We were recently invited to go on a local photo tour that was put together by the St. Margaret’s Bay Regional Tourism Association and Colour. The idea behind it was to show that there are so many beautiful and unique places to see that are so close to home. Well, we would like to congratulate them on a job well done because we had never been to most of the places we travelled to.
SHE SAID:
I don’t know if I’ve been living under a rock (or maybe just a pile of school work) but I had never heard of a photo tour before. I had heard of photos and also tours, but not the two combined. Photo tours are now my new favourite thing because I get to explore the outdoors, experiment with photography, and discover the hidden treasures of our province all for a very low price.
Our particular photo tour had a wonderful tour guide named Anne who really added to the experience by telling us little historical anecdotes and facts about the areas we visited. Were it not for her I would still be oblivious to the fact that a castle exists in Nova Scotia!
If there aren’t any photographers or organizations in your area that arrange photo tours, I would still highly consider scouting out a few places to explore on your own. Try the touring section of your area’s tourism website for inspiration.
Also, get a camera and remember that you don’t have to be Annie Leibovitz to have fun. We are definitely rookie photographers, but we still managed to get a couple of nice shots. Now we can make really cheap prints to hang around the house.
HE SAID:
When we got asked to come on a photo tour I was pretty excited. It’s something we had never done before, and since I’ve really gotten into seeing new parts of Nova Scotia lately, it sounded like a great way to spend a day.
Our first destination was Bayswater Beach. It was a beautiful spot with nearly white sand, and plenty of nice scenery to take in. Then we went to a little fishing village not too far from there. Our guide told us the story behind a castle we could see across the water, as well as an island covered in dead trees. Apparently, cormorants (a type of bird which are not native to Nova Scotia) were brought here and ended up destroying all the trees on the island. It was actually a pretty creepy thing to see. I’m sure we would have been making up some pretty wild stories about how it might have happened if we hadn’t been told about the birds.
Then we drove a bit farther and had lunch in Hubbards at a little spot called Dauphinee Inn. It was such a cool spot. The outside of the building was painted in very bright colours, and the staff inside were very friendly. They even gave us a little explanation about the history of the area as well as the Dauphinee Inn itself. The food was a very welcome thing as we had done a fair amount of walking that day. We had fish and crab cakes (which I hadn’t had before), beans, biscuits, and a great blueberry dessert. It was all very tasty. We then took a few pictures of the area around the Dauphinee Inn before we unfortunately had to split from the group and head home.
Unfortunately we couldn’t fit all of our pictures into this blog post, so make sure you click on one of them to see the whole Photo Tour set in Flickr. I think it’s safe to say we both had a blast. Even if you don’t have a top of the line camera (we borrowed one from my sister), or you aren’t an amazing photographer (we were worried about that at first since we aren’t pros) you should still seek out any photo tours in your area. If nothing else, you get to see some places you wouldn’t have otherwise seen, as well as meet some new people. The best part is that it’s a fairly inexpensive way to have fun. Not only that but the scenic pictures you take can be enjoyed for a long time to come (more on that in a later post). I would suggest you dig around on Twitter or Facebook to see if there are any photo tours being planned in your area. If not then why not organize one yourself?
Share and Enjoy: 
