Three Bloggers -- One Island

Last Sunday, Lynne, Dallas and I, headed over to McNab's Island for a Bloggers day out.  We agreed that afterwards we'd post our own experience of the day on Tuesday evening at 9 pm.  Well, here it is almost 8 o'clock and I'm still working on my post.

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Accessible only by ferry, McNab's is a 5 km. long provincial park located smack-dab in the middle of Halifax Harbour.  Despite it's proximity to Halifax, many Halegonians live their whole lives without ever stepping foot on its shore.

With a fort at either end, old homesteads, a pioneer cemetery, a storied history and abundant wildlife, there's lots to do there.

There were nature tours, fort tours, and a walking tour to "Hangman's Beach".

Dallas hooked up with an historical tour group heading up toward Fort Ives while Lynne zoned in on the nature tour and I sampled the "Hangman's Beach" tour.   There is a well-known book on the history of Hangman's Beach by Thomas Raddall, and I got the impression that everyone else on the tour had read the book.  Sigh ... I wandered off to see what the nature tour had to offer.  The answer is "a lot".   We had questions about every plant we saw.  The trouble was, we weren't walking very fast and ... and ... it was bitchin' cold...

... and raining.

Before I go on I should tell you that I was wearing jeans with waterproof pants over top, lined mini-boots, a sweatshirt and an insulated, water-proof jacket ... and mini gloves.

So Lynne and I set off on our own.  We just wanted to keep moving to get the blood circulating.

Since Lynne had never been to McNab's she was putty in my hands and my goal became her goal.
We walked for ages up the cobbled beach that lead to the lighthouse at the end of "Hangman's Beach".

Me and Lynne.

Lynne

After the difficult slog along the cobble beach, it was disappointing to see that further obstacles lay in the way.  The devastating force of the ocean had semi-destroyed the sturdy boardwalk leading to the lighthouse.  Lucky it was low tide !

The view up the harbour toward the city.

Lynne channeling "Max" from
"How the Grinch Stole Christmas"

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I am cognicant of the fact that it is now 9:16 and this post was s'posed to be up 15 minutes ago.  What to do ?  Just throw up the rest of the photos  ?  Keep plodding along ?  OK, I'll go for the latter.
BTW -- how much time do you spend on a Blog post ?

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We were determined not to walk back the way we'd come, so after investigating the defensive "Strawberry Battery",

 and a lovely sit-down-on-a-wall lunch,

we made our way back along a seldom-used path in the woods,

past a pond with a sunken boat,

to the main road back to the wharf,

and our boats back.

Dallas and mine to Eastern Passage,

and Lynne's to Halifax.

In spite of the almost constant misty rain and chilly temperatures, we all agreed that it was a wonderful day, and can't wait to return to McNab's Island.

Check out Lynne and Dallas's Blogs for their take on the day.