K & L's Travel Blog

Saturday, September 27, 2025

The little community of Mahone Bay is busting at the seams on this beautiful Saturday. It is the height of its 2025 Scarecrow Festival and people are arriving by the busloads. We decide to head out of town and explore some beaches and sights on the laid-back South Shore. 

Our first stop was the Rose Bay General Store. We had made sandwiches at the apartment for our lunch but picked up some sides & cookies at this welcoming, historical place. 

From there we headed to Hirtle’s Beach. Despite the remote location, it boasted a parking lot and facilities. The beach itself was beautiful. It was crescent in shape, sand with colorful rocks interspersed. Some people were swimming (though the water was surely very cold!) and a couple of surfers made an appearance as we left. Overall, it was almost deserted. We found some rocks to carry home as a gift and headed on to our next destination, the much-touted Lahave Bakery. 

Even though it was a beautiful day there was very little traffic. The drive took us past scenic coves and old farmhouses. To get to our next destination meant crossing the river via a river cable ferry. We pulled over at the stop to wait and were soon surrounded by 20+ bicyclists, also waiting for the ferry. We noticed a line of cars on the other side, and at this point figured there was no way we would make it on the tiny ferry. Welcome to Canada! The super-friendly bicyclists (from a Halifax biking club) cleared the way for us to board and found their spaces around us.

One of the recommendations we had gotten from the bicyclists was nearby Crescent Beach. We decided to skip the bakery once we saw the number of cars parked along the road and the line into the bakery. Besides, we had just bought homemade Ginger-Molasses cookies at the General Store, so we were set! Crescent Beach had easy parking overlooking the beach, so we ate our sandwiches and took in the view before taking a stroll. A friendly Border Collie was braving the surf for anyone who’d throw a tennis ball.

One place on the South Shore had gotten lots of references: Cosby’s Garden Center, which is known for its concrete yard art. I’ve never been a fan of yard art, at least the generic type (bird baths, saints, etc). Now Kitty is always on the lookout for interesting pieces, so I thought this would be a good choice for her. I wasn’t super excited about Cosby’s, but I was curious to see how their concrete art might differ from ours. I was not prepared at all for how different it would be!

You get a clue when you pull up and see a couple of statues. We made our way through a greenhouse and passed through a studio area with drawings and concrete mixer. And then we entered the world of “Concrete Creations.” Most of the human figures are realistically wrought, but fancy played a role. Many figures were making gravity-defying acrobatic moves, creating a Cirque de Soleil feel. The woodland walk was landscaped with flowers and lots of shrubs.I sensed a homoerotic strain (but then of course I would!).

We stayed much longer than I had anticipated at Cosby’s, so we gave up on Carter’s Beach and headed home. We stopped for a beer and a popular pub where I’d imagined a leisurely wind-down, but it was so loaded with customers we didn’t linger. And no, we didn’t make the drag show that night in Lunenburg either. Cosby’s Garden Center had gone so beyond our wildest expectations that it more than made up for a missed beach, pub or even drag experience! What a woodland walk.