Day 55- Halifax and Pier 21

Day 55 Friday, July 2, 2010 Distance 90.86 km. Time 5 hr. 18 min. Total so far 3826. 51 km. We got Jim and Adrienne up very early this morning. We packed, had breakfast and gave hugs goodbye to our new friends and their dog, Dube and cat, Opposite. Thank you very much for everything. Hwy 103 was busier today. We had lunch at Tantallon and the original plan was to turn off there and find a campground but it was still early and the weather was so nice that we decided to move on farther. At lunch Garnet had told us we could go right into Halifax and down to the pier but we came to a section on the road that did not allow bicycles anymore. It's good then that Dave has the GPS as he had forgotten a pile of city maps on the coffee table at Jim's house. He looked at it and made a new plan to the Halifax waterfront. He waited outside and watched the bicycles while I went in and had a tour and a film about Pier 21. That is where, as a three year old child, I arrived into Canada from the Netherlands back in 1951 after the war. It was a very nostalgic tour for me thinking of my parents coming with 4 young children to a new country so far away to start a better life. We left there at about 3:30, went to a grocery store, and got lost crossing the bridge to Dartmouth. Dave landed up doing a muscular feat like on our out west trip where he lifted the bicycles over a guard rail to a bicycle path to get off a busy road. He now has a big bruise on his side from doing that. We left that city on Hwy 118 and it was extremely busy as it was later in the day than we like to bike. Two cars almost ran over Dave as they were coming in on an on ramp while he was on the main highway crossing that ramp area. We couldn't find a campground as we had lengthened this day so finally we pulled off the road, crossed a little ditch and found a spot behind some trees where a 4 wheeler track ran through. We had lots of black flies to contend with and I'm the one that put on a bug scarf and pants and I got the most bites around my forehead.