Eric Stendal

Date: Monday, 7 September 2026

City / Region: Moncton, NB –> Halifax, NS

Weather: weather today during our drive was between 15° and 17° and periods of rain heavy at times.

Morning Summary

We started this morning with a terrific breakfast downstairs. We are staying at the Hyatt Moncton. Shelley remarked that the breakfast spread and presentation was the closest to Norway that we’ve experienced on our travels. She was staring out the window at breakfast and remarked that she was ‘getting a Norway vibe’ here.

Back up in the room, we’re gathering items up and preparing to pack. We want to visit the “Magnetic Hill” which is in the area. I have never been, but Shelley is excited to show me this attraction.

Afternoon Summary

The earliest part of the afternoon was spent finishing our drive into Halifax. Had we known what was waiting for us we may have turned around to head back to the sanctity of Moncton.

We arrived in Halifax and drove down into the area where we are staying. It is not far from things; one can walk to a few places (such as the beautiful Public Gardens), but other things require the car.

Our ‘move in’ time was for 4 pm, and we were here around 12:45 ish. We decided to grab a bite to eat so we parked in a parkade downtown and walked to an Irish Pub not too far away. Delightful. We settled into one of their “snugs” in the back of the restaurant, and Shelley went to use the facilities. The waitress came to collect our drink order and then departed. Shelley arrived back at the snug, and another waiter came to see us. He explained that it wasn’t possible to serve us with Maggie there. She was not allowed in the restaurant. Turns out this is the bylaw in Nova Scotia with places that serve food. Some places “may” permit the dog out on a patio but they have to be inside a carrier and cannot be placed on a bench or chair. They cannot provide water or anything else for them.

This was the first time we’ve ever experienced anything like this with Maggie. She is so well-behaved and quiet. We were quite put off by this. We knew it wasn’t the staff’s fault, but we were miffed all the same.

We went back to the parkade and left to head to a park to walk around and kill some time. I decided that we would go to the park that commemorates the Halifax Explosion of 1907.

The park is quite big, and there were some community activities taking place there. They were bbq’ing chicken and it sure smelled good! We were very hungry. At a different site in that park, there was a picnic table full with other treats and we spotted some samosas! Mmmmm. Lucky folks.

Kids were flying their kites with Mom and Dad and others were walking their dogs in the park. It was a windy but beautiful day.

We received word from our hosts that we could arrive early at our AirBnB so we set off and moved in.

Evening Summary

Dinner….don’t get us started. We couldn’t take Maggie anywhere so we elected to ‘dine in’. Since it was a holiday Monday, none of the Liquor Stores were open. Nova Scotia permits the sale of alcohol with meals (take out) so we decided to go that route.

It was almost impossible to find a restaurant in Halifax that actually did this. Unreal. I ended up finding a place in Dartmouth which was about 20 mins drive away. I ordered the pizza, salad, and bottle of wine and set out to collect it.

Shelley was surprised when I arrived back and she reached into the bag and felt a bottle inside! I told her I had to drive a bit to get it but we got one! The pizza was good (Boston Pizza) and Maggie helped us with a few morsels as well.

Supper being finished, we went for a nice stroll through the Public Gardens before coming back to change into our ‘jammies’ and settle down for the night.

Photos

Daily Highlights

• Our best moment of the day was visiting the Magnetic Hill. That was pretty cool.
• Funniest moment? We didn’t really have anything funny today; it was a bit stressful navigating Halifax streets, ideology around dogs, restaurants, ordering – everything.
• Biggest surprise? How unfriendly Nova Scotia is towards dogs even though they purport to being very welcoming.
• We learned that one can order spirits with their take out/delivery orders here if it’s over a certain amount.

Logistics

• Even though we spent 2-1/2 hrs in the car we got some steps in! Watches were spinning around on both wrists today.
• We bought a beautiful wool Tartan blanket at the little store outside Moncton in the Magnetic Hill gift shop. Gas was $1.97/L and it was almost $85.00 to fill up.
• We’ll be trying to get Maggie in to come with us on the Alexander Keith’s Brewery Tour and we’d like to see the Maritime Museum. The HMCS SACKVILLE would be nice too. We’ll see who lets her in tomorrow I guess.

Closing Thoughts

Beautiful morning at the hotel with a superb breakfast and drive in the area to the Magnetic Hill (about a ten minute drive from the hotel). The Magnetic Hill park is a great place to come and frolic with your kids (or grandkids). Lots to see and do – a little village, parks, a water park, mini-golf, a zoo! — it was terrific.

Our first hours in Halifax were disappointing and stressful; unnecessarily so. The Draconian rules around pets inside buildings is irritating and completely out of touch with the rest of the world. It’s like you expect to great one another on the street with “Under the Eye” or “Blessed be….”

Let’s hope tomorrow is better.