Things to do in Halifax

Crystal Beach

I think Mike and I will have to sit down with all the "what to do in Halifax" mags and plan our schedule. Of course the Aussie neighbours have already done it. I recall Jo and John had planned out their itinerary for the year in Canada - and they did all those things I kept saying "we'll do later" to. I swear they saw every attraction available in Ottawa plus managed to visit at least 5 other provinces along the way.


So now I am psyched. I will be Australian and conquer this province and all that it has to offer!!
Well we are off to a pretty good start I think. We went with the neighbours to the Saturday market located at the old Keith's brewery right on the harbour. Quite a collection of fish, meat, organic produce, baked goods, local wines (does NS make wine? who knew?), and even arts and crafts. Apparently the thing closes at 1pm and between noon and 1 the university students can get great deals on whatever is left over if you show your card.

We bought a bag of fish bits - aptly marketed as "chowder" and a honking big bread and I invited everyone over for chowder that night. Which of course meant that I had to run over to the local café and find a recipe online and then go buy everything else that goes into a chowder.
Ok it was fun - I like to set up these personal little soirees but 5 kids under one roof can get...hmm...loud.

We also went to the lake - the beach felt like some UN event - there were Germans, Spaniards, our Australians, and some others who spoke english but with strong eastern european accents.
I forced myself to go for a dip - the water is minus a million already and it took over 1/2 hour to get in. Mike just dove in but has had an earache ever since. I actually had to have a hot bath just to warm up.

Sunday included a walk in the victorian era public gardens and a quick tour of the 1 day annual harvest festival - a total organic/green party/happy hippie event if there ever was one. There is a pretty big organic movement here in Halifax - I don't know why I am surprised, maybe because they still dump into the harbour.

kids looking for the queen bee in the hive at the honey section

And then we headed off to crystal beach - that was really really nice. You could see the ocean for miles, the sand was white and smooth - reminded me of the caribbean actually. The tide was out and we actually found another stranded live star fish which we tossed back into the sea. Have to look up those beggars and learn more about them. If they are still purple does that mean they are alive? what if they don't move very much? is that normal?