We got a good start to the day - we were out of the campground by nine am. We took the Benji’s Lake trail which was said to be a one hour trail with wildlife ending at a lake. We were the only ones on the trail for a while. It was mostly wooded and had some boardwalks to walk on. We noticed moose tracks in the mud and were on the lookout for them. Of course, we didn’t see any but the lake was really pretty. It was very windy and the water was rippling in the wind along with the tall grasses alongside of it. We scanned for moose along the shore of the lake, but again saw none. On the way back we saw an uprooted tree with its roots and mud still intact. Right underneath, nearby, and on top, were a group of eleven birds we think were grouse. They were very cute and didn’t seem very afraid of people.

We continued the drive up along the Cabot Trail to get to the other side of the island. We stopped at a place called Green Cove. The signs warned that large waves often come up onto the rocks and to “watch for them”. The signs also showed funny illustrations of people getting hit by waves and falling into the water. The cove was mostly huge slabs of pink granite which was really cool. It was a short walk onto the top of the rocks and it was super windy. It had been windy all day so far, but this was extreme wind.

The rest of the ride down the Cabot Trail was long and kind of boring. We realized that people may not do the eastern side of the trail that much because it is a long drive. We stopped at the “full service community” of Baddeck to buy much needed ice cream. Baddeck was the summer home of Alexander Graham Bell, and is also home to a small harbor and lighthouse. We made the decision not to go to Louisburg (where there is a reconstructed fort) because of time constraints. As I said before, it takes forever to drive anywhere in Nova Scotia.

I made a wrong turn and ended up in the small community of Englishtown. The ferry stop in town where we realized we were lost had a sign saying it was out of service. We didn’t think anything of it. Later on the ride towards Antigonish on the Sunrise Trail, we were listening to the Canadian version of NPR. On the local maritime news, there just happened to be a story about the Englishtown ferry. Supposedly the day earlier, the cable that guided the ferry across the water snapped and the ferry, with about twenty people on board, floated down river and landed on a sand bar. What a coincidence!

Next we want to Antigonish to find a campground and have dinner. The campground we had planned to stay at looked like a trailer park, not really a campground, so we drove on to find another one. We ate dinner at the Lobster Treat on Highway 104 and it was delicious. I had the seafood chowder and Theresa had the mussels appetizer. For our entrees I had a seafood stew with shrimp, mussels, salmon, haddock, and scallops in an anise and tomato flavored broth. Theresa had broiled scallops in butter with mushrooms and feta cheese. Both entrees were delicious. We also had a half liter of a local wine from Jost Vineyards that we were planning on visiting.

We decided to stay at Cranberry Campground which is on the water in Lower Barney River. We got there after dark and got to choose our own campsite. The whole campground is right on the water, and the tent sites were very windy. We had a fun albeit difficult time setting up the tent in the wind. It felt like it was going to blow away. While we were typing this entry inside the tent, the wind was blowing the tent so much that the sides were coming in on us. It was kind of cool and a little freaky.

We woke up and treated ourselves to a nice breakfast which included bacon. It smelled delicious. We started the day at the Skyline hiking trail around 10:30 in the morning. The trail was a total of 5.7 miles long and most of it was level and somewhat paved. At the entrance of the trail was a ranger discussing moose and moose habits. She had a moose antler that was very large and heavy. She also had a jaw bone, skull, hoof imprint, and bag of droppings. It was a very interesting conversation, and she told us how moose roam the trails all the time.

We walked through areas of meadow as well as forest, including some areas that had been wiped out by some type of tree disease. It was called the Skyline trail because it runs along the ridge of French Mountain. At the end of the trail, we came to a boardwalk area that took you out further onto the tip of the ridge. There were many wooden steps to get to the bottom and the views were superb. We could see out into the waters of Pleasant Bay. There were sloping wooded hillsides all around and it was extremely windy. We had a quick snack of trail mix at the top.

The trail looped back towards the beginning, although we suspect that many people do not take this part of the loop. It was uneven, rocky, full of tree roots, and mostly meadow and forest. Theresa practiced counting in Hebrew to scare away any bears that might be on the trail. We were on constant lookout for moose. Once we merged back onto the original trail, we came upon a group of people looking out off of the trail. There was a moose about 15 feet away from the trail, partially hidden by the trees. All we could see was his head while he was eating the leaves off of a tree. It was a huge animal.

Our next stop was at a Bog which is a very typical ecosystem of the area. It was a very short loop trail and we saw some insect eating plants. The signs said that moose like the area at dusk so we decided to check it out again on our way back.

