Peggy’s Cove: Lovely, Terrifying, and Often Crowded–Exploring Nova Scotia with Kids

I took my kids to the Grand Canyon, and I don’t think there are any signs there as ominous as this one at Peggy’s Cove. Or maybe there just aren’t any as poetically composed; the “savour the sea” alliteration is a nice touch.

At any rate, we managed to complete our visits to both Peggy’s Cove and the Grand Canyon without losing any children to nature’s indifferent fury.

As soon as you start planning a trip to Nova Scotia, you come to understand that you must visit Peggy’s Cove. It is the rule. And we didn’t want to break any rules and get in trouble with the Canadian authorities, so Peggy’s Cove was the first place we went when we were staying near Halifax.

Peggy’s Cove is a tiny fishing village on Margaret’s Bay, about 40 km from Halifax. It’s home to a pretty lighthouse perched on a mass of rock overlooking the water, and this is what brings hordes of tourists there, chasing the perfect photograph. It’s possible there are other tiny fishing villages with lighthouses that are just as charming and less crowded (my trip planning notes read, “Polly’s Cove instead of Peggy’s Cove?” a question we apparently answered in the negative), but I can definitely vouch for Peggy’s Cove being worth the hype.

We were here on the Friday evening of Canada Day weekend. We’d heard that Peggy’s Cove gets very crowded and were hoping an evening visit would mean fewer people. There were other people there at the same time as us–it was hard to get sweeping landscape photos with no one else in them–but I certainly wouldn’t call what we encountered “crowded.” Maybe Canadian crowded.

The masses assembled to wait for sunset:

We had a short drive from Annapolis Royal to our campground near Halifax, and we got there early enough to get set up and then head out for our evening visit to Peggy’s Cove. It was a long day for Abe:

We parked in the public lot behind the Sou’Wester Restaurant and headed over to see the lighthouse:

I’d read that there’s really not that much to a stop at Peggy’s Cove: you take your pretty lighthouse pictures and you’re on your way. But this doesn’t really take into account all the giant fun rocks there are to climb on:

And, as long as you don’t get too close to the treacherous ocean, it’s fairly safe, even!

Don’t go over there!

 

So the kids enjoyed some rock scrambling and I took a million pictures for awhile until everyone was ready for dinner.

We ate at the Sou’wester because it was right there. It’s also super touristy (complete with a two story gift shop), but it was pretty good, very convenient, and had nice views from some tables.

By the time we came out of the restaurant, the fog had really rolled in:

 

It should be noted that it’s quite likely to be cold and windy at Peggy’s Cove at any time of year. We had pretty nice weather for our visit, but definitely still needed jackets.

We spent a little while walking into town, away from the lighthouse. It’s not a super pedestrian friendly area: narrow road with a lot of traffic and no sidewalk. But very photogenic:

There are a couple of other things to see in the town if you’ve had enough lighthouse, like a monument to the Nova Scotian fisherman and the Swissair Flight 111 Memorial. But we just walked down the road a bit and then turned around.

Abe was going through a phase where he insisted on posing as the Statue of Liberty for every photo:

And then we spent MORE time walking around on the rocks. We didn’t quite make it to sunset because everyone was tired and ready to go (and the sun set’s very late in June!)

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