bright yellow tells us there’s no food. Only on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. She says the owners’ weird that way. I have a can of Guinness. Sven finds there are taps and has an Alexander Keith’s IPA in a Moosehead glass. We have a pizza later. I turn in and fall asleep before my head hits the pillow.

Bonus Peggy's Cove Photo.