Nova Scotia: Crescent Beach

The flat, packed sands of Crescent Beach

On the fourth day of our trip, we decided to go walking on the beach to escape the heat. We asked some of the locals their favorite beaches and Crescent Beach kept coming up so we decided to head there.

The southern end of the beach

Nova's Scotia coastline is filled with nooks and crannies and there are sandy beaches tucked here and there. The trick is knowing which ones are good for which activity. The best thing to do is ask. The locals we talked to liked Crescent beach because it was good for swimming, walking and you can drive on it.

We came across this Inukshuk that someone had placed on a boulder. It is a type of cairn used in the Arctic to mark a cache of food or hunting grounds. It is the symbol of the far northern Canadian province and will be the symbol of the upcoming Olympic games in Vancouver.

There is a long way and a short way to get to Crescent Beach. The long way takes one up and through Bridgewater while the short way hops the La Have River Ferry ($5 each way). We chose the later and managed to time it right. Taking a ferry is a fun experience.

At the northern end of the beach was another small beach that ended in this headland.

More glacier gouged rocks

I think I mentioned the fact that we had only brought warm clothes with us on this trip, anticipating typical cool temperatures. Did we bother to bring any of those clothes with us to the beach? Gosh no, we put on shorts and t-shirts, borrowed from the house we were staying in, and ignorantly headed off to the coast, it was after all only a half hour's drive south from Lunenburg. Foolish mortals!! We didn't freeze, but we were not warm either. There was a very brisk and cool breeze blowing in from the sea that made us wish for pants and a sweat shirt. I gamely did without while my travel companion wrapped a towel around her shoulders. Our visions of reading trashy novels in the sand was dashed the moment we arrived. Still, we had a lovely if brisk walk along the ocean, the first real exercise we had gotten since our arrival.

The sands of the small extension beach. There was a lovely home on a cliff to the right.

On the way back I kept observing large burly men wandering in the breakers with pitchforks. I finally talked to one who was coming out of the water and asked him what they were up to. Turns out the pitchforks were used to hunt for clams in the sand. The men were moving the pitchforks up and down in short rabid bursts as they walked along. They would feel for clams that were disturbed by the pitchfork with their toes. The water was very cold. Some of the men were in wet suits while others were just in shorts and a t-shirts. Seemed like a very cold way of scrounging up dinner.

On the headland, gazing back up the beach

After our walk we decided to explore further south to Cherry Hill Beach. This beach looked very nice indeed but the fog was so thick by the time we got there and the wind was blowing so hard we decided to head back. We assumed, very foolishly that this lovely fog would be making its way to Lunenburg to cool things off. Alas, when we reached the town the heat had hit us like a ton of bricks.

The encroaching fog and a healed over sailboat from the La Have River Ferry