We then headed further on up the Cabot Trail towards Cape North and Meat Cove. We also stopped at the Lone Sheiling Trail which was described as having some 350 year old sugar maple trees and a replica of a traditional Scottish home. The drive took a really long time, and we realized that we would have to drive all the way back to our campground. We would recommend to anyone coming to Cape Breton for a few days to camp on both sides of the island in order to avoid all of the driving.

It took us about one hour to drive from our campground at Cheticamp to Cape North at the top of the park, stopping at a few more lookouts along the way. We stopped at St Lawrence Harbor to possibly do some whale watching. When we arrived, we were told that the sea was very rough and choppy, so we decided not to do it for fear of being seasick and miserable the rest of the day.

We continued our drive further north off the Cabot Trail towards Meat Cove (we have no idea where the name comes from). Most of the road was a gravel/dirt road right along the water. This very small community boasts that it is the most Northern community on Nova Scotia. The travel book said we would see whales and eagles but we didn’t see anything. We had a picnic lunch at the Meat Cove campground, which charged us two dollars for the privilege. The table had views overlooking the cove. It was extremely windy and our food and plates were blowing all over the place, but it was a beautiful place to have lunch.

The drive back towards the campground seemed to take forever. We stopped at the Bog area again looking for moose but didn’t see any.

On the road back to camp, a car was stopped in the road and the passenger was pointing out of the car. A big moose was running up the embankment on the side of the road. We got a quick glimpse of the moose. It was our second moose of the day. It turned out to be a good, although long, day.

We had a late start to the day, and then headed out towards Cape Breton Island. We stopped at a few scenic areas alongside the highway. Most of the drive towards and in Cape Breton was beautiful. The highway often ran along the rocky coast and you could see waves crashing on one side of the highway and vibrant green hillsides (reminiscent of Scotland) on the other. It was very cold and windy along the way, also evocative of Scotland.

We then went to Glenora Distillery in Glenville. It is a single malt whiskey distillery, at one point being the only one of it’s kind in North America. The tour cost seven dollars, and it wasn’t very long or worth it. We did receive a small taste at the end, and the whiskey was pretty good. The bottles cost as much as a bottle of good scotch though, so we didn’t buy any. The grounds of the distillery itself were very nice. It is located on an old apple orchard and a small stream. Both of these factors supposedly play into the flavor of the whiskey.

We then drove on a small dirt road to Margaree Harbor. The harbor was on one side of the bay and a small rocky/sandy beach was on the other. We walked along the sandy beach, looking at the rocks and skipping them in the water. The waves were really strong and the views were very pretty. We had a picnic lunch at a table overlooking the harbor. It was the perfect setting.

From there, we continued on our journey towards our campground at Cheticamp in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We stopped at numerous lookouts along the way to ooooooh and aaaaah over the view. We also stopped at a total of 3 grocery stores looking for chicken cutlets.

While waiting to check into the campground, we realized that we had not reserved a site with a firepit. We had assumed they all had one but were proven wrong. Luckily, we were able to arrange for a different site with a fire pit and grill. The site itself was rather large and had a big concrete picnic table. The only problem was that the fire pit was right near the table, so we could not use our canopy over it. We were not too worried because the forecast seemed to be in our favor. By this time it was late afternoon, so we set up our tent and then went for a drive along part of the Cabot Trail.

The Cabot Trail is a long loop road that runs across the top part of Cape Breton Island. We stopped at a few rocky beaches with pounding surf and great views. We continued up the trail, stopping at more overlooks to check out the view. The plan was to take a short one mile hike to check out the sunset over a beach. At the base of the trail, where they tell you about the hike, they had a posting of a recent bear sighting, which really freaked Theresa out. We started up the hike anyway, Theresa being nervous the whole way. We went for a short while, but then decided to turn back when we realized that we didn’t have a flashlight in case it got dark. We sat on a piece of driftwood at the rocky beach and watched a little more of the sunset. We then drove back to the campground to prepare dinner and sit by the fire.

