This morning I woke up to sun streaming through the window of our lovely little room at the Lakeland and we packed up and enjoyed another breakfast in Matthew’s elegant dining room. Today we headed out to make our way to Lunenburg and Mahone Bay.
We started out on the coastal route but quickly realized that the coastal route actually goes through mostly rural inland countryside which is beautiful in it’s own right but we were deterred largely by the VERY rough roads and the fact that we had limited time and wanted to have enough of the day to explore Lunenburg. Consequently, we swung over to the 103 and made quick work of the trip up the coast.
We stayed at the Lily Front Cottages which are about 5 kms south of Lunenburg on Mason Beach on the Upper South Cove. We checked in and headed over the Lunenburg right away to make the most of our afternoon.
My first stop was the Dory Shop. A little backstory here: six years ago, we came to Lunenburg on our first cross-Canada trip and I took a photo of the Dory Shop (which still actively builds dories) and it was the subject of one of my paintings in my Cross Canada art show I exhibited at the Station House Gallery in Williams Lake in 2014. Last year, I posted some of that art on my Instagram account and Trudi, who manages the Dory Shop saw it. We ended up having a very nice message thread on Instagram and I told her we were coming across Canada this summer and that I’d be sure to stop in and say hi. She also manages the Lunenburg Chandlery Shop which is across the road from the Dory Shop.
Now, I don’t know how to explain this phenomenon but most of us have experienced it at one time or another. Within 10 minutes of being in Trudi’s presence, I felt like I’d known her for years. She reminded me so much of my sister Victoria and my husband commented afterwards that she reminded him of me! Anyway - it was a really nice moment. Trudi graciously made time to give us a little tour of the Dory Shop and we had a laugh about how social media sometimes does lead to lovely real life connections. I know we’ll keep in touch and hope to cross paths with her again someday soon, an East Coast Sister!
We mooched around the docks for awhile and watched the boats go in and out. We were disappointed to have missed the Blue Nose (the tall ship on the Canadian dime) by 3 days! It left last Saturday with two other tall ships to do a tour of the Great Lakes. (The schedule can be found on the Blue Nose website for those interested.) Six years ago, we were unable to see it because it was on dry dock, having some restoration work done. I guess we’ll just have to come back AGAIN to see Trudi and the Blue Nose!
It was a gorgeous day and the weather was perfect. We decided to take a run up to Mahone Bay (about 12 kms) and have dinner there as our friends Yvan and Carole wanted to see it before they started their trip back to Quebec tomorrow. We rode up and decided on the Mug & Anchor Pub and scored a table out of the deck, overlooking Mahone Bay. There were quite a few other folks in the pub, mostly sailors with sailboats in the Bay. Mahone is such a beautiful little town, I’m sure it’s a destination for many sailors in the area.
The Mug and Anchor is the pub featured in the TV series “The Mystery of Oak Island” and we fully expected to run into Rick and Marty Lagina but, alas, no luck. :) We were doubly disappointed given that we were unable to secure a spot on the Oak Island tours. We had NO IDEA what a craze the Oak Island mystery is. The tours opened for booking online last March 1 and by March 2 they were completely sold out for the entire season! We do watch the show on and off (in between when we get fed up with HOW SLOWLY IT GOES) so we had hoped to see the place but not this time. This is a head’s up for others who may be interested. You gotta book as soon as the booking opens online to get a spot!
After dinner, we rode back to Lunenburg and called it a day...
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