Photographic Cycling in Eastern Passage

You likely have not noticed, but this is the first time I have updated my blog in awhile. I enjoyed creating the entries I did last year but I struggled a lot with what to write about. Ultimately, I settled on the fact that I did not want to be a political commentator at this point in my life. Mostly because I enjoy staying in touch with my circle of friends and I don’t want to spend that much time complaining about everything under this sun. My best entries I felt were the ones I wrote on cycling around Halifax, and I had been tossing around the idea of continuing in that direction. However, I lost inspiration and have not updated in quite some time. A little whole ago at an event downtown I mentioned to a friend that I was thinking of turning my blog into a cycling and photography blog and he mentioned it would be great to photograph and write about all the cool things I see around town. The more I thought about this the more I thought that he was right and that was a fantastic idea. It helped that he did a better job of putting into words what I was already thinking of doing. So that’s what I am going to do from now on starting with this entry.

I love cycling. I cycle to work, I cycle for fun, I cycle to the mall and so on. As I have rediscovered my lifelong love of cycling these past few years I have gotten far more into it than I ever thought I would. I recently did my first 100 KM bike ride, which I will likely write about in another post. Now I find myself thinking 50-60Km is a short ride on the weekend. If I’m going to head out I may as well make it count right? Well during this time I also got into photography and it turns out there’s a lot of cool stuff to see in a 50-60KM radios from Halifax Harbour. Earlier this month I went on a quick evening ride around Eastern Passage. I could have done it in less time, but I am riding on a hybrid bike, not a road bike and I like taking my time to enjoy myself. I took a quick ride down Pleasant Street until it eventually turned into Shore road and looped back along Caldwell Road and the Shearwater Flyer Trail before going back along Pleasant Street. It ultimately ended up being about 26 Km round trip which surprised me as I somehow expected it to be half that distance for no real reason. But one of the things I’m learning as I cycle and run more around the city is just how far away things really are. When you travel somewhere under your own power it gives you a difference sense of distance than when you are taking a car or a bus.

The first part of my trek was the lovely path connecting the Alderney Ferry Terminal to the Woodside Ferry Terminal. As you can see it gives you a beautiful view of the harbor. You can see Georges Island with the Halifax Container terminal behind it. It’s a great short trail and worth the trip to walk from one ferry terminal to the other and back to Halifax after if you have the time. As you go through downtown Dartmouth on this trail you get to see some amazing street art as well.

The next section takes you past the now demolished oil refinery. It is a bit dangerous in this section for cyclists as cars don’t always give you enough room here. It’s a great place for a future bike lane. AS you can see form the picture above, the current bike line only starts in Eastern Passage and does not continue into Dartmouth. It’s a short but great bike lane. I really wish it began at the Woodside ferry terminal. This section also gives you a great view of oil refineries as far as the eye can see! I realize it is not the most exciting thing to see, but I find industrial architecture interesting to photograph, otherwise I would not have taken a picture of it.

The next stop I made was fisherman’s cove. It’s a very Nova Scotian stop with a great view of McNabs island. It is right by McCormack’s Beach Park, and I love the imagery the boats next to the little shops. It’s a very good snapshot of Rural Nova Scotia and its minutes from downtown Dartmouth.

Just a little bit down the road from Fisherman’s Cove there was a very scenic shot of the end of Eastern Passage towards Hartlen point. I eventually drove all the way down to the end to the road going to the golf course. I wanted to get a pic of Devil’s Island Lighthouse and I was not used to the area. Just when I thought I was as close as I would get without trespassing I found another spot to get a closer picture.

As I reached the gold course it looks like some very old infrastructure in the area had been used by the golf course for as you can see below.

I am going to look more into the history of the area to learn more.

However, I was not sure if I was allowed too far down this read, so I only went as far as I needed to get a good shot of the Devil’s Island lighthouse. The actual picture turned out slightly fuzzy so I will have to come back and try to get a better pic. But this one will do for now.

After managing to get a surpassingly good shot of the lighthouse, I biked back to where Shore road where I biked up the end of Caldwell road expecting it to be ho hum scenery all the way back to the Shearwater Flyer trail which I would take back to Pleasant Street and then back to the ferry terminal. However I found that behind Seaside Elementary school there is an absolutely stunning view of Halifax Harbour, Lawlors Island and McNabs Island.

Overall this was a great way to spend a weekday evening. At 26 KM round trip it can easily be done in a summer evening before the sun goes down. My original plan was to do that than continue all the way up to the Salt Marsh Trail via Cow Bay road but the more I thought about it the more I realized that would be better suited to when I had slightly more time to stop and take pics every few minutes as I did not wish to bike back home in the dark. I hope you enjoyed this little write up and the accompanying pictures. It ended up being much longer than I expected. I plan to do more like this. Bike somewhere cool every few days and then do a short write up about it. Not all will be this long but they will all have pretty pictures. Until next time enjoy yourself!