We woke up early in order to prepare for our kayaking trip in Mahone Bay with East Coast Outfitters. We were part of a group of 8 kayakers for a 4 hour tour, a 4 hour tour. We didn’t have any kayak experience, but the guided tour was open to all experience levels. The sky was overcast and the weather was slightly cool when we started out at 9 am after a brief introduction on kayaking basics. We were in a two person kayak. I did the steering in the back which took time getting used to. You need to use pedals to steer the rudder and row at the same time. The bay in town was very pretty, with a nice tall church and views of the small downtown. We worked fairly well together on the kayak, staying in sync with our paddling. The problem was that I kept on splashing Theresa while I was paddling. Less than halfway to our destination, Andrew’s Island, it began to lightly rain. The rain, in combination with the cool weather, made us slightly uncomfortable. The top halves or our bodies were soaked but the bottom halves were better since it was covered by the kayak skirt. Once we reached the island, we had a light snack underneath some absent campers’ tarp. On the shore, I found a piece of bone from what appeared to be a deer jaw, complete with teeth. At this point we were all cold and wet and were ready to make the journey back to home base in the rain again. When we got back to the store, we were literally soaked and couldn’t wait to change back into dry clothes.

Since we didn’t get to see the Citadel the day before, we went back that day, even though it was still raining. The fort was very huge, with great views of the city. Since it was raining, there were few visitors. The museum had exhibits about Canadian history and the uses of the fort throughout the years. The central area of the fort, on good days, was supposed to have bag pipers, people in period dress, and other happenings. We barely heard one bagpiper and saw only a few people dressed in historic military uniforms.

Our next stop was to be our campground, HyClass Campground in Havre Bucher, at the base of Cape Breton Island. We hit lots of traffic on one of the main highways due to construction. The highway actually had a traffic light in the middle of it! We also stopped for the first time at a Tim Horton’s drive through for coffee and hot chocolate. It had stopped raining long enough for us to set up our camp and eat. Then of course, it started raining again. The campground was nice, and had clean bathrooms decorated with red and white reminiscent of a 50’s diner atmosphere. It sounds weird, but looked cool.

At the base of Blomidon Park, we were able to walk out on the floor of the Bay of Fundy. When the tide goes out you can walk on the rocks and mud flats of the bay floor. We walked out rather far towards the edge of the water, and the tide visibly receded before our eyes. It was really muddy. Water runoff from the previous night’s storm was creating small little streams of water running toward the bay. While searching these little streams, we discovered a few small hermit crabs moving very quickly trying to get their next meal of what appeared to be little transparent shrimp. At least, that is what they looked like to us. We thought there would be tons of seagulls looking for their next meal, but there were less than we thought. As we looked back toward the shore, we gazed upon huge reddish sandstone cliffs. At the base of the cliffs we found a variety of stones of all different sizes, colors, and shapes. This was the first of many times in Nova Scotia where the rocks on the shoreline were interestingly shaped and colored. It was a very cool and interesting experience.

After Blomidon we drove towards Halifax. Halifax is a fairly large city that has nice waterfront and downtown areas. We parked by the water and visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. The museum had lots of exhibits about shipwrecks, model ships, Titanic artifacts, and information on the big explosion in Halifax in the early 1900’s. The explosion occurred when two ships, one carrying explosives, collided in the harbor. Many neighborhoods were totally destroyed, and thousands of people were killed. It is said that the explosion was so dramatic that huge pieces of metal were flung as far as 5 km away.

We ate an early dinner at a waterfront restaurant named Salty’s. We had a great seat outside right on the water. Of course I had the seafood chowder. We also had sweet potato fries with curry mayo, sautéed scallops, and I tried the fried clams. Everything was good, but the clams turned out to be mostly batter, and were quite disappointing.

We then walked up a few steep streets towards the Citadel, a landmark historic fort in the city. Needless to say with our luck, when we got up there, it had closed 20 minutes earlier at six. We decided to head towards our campsite and try to come back the next day.

We started the drive towards Peggy’s Cove and our campground, and arrived at Peggy’s Cove right when the sun was setting. The road to the lighthouse was fairly empty, and it was late, so we assumed there would be no one there. We turned out to be completely wrong. There were lots of people there waiting to take the perfect picture of the lighthouse at sunset. It was an amazing experience: watching the sun set, looking at the lighthouse, and listening to an enterprising young woman playing the fiddle. The huge rocks by the lighthouse and throughout the small town and surrounding areas were impressive. The windy road through the town was scenic, with nice small houses and a pretty church. Visiting the lighthouse was one of the highlights of the trip and we would definitely recommend going there for the sunset.

By this time it was getting dark, and we still needed to drive to the campground. We made a few wrong turns and arrived at Graves Island Provincial Park around ten o’clock. They only had overflow spots available, which was fine by us because we went to sleep as soon as we set up the tent. Graves Island looked like a nice place, but we got there so late and had to leave so early the next morning that we didn’t get a chance to explore. One thing we noticed was that the Provincial Parks we stayed at in Nova Scotia were reasonably priced, clean, and well maintained.