Maritimes

August 4 to 21, 2009

Aug 18: geocaching

Decided to drive up and down the coast and do some geocaches / earthcaches

a boat for sale?... tempting

interesting place for a lighthouse.

if it would have been open, I think I would have stoped.

we arrive in pugwash... the location for our first earthcache of the day.

this earthcache is called "The Salt of the Earth"

Pugwash, a small village known for peace, pewter, and (perhaps most importantly) salt!

Nova Scotia's large underground salt deposits are found in a rock unit called the Windsor group.

Did you know Pugwash sits on top of a salt deposit measring almost 460 metres thick?

Salt was discovered accidentally in Pugwash, when drilling for water at a lobster factory in 1953. Not long after, The Canadian Salt Company hoisted its first load of salt in 1959. Mining at the Pugwash mine currently takes place up to 350 metres underground by room and pillar method, where drifts (tunnels) 9 metres high by 17 metres wide are separated by 23 by 23 metre supporting pillars. The salt ore is removed by blasting and scaling the rock face, advancing 4 metres at a time.

the town sign for pugwash

earthcache done... time to play!

the visitor centre (not open yet)

there was supposed to be a regular geocache under the stairs at the info centre...
but we couldn't find it.

salting the roads in summer.

a windsor salt factory.

a mini sink hole (and cache location)

an old school house... with a geocache in the trees behind it.

a good place to stop for a snack.

and find a geocache too!

next stop brule community centre

our next erathcache... "Make Tracks to Brule!"

sam wants to pose too

now both kids!

is there anywhere safe to eat shellfish?

sam checking out the fossilized tracks in the rocks.

time to play now.

peeking inside, you can see that the community centre used to be a fossil centre.

a fossil or just a rock? hard to tell when peeking through a window.

another rest stop... and busy today.
(we didn't make the hike from the parking lot to the beach)

a wind turbine and geocache location.

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