Monday (continued)
After our walk in Delap's Cove, we went to Annapolis Royal for lunch. We ate at the Crooked Floor, a brand new restaurant (opened the Friday before). After lunch, we toured the grounds of Fort Anne.
Fort Anne is built on a peninsula in the Annapolis River. Click on the above picture for a better panoramic view.
Like most forts of its time, it is built on top of a hill, with moats and cannons. Here is the powder house where the soldiers would store the gun powder for the cannons.
We had fun playing around the powder house. For another view, click on Cindy.
There are a few places in the world where there is a large enough difference between the high and low tides of the ocean to generate electricity. One of them is Annapolis Tidal Generating Station.
Water is collected behind a dam as the tide comes in. When the tide goes out and has dropped at least 4 feet, the water can then turn the turbine to generate electricity. At this site, the plant can generate electricity for 5 hours every tide cycle. The gates here are to the turbine. To the right of the gates is the inlet to the reservoir that collects the water.
Our next stop was down the road from the tidal power generating plant to Port Royal, the first trading settlement in the region. It was founded in 1605 by the French. The orginal buildings were destroyed, but have been rebuilt as an historical landmark.
Here is Jeff standing in the entrance.
The original settlement consisted of about 40 men who slept, ate, and traded within the buildings. It had a dining room, as well as storage rooms and blacksmith shop and all the other necessities of the day.
Our next stop was the Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens. It had areas devoted to different styles of gardens. Here are some lupines that were ubiquitous around Nova Scotia.
Here is Cindy standing in front of some azaleas.
Our last stop was back in Middleton to watch the chimney swifts return back to roost. The high scool in Middleton has a chimney where about 200 of the birds roost. At night, a handfull of swifts start to call and circle the chimney. As they do, they are joined by more and more of the birds. Eventually, they reach critical mass, and they make a final pass as they are "swallowed" by the chimney.
[HALIFAX] [MIDDLETON] [ANNAPOLIS ROYAL] [DIGBY NECK] [SUMMERVILLE BEACH] [INDEX]