A Day in the Annapolis Valley

My parents have now flown back to Alberta and we are now flying solo here in Halifax. I have loved having Mom and Dad here for our first few weeks on the East Coast and it has been so much fun exploring with them. On Friday I woke up early to drive my parents to the airport. We said our goodbyes, laughed, and hugged. . . . and then I pretty much bawled my eyes out the entire drive back to the house. I was so forlorn that I even took the wrong exit and ended up on the other side of the harbour in Dartmouth and had to take the toll bridge to get back. It was a rough morning, but I am better now. I am so happy that I am here on this adventure with Tanner. We are going to LOVE IT.

So let's do some backtracking and talk about our second weekend here, which we spent in THE ANNAPOLIS VALLEY.  First off, the Annapolis Valley is the western region of Nova Scotia that runs along the Bay of Fundy. The ocean tides at the Bay of Fundy rise higher than any other place in the world. In the course of about 6 hours the tides rise by more than 50 feet! My Dad says that the Bay of Fundy was one of the few North American candidates considered to be one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, and the only one from Canada so of course it had to be on his bucket list.

We started off our day with plans to go to the Oaklawn Farm Zoo, just over an hour northwest of Halifax. The Annapolis Valley is known as the agricultural hub of the provide, and we could tell. We drove past dairy farms, vineyards, orchards, and corn field after corn field after corn field. Coming from Alberta you wouldn't think that I would get to worked up over seeing a farm on the side of the highway, but these farms were located on beautifully green and rolling hills, broken up by trees, rock, and glimpses of the ocean. It was . . . I don't even know what word to use here . . . . traditional and mystical at the same time. Does that make sense? It was foggy that day too, which probably aided the whole mystical side of things. 

As we made our drive, I thought "I bet there is a U-Pick apple orchard around here". Pretty much less than 5 minutes later, we were pulling up to a U-Pick in Wolfville, called Elderkins. It was beautiful and delicious. There were rows and rows of different kids of apples and even pears. There were apples in front that were for taste testing, that way could look at the map of the orchard and pick the apple you liked best. We are apparently poor at reading maps as we picked a 10 lb. bag of apples that were not the ones we loved. Still good, but not "the ones". A 10 lb. bag cost $7. We got two.

Here are some pictures:

Inside the U-Pick store they also had a bakery, refrigerators with apple cider and free run eggs, and freezers with locally made pies. Walking inside Tanner stopped dead in his tracks and said "This is the best smell I have EVER smelled." And he was right. It was a combined fragrance of apple cider and cinnamon buns. Ahhhhhhh Yeeeeaaahhhhhhh.

Next Stop: Oaklawn Farm Zoo

This Zoo was incredible. Not so commercialized as the Calgary Zoo and more naturalized than Discovery Wildlife Park in Innisfail. Tanner said that it was the best zoo he had ever been too. The family that own the zoo actually love on the property and you can tell that they have put everything into their zoo. It was well kept, clean, the animals looked happy and active. It was pretty awesome.

Among the animals they had they had two in particular that really stuck with me. A zebra and a gibbon. Why? Because they were both nursing mothers, like me. Whereas the baby zebra was pretty independent only came to her mom for a quick drink and then tottered off, the baby gibbon was literally at the breast the ENTIRE TIME, even when she was swinging all over the place he never lost his grip.

 

Did you notice the baby Zebra's birthdate? Yup. Born the same day as our baby June. I almost cried. I felt for these new moms and felt that even though we were all different species that we were bonded together by our common love for our babies. * sniff * 

(Phew! This is a long post! Is anyone still reading!? Don't worry, were almost done. PLUS there's a video coming up. * mysterious hand waving * Ooooooo. Aaahhhhh.)

Finally, the Bay of Fundy. Which, by the way, is huge. We chose the tiny little village of Morden for our viewing spot. Boy, were we not disappointed. We arrived around 2:30 (low tide) and climbed over all the rocks to get right out to the water. It was cold and quiet and foggy and eerie. I'll never forget it. We obviously couldn't wait for it to crest at high tide (that would have taken 6 hours), but we did stay for an hour or so, where we watched the tide come in quickly and rise about 10 feet. I didn't get any good pictures as it was pretty foggy, but here's the promised video. 

You probably noticed some little people missing from the video. The girls fell asleep in the van between the zoo and Morden, so my mom stayed behind and knit in the van. Almost immediately after taking this video I looked back and saw my mother outside the van holding June, and waving me down. Someone was hungry again : )

I know this was a behemoth post, but the day deserved it. That night, we returned home tired and fulfilled from spending such a fabulous day in the Annapolis Valley.