The Grand Canadian/
American Adventure
Day Nine Halifax July
10th
After the heavy rain the day before, Day nine started out
windy and cold but became a beautiful day with clear blue skies. Again we
jumped on the ferry and went across the harbour. This time we headed up the
hill that dominates the Halifax skyline; Citadel Hill. As the name says the
hill is the site of the Citadel, part of a defence network set up by the
British in the 1700’s to defend the harbour from the French. These defences
served through the Seven Years War, the War of 1812 and two World Wars before
being abandoned in the 1950’s it was then resurrected later in the century by
the National Parks Service as a historic site.
The forts have never been attacked and are thought to be
impregnable, any likely attackers having only six weeks to breach the walls
before reinforcements arrived, a feat not thought possible by scholars. To
explain the history of the Citadel and its occupants, there are now guides
dressed in the uniforms of the 78th Highlanders roaming around site
and during our visit we were able to witness the firing of the noon day gun, a
rifle demonstration and Ryan got to put on a skirt.
Leaving the Citadel we then made our way back down to the
harbour and boarded a Harbour Hopper.
These are a couple of ex-military amphibious vehicles that take tourists
on a tour of downtown Halifax before then heading into the harbour and letting
people see the city from the water. The kids loved the tour as our guide was
very bubbly and they managed to get wet when we hit the water. One thing
learned there is only one natural harbour in the world that is ice free all
year around that is bigger than Halifax. I’ll let you guess which one. After
our city tour we split up and Chelle and the kids headed back to the hotel for
a swim, while I stayed on the Halifax side and headed back to the Citadel to
finish off what I hadn’t seen earlier,
it’s a bloody hard slog up the hill, so after seeing all I wanted to see
I needed a beer, lucky for me there was a pub in town that has 60 different
beers on tap,; heaven. One beer down and back to the boardwalk and a last walk
around and the n back across the harbour to meet the others.
The beers over here are great, but the one thing Chelle and
I had been looking forward too, before hitting the Maritimes was the seafood
and I have to say it certainly hasn’t disappointed, especially the seafood
chowder, it is magnifique.
Well our last day in the
Atlantic Provinces is over tomorrow we head back inland to Fredericton the
capital of New Brunswick.