Halifax : Where to Stay
Peggy's Cove
By Dawn Matheson
May 1, 2008

SPLURGE
Oceanstone Inn and Cottages
8650 Peggy’s Cove Rd. • 866-823-2160
• oceanstone.ns.ca • cottages from $100

You know you’ve slept a transformative sleep when you slide out of your seaside cottage sipping an organic coffee and encounter a group of equally rejuvenated businessmen beachcombing and reading the house copy of Cosmic Consciousness.

“This place transforms people,” swears co-founder and former CBC broadcaster Ron MacInnis. He and his wife, Carole, a former professor and psychologist, epitomize Nova Scotia’s motto of doers and dreamers. The inspirational literature (some authored by the owners) is purposefully placed throughout the nine cottages, inn and conference centre at Oceanstone, a shell’s toss from Peggy’s Cove.

Once a yoga retreat, Oceanstone has maintained the principles of mindful living both inside and out. Sustainability is everywhere on the 20 acres of shoreline property: extensive organic gardens from which son Paul crafts the menu for Rhubarb Grill and Café, the onsite restaurant; the driftwood curtain rods, sea sponge sculptures, barn-wood headboards and other recycled room décor; and the staff eco-concierge whose sole purpose is to reveal the regional beauty without destroying it.

Massage and Reiki are up on the hill, where dawn yoga classes held in the Great Room are warmed by the fireplace and complemented with a panoramic ocean view. When not rejuvenating guests, the space is a conference facility; corporate clientele provides the inn’s off-season sustenance.

 

SAVE
King Neptune Campground
8536 Peggy’s Cove Rd. • 902-823-2582 • from $20

Just up the beach is the compact, seaside King Neptune Campground, whose 20 tent (site number 55 is a gem) and 45 RV sites (go for spots 27 or 34) are run by the feisty, no-frills Kay Richardson and her daughters Joyce and Elva. “I’ve always got extra flour on supply for camper’s fish fry,” says the 85-year-old fisherman’s widow. There’s also tea and homemade gingerbread for the weekly campfire socials held every June to October since the ’60s.

“We’re basic here,” Richardson brags, referring to her what-you-see-is-what-you-get policy: no privacy, pay-showers, thin dirt-floor sites on granite beds and lots, and lots of ocean.