Day 10.230: Nova Scotia trip recap - day 7

We decided to travel further east along the Northumberland Strait coastline to Pictou on our penultimate day in Nova Scotia. Having had a marvelous lunch when we arrived, we headed down to the waterfront to visit the reproduction of the Hector - a ship that brought 179 Scottish immigrants on a harrowing journey to the area in 1773. The replica was completed in 2000 and is currently being significantly refurbished - resulting in its rather stubby masts!

There was an excellent visitor centre and the story was quite moving - including details of the children who died of smallpox early in the journey and that after eight weeks, nearly out of food and almost in sight of their destination, a storm blew them out to sea and it took another two weeks for them to make dock.

The ship was big, but shockingly small to have housed so many for so long, but it is a fascinating and important part of the history of the area.

From there we took a short walk along the Jitney trail:

where we saw the locally-famous double-crested cormorants that nest along the break water. They put on quite a show for us when one caught a fish and the others decided they wanted it. Just when the matter seemed to be settled (and I stopped taking photographs) a bald eagle swooped in to try (unsuccessfully) to steal the fish. Sadly I wasn't able to capture that drama, but I still got a pretty good photograph of the disappointed eagle departing.

We split the journey back to camp at Tatamagouche, where after dinner, we had another short walk - starting at a railyard where the coaches are now hotel rooms and a restaurant (not where we ate) along a rail trail where we admired the English-looking hedgerows and the amazing light as the clouds closed in. E5N1 coined the hashtag "#FirstToTheBridge" and then - as we drove on, the sky put on another show for us.