June 21 – Lunenburg and Gaff Point Trail

Today we drove to Lunenburg to have lunch, then to Hirtle’s Beach to hike the Gaff Point trail, and then to The Shore Club for a lobster dinner.

I messed up our timing today. I had booked a reservation for dinner at 5:30 which is usually much later than we finished for the day so we started a bit later than usual. Then lunch took longer than I expected and with the driving distances involved we had to cut the hike short to make it in time for dinner. It wasn’t too bad because once we got back to the car after the hike, we were glad we had stopped.

It’s an hour drive to Lunenburg. We wandered down the waterfront for a short while.

We watched this trawler, named after the famous local artist, Maude Adams, leave.

I ogled this very nice sailboat.

I had hoped that during our time here that we could see the Bluenose II as this is its home port but it was away for its annual overhaul. There was a smaller schooner docked.

There really isn’t much to do here other than look at the vibrantly painted houses, check out the shops or eat. There is a museum but I had been through on our last visit here.

We were mainly here to get lunch so we walk up and down the street with most of the restaurants and decided on the patio at The Dockside restaurant overlooking the harbour.

Next was the half hour drive to Hirtle’s Beach and the start of the Gaff Point Trail. For such an out of the way place I was surprised that there were at least 10 other cars in the parking lot.

From the parking lot you have to walk about 1.5 km along the crescent of Hirtle’s Beach before you head into the trail on the wooded point, then there is a loop around the end of the point.

The yellow line is the full trail with the loop. The blue line shows how far we made it before we ran out of time to get back for dinner.

Here is a high view of the beach from the far end that I took on our way back.

The actual trail runs just along the edge where the greenery starts but it is very rocky so when the tide is low enough most people just walk on the beach.

First we went through these lovely smelling wide rose bushes.

Then down to the beach.

The trail ran up and over that cliff to the right and we saw some people follow it and climb it but we don’t know why.

Jennie lagged behind a bit checking for treasures.

Into the forest we go.

Some section were nice and wide.

Some were not.

And some places must be wet occasionally because we had to walk over all these small logs.

And out to our first viewpoint.

The photosphere.

The next few shots are from the way back at the next viewpoint.

This tour boat slowly passed by us earlier at our turn around point. We waved but again nobody waved back.

We were back into the forest for a while before we broke out to these jagged layers of rock.

The photosphere.

At one point we looked at the clock and the fact that ahead, the trail looked to be getting much rougher so we turned around.

The photosphere.

Heading back.

And down to the seemingly endless beach. Low tide was at around 5 pm today so we had much more beach on the way back.

A photosphere.

We had hiked almost 6 km. Even though I was a bit annoyed that we had to cut it short I think the place we reached was a good representation of the rest of the point’s shoreline. And we were pretty tired by the time we got back.

Our dinner 5:30 reservation was at The Shore Club in Hubbards which is about half way between Lunenburg and Halifax and about an hour’s drive from where we currently were. We actually got there a bit early.

They told us that the place had been in business for 87 years. It was not very busy today but we had been here on our first RV trip in August of 2010 and it had been packed.

Each dinner comes with 1 lb of mussels, a salad bar and dessert. I had the 1.5 lb lobster, Jennie and Heather had the 1 lb and Mark, who does not really like seafood, had a steak and declined the mussels ($5 off).

The lobster and mussels were very good. The salad bar and desserts were OK and Mark’s steak was a bit overcooked.

After this meal, with all the lobster we have had, I think I have had enough for a while.

Then the 1/2 hour drive home.