Thursday, September 5, 2024, 46.8 miles: Today we headed back across the bridge to Halifax and to a ride along the western side of the harbour south to the Atlantic Ocean at Ketch Harbour.

The ride to Ketch was beautiful, but challenging; what cyclists call a “sawtooth” ride as you can see in the elevation profile below. Thankfully we only had essentials with us and not our full loads. Some of the grades were 13-15%. On the way, we passed the York Redoubt and stopped for a tour of the grounds at this fort first built in the 1790s and actively used up to the 50s. Lots of cannons that were apparently rarely fired.

Ketch Harbor ride elevation profile.

Ketch and Sambro harbours are right on the Atlantic and we passed the fisheries in Sambro and treated ourselves to one of the biggest, freshest, and best fish & chips we had this trip at Mishoo’s Takeout. Almost right off the boat.

The ride back to Halifax passed a lot of inland lakes and was much less “toothy,” featuring the gradual grades we got used to most of NS and PEI. We went back into downtown Halifax and headed to the wharf again for some refreshments at the Stone’s Throw Patio. From there we went back to the hotel to get freshened up, eat the leftovers from Mishoo’s, and headed to a night on the town in Dartmouth.

We took the car to Dartmouth’s downtown and walked around to get a feel for the place before settling on a place to get a drink. Dartmouth isn’t as bustling as Halifax and comparatively was much more quiet and laid back. We stopped in the Celtic Corner hoping to hear some music, but the woman who was the act for the night was taking a break while the Lions-Chiefs game was on as it was louder than she could ever be. The place had a rooftop bar but it was closed, so we left and ended up at Staggers Pub & Grub where we were treated to an evening of classic songs by Jeff Bonang (for SC folks, think Tommy Wareham with a guitar).

Then it was back to the hotel for our last night in NS. Still no WiFi. 🙄

Total miles on this trip so far for Paul is 585.7, and 620.7 for Dana.