14.09.2012 – 14.09.2012  23 °C

Well I changed my plans slightly and went and picked up my car a day early. I was starting to feel a little pegged in here in Halifax (there is only so much of the city you can see on foot and I’m not in NYC so no major public transport). Before I left Halifax for good though, I had to go and check out the Maritime Museum, the number one attraction here in Halifax.

I had deliberately not made it one of the things that I had to do here in town, because to be perfectly frank, I find Maritime Museums (MMs) very, very dull. I’ve seen quite a number of these in my travels, and unless you are really into scale replica boats then MMs are BORING. This one was no exception. The only reason I ended up going to the museum was because I was assured that the Titanic exhibition would make it worth my while. (And honestly, I’m not sure that it did make it worth my while but anyway…)

The sinking of the Titanic is one of Nova Scotia’s claims to fame. The Titanic ran afoul of the iceberg somewhere off the south western coast of Newfoundland (west of NS). All of the survivors (picked up by the Carpathia) were taken to New York. Sadly, the dead were all picked up by Nova Scotian salvager’s  The only bodies brought back to Halifax for burial were people who could be positively identified (ie had some sort of papers or something on them when their bodies were recovered), anyone who wasn’t identified was placed in a canvas sack and buried at sea. I’m assuming everyone is familiar with the story and so it won’t come as a surprise when I say that even the dead were buried based on the classification of their ticket. For example, the first and second class passengers, who were positively identified, were buried in more ornate caskets as opposed to the plain pine coffins set aside for the passengers from the third class cabins…

A nice touching story is the story of the little boy who is buried in the Halifax cemetery. He went unidentified for almost a hundred years (and was one of the few unidentified bodies brought back to Halifax for burial) until DNA testing positively identified him. For all of these years, he was unknown and now almost a hundred years later he was identified as Sidney Goodwin. Apparently, many descendants of Titanic families came forward to have their DNA compared to DNA taken from the exhumed body.. Amazing what technology can do huh?

The museum also has a small array of mementos that were taken off some of the dead bodies that were picked up at sea. The majority of the large Titanic artefacts have been salvaged in the last few years. Apparently a hot debate still rages about whether they should be desecrating an underwater tomb.. I am struggling to see the difference between the Titanic gravesite and desecrating an Egyptian tomb..

The only other interesting exhibit in the museum was a small piece about the blowing up of Halifax harbour. The explosion occurred during the first world war and apparently was the largest explosion pre-Hiroshima. The explosion occurred because the harbour was chocked full of ships ready to carry munitions to Europe for the war effort. Two of these ships fatefully collided which set off a chain reaction of events. The culmination of the huge explosions was that a good portion of the town was flattened, killing over 1900 people and wounding at least 5000 more. Sadly, the blast radius information was used less than thirty years later by the Manhattan team when trying to estimate the destructive forces of the atomic bomb..

On that bombshell (pretty lame huh?), I left the Halifax museum and headed out into the sunshine to catch a couple more rays. I enjoyed some more fish and chips harbour side before I headed back to the hostel to pick up Sara and head out of town for a nice big hike.

Both of us had chatted at breakfast about needing to get out of town and just stretch our legs so we headed south of the city to St Margaret’s Bay where I was assured by the tourist lady that I would find a lovely hiking trail, overlooking the ocean. Hmm.. slight exaggeration on her part…. Ok so we found a nice trail, we had a good lengthy walk, it just didn’t go anywhere near the sea shore! Even a real estate agent would only classify the real estate as sea glimpses… I’m not sure that they would even go as far as to say it was shore lined!!! I probably should have guessed though, because much of the sea shore here is privately owned.. I could only wish!

Our walk was pleasant though. The trail followed old abandoned railway lines, which were surrounded by bushlands. Like I said, nice lengthy walk just not much to look at. We both did get excited towards the half way point of our walk, we both thought we saw some wild animals up ahead on the trail. I unslung my camera getting myself prepped for my photo opps, and both of us started to creep closer to these wild creatures. As we got closer and closer we realised, with some chagrin, that we were seeing the local cats out playing, not any wild animals!!! J Too funny!!

Our day ended back in Halifax at the tastiest Thai restaurant I’ve been to in many awhile. Sara and I shared a Chicken Yellow Curry and were both super satisfied with the result.. Sooo tasty. If I do come back to Halifax it will be my restaurant of choice for dinner! Last night in Halifax spent with a lovely lady and some really top class food.. what more could you ask for?