Arrived safely

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jMLQPFNWJVsPWVzC8

(The link is to an album of photos taken today.  If you click on slideshow, that's what you should get.  I have forgotten how to get the picture of the album to click on at the moment!)
We have survived our circuitous route and finally arrived at our hotel in Halifax fairly late yesterday evening.  The London - Toronto leg of the journey was rather marred by me spilling a small glass of complimentary red wine onto my new off-white jeans!  The stewardess gave me lots of paper napkins and a glass of soda water but there is a limit to the rescue I could achieve when hemmed in in a window seat with  a meal on the fold out tray.  The soda water did eventually make the trousers look as though they had been tie-dyed rather than having met an axe murderer but they certainly don't look new any more!

We had a strange encounter in the middle of the night in the hotel too.  A couple of hours after we had gone to sleep the room door was opened with a key card and another couple tried to move in!  We were shocked by this and so were they, but, after a few minutes, they retreated and said they would return to reception and ask for another room!  This morning reception admitted that we had been checked in incorrectly, all our paper-work (which they didn't give us) was for the room across the corridor but our key was wrongly issued for the room we are in. 

Today we have explored central Halifax on foot.  Halifax was the first English settlement in Canada (1749) and is dominated by the Citadel, an old fortress on top of a hill within a star shaped system of deep ditches/moats. It is now run by the national parks of Canada and is inhabited by role playing soldiers and civilians.  These staff stay in role all the time and there is much changing of the guard, soldiers being drilled and pipers piping.  The flag flying is the Union Jack and the soldiers are mostly in kilts, supposedly being from the 78th Highlanders.  We heard the Noon Cannon being fired and saw the Old Town Clock (1803) from various angles. 

Halifax Public Gardens, dating from 1753, were the first public gardens in Canada and are modelled on St James' Park in London.  After the Citadel, Clock and Public Gardens we wandered on down to the waterfront and some restored Historic Properties.

Tomorrow we pick up the Camper van and plan to head south along the 'Lighthouse route'.