East Coast Glamping

The Valley’s a great family destination just about anytime, but it’s especially bountiful during August hot days, when harvest fare like baby potatoes, blueberries and corn are for sale around every corner.

This August long weekend we camped two nights at Blomidon Provincial Park and added several new adventures to our log book:

1. Squelching through low-tide, mineral-rich red sand at Blomidon and gem collecting
   • Check the tidal charts to ensure you don’t get caught out. At low tide you can walk for miles.
   • Shells weren’t top of the list this trip. The park offered little campers samples of amethyst rocks at the check-in office.  This sparked our explorers desire to find some of their own, to split open and polish at a later date — new hobby alert!
2. GeoCaching: modern-day treasure hunting
   • If you haven’t tried it, WARNING, it’s crazy addictive but uses a ton of phone data (I’m sure there’s a better way to do it, but I took the easy route and navigated by phone).
   • Check it out online and turn a nature hike, drive…or lunch, into a Jack Sparrow adventure. When you find the cache, you sign the log book and swap a treasure, or leave something behind, but bring a pen or pencil as a few geocaches were out of ink.
   • There are literally hundreds of geocache sites speckled around the Valley, we even found one during our glampy lunch! Taste of Nova Scotia has hidden several caches around local food, which was right up our alley!
3. Lunch at a vineyard
   • There are eight local vineyards, close to Wolfville in the Valley, to visit and tour. Domaine de Grand Pre has a terrace and serves lunch until 2pm and dinner from 5pm. We chose Luckett Vineyards (serving lunch until 4pm) in the Gaspereau Valley and dined on lobster and arugula salad and an antipasti plate. A complete list of wineries is on Wines of Nova Scotia.
   • The kids love using the red phone booth at Luckett Vineyard, hidden amongst the vines where you can call anywhere in Canada for free (but be prepared to wait in line).
4. Strawberry-Lavender Ice-cream at Tangled Garden
   • With flavours like Lemon Thyme and Rose Petal, it’s hard to resist trying Tangled Garden homegrown, homemade ice-cream. We also stocked up a few new jelly’s to serve with our evening crackers and cheese platter.
5. Blueberry Picking
   • While we didn’t blueberry pick on this trip, Between the Bushes U Pick is directly enroute to our campground and makes a fun trip for the family and delicious blueberry pancakes back at the camp. Between The Bushes also has a restaurant.

Here’s a map of the above: 

Misty morning on the ocean floor.

Searching for rocks.

Red sand beaches at Cape Blomidon while glamping at Blomidon Provincial Park.

Learning to dial – the old-fashioned way!

Lunch – glamping style – with a wine tasting and walk through the vines.

Cape Blomidon

Happy Glamping!

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