Cape Breton is an island off the top of Nova Scotia mainland - doesn't look it tho :) Is connected by a causeway which bizarrely has a lock to get boats through... weird with sea either side! Am sure someone can explain that to me... When they opened the causeway they were supposed to have 100 pipers pipe across it in celebration (very celtic up that way :) ) but local legend has it that one piper flatly refused to cross is protest of the causeway opening up his beloved island to anyone who had a wheels :)
The weather forecast wasn't great for the long weekend, and we had our fingers crossed that they were wrong! It was overcast and a bit spittery when we drove up on Friday night. We stopped for the night just out of Baddeck, with the intention of going sailing on the Bras d'Ors Lakes in the morning.
The morning turned out to be..well.. not so conducive to sailing! We peered out our window into the misty rain and decided to go to the museum instead - in the hope that the weather would clear a little and we'd be able to see some of the undoubtedly gorgeous scenery. We drove into Baddeck, and after visiting the visitors center, made our way to the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. I must admit the only thing I knew about Mr Bell was his grand 'apparatus for transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically'. The museum was great and I was surprised to find a man with a great love of triangles and flying who loved his family (wife in particular) very much who happened to invent the telephone! The kids had a great time on the AGB treasure hunt and earned themselves a boomerang (or frisbee depending on which way you throw it) to go and throw around in the wind :) By the time we had made it back to the car, it was lunchtime and the sky had cleared quite a bit! We drove down into the town and had our lunch in the car (freeeezing wind blowing). We braved a walk down the pier and along the boardwalk then piled back into the car out of the cold and on our way!We drove up the east coast and headed firstly for Englishtown where you catch a ferry across the Harcourt and back onto the main road. The kids were super excited about the 5 min ferry ride - Amelia's inaugural boat ride according to Alex! The drive up to Ingonish was gorgeous - and gave us a hint of what was to come.
We stopped in Ingonish and visited the Cape Breton Highland National Park headquarters for information and a park pass. The kids got a park explorer book - more stamps to collect! I of course had to get back out of the car and run down to stamp the damn books with their first stamp once we realized this was the first point! We did a little walk up the hill across the road form the info center. I left Matt trying to cajole Amelia up the steps and caught up with the boys. They asked where he was and I explained. We were just taking bets on whether or not he would be carrying Amelia when they hove into view and she was indeed sitting high on his shoulders as pleased as punch :)
We drove on up into the park and installed ourselves in our log cabin - home for the next two nights!Was lovely and toasty. The boys were going to take a bed each upstairs and Amelia was going to sleep on the couch (a bit nervous about her and narrow stairs in the dark!) .After her bath she headed determinedly up the stairs and climbed into a bed with her books and blanket and sat there looking grouchy saying 'Melia's bed...' We left her to it ;) The boys shared the other bed! We did keep an eye out for moose wandering round the chalets, but they must have been shy...
The weather had improved somewhat in the morning and we set off for Meat Cove at the top of the island. Stopped off at some spectacular wild spots along the way, either just to enjoy the view, or to pick up a stamp for the kids. We saw two bald eagles! Fantastic! Stopped in Neil's Harbour for a look at the lighthouse and cutsey colours fishing boats in the sheltered little harbour.
We followed the coastal road up to Smelt Brook, and on to Cabot's Landing (where the man himself is said to have stepped ashore)More fabulous wild scenery later we stopped at the roads end - Meat Cove. It looked for a little while like we wouldn't get any good views because there was a campground on the edge of the cliff (no queens chain here folks!) but we found the access to the beach and had lunch on the rocks watching seals bobbing in the Bay. Spent a bit of time exploring the bay and building our own rock sculpture before heading back to the car. We spotted a boardwalk (kids love a good boardwalk) so did a bit of a walk up through the trees, heading back when we realised it was headed for the road out!
The autumn colours were just starting to turn and the hills were just gorgeous - a bit hard to photograph though - just doesn't do it justice! We would drive past patches of vivid red/orange leaves, then a patch of yellow. It will be stunning in a few weeks when the rest of the trees have turned.
We headed back to Ingonish, foregoing any more walks because the weather had packed in. We did take a detour to Dingwall and visited the St Pauls Island Lighthouse. The lighthouse used to be on St Pauls Island (I know - weird right?) and was taken to Halifax in the 80's. The good people of the St Pauls Island Historical Society launched a campaign to have it returned to Dingwall, which was done in 2010. These folks are VERY proud of their lighthouse, and we were given an extremely detailed tour of the little museum and the lighthouse itself by a lovely enthusiastic local. Kids enjoyed it :) They estimate 350-400 ships were wrecked on the island with thousands of lives lost (graveyard of the gulf they call it...)
Paused at one last beach for a bit of a play before heading to a local pub for a turkey dinner for tea (Happy Thanksgiving everyone!). We thought we might be treated to some Irish music (the Celtic Colours Music Festival was on) but the dude played soft rock - even cracking into a bit of Crowded House as we left!
The next day was a reasonably big driving day and we'd planned to do a couple of walks, so we got away early, retracing our steps back up the coast and heading across to the other side of the island. We filled up with petrol and discovered (horrors!) a potential petrol tank leak. While Matt sorted that (good bloke to have around) we consulted our activity books and wrote poetry..
Lake by Alex
Lake
Clear, huge
fishing, diving, inspiring
makes me think about oceans
ocean.
Lake by Owen
Lake
great and big
fishing, boating, diving
great for fishing
ocean
Chair by Amelia
Chair
red, comfortable
sitting relaxing, sitting relaxing
warm and cozy
seat
(might have been a tad of coaching there ;))
They were very proud of them and read them to a couple of park wardens ( and anyone else who looked vaguely interested) :) Stopped for a bush walk though big sugar gums to a reconstructed crofters cottage. Was a bit of a shame we weren't later in the season. The ground was covered in little maple trees which would have been just magical when they all changed colour!
We stopped at the top (and multiple stops on the way up) to take in the ancient gneiss landscape and the wild coast. Didn't see any whales! We did a little high altitude bog walk, keeping an eye out for moose (plenty of sign of them, just none of the folks themselves) and carnivorous plants. Kids loved the boardwalk and the scenery was just fantastic. The pitcher plants were pretty awesome too!
Drove on the the iconic skyline trail, where we had lunch and decided to walk in a little way - no intention of doing the whole thing so didn't take food, water or the damn buggy we dragged the whole way and didn't use.... You have to walk up a gravel road for a bit, which probably would have been enough, but the track looked just gorgeous so we headed down the track a bit.. Not too far down we came upon a group of people with their cameras poised peering into the undergrowth. We snuck up and there was a moose! well.. the back end of a moose pushing
its way into the trees. Its pushed out of sight and most people moved
on. It had freaked Amelia out, so we were just giving her a bit of a
cuddle when the moose backed out of wherever it had gone and we got a
great look at it before it crashed off in the other direction. A
female, so no antlers, but still a very formidable looking beast!
Exciting! |
| Mooses butt |
Long story short we ended up doing the whole walk. The kids were amazing. Amelia and latterly Owen did require a bit of piggybacking, but the whole walk was 7.5km so that's to be expected! The views out on the end were just amazing. Well worth it... Needless to say when we got back to the car we ate pretty much everything in sight!
Drove on down the mountain and down into Cheticamp on the other side of the national park. Stopped at the visitors center for the kids to get their final stamp and their special gift for completing the challenge. All well stoked with their purple dog tags we headed down the coast to Troy for the night.
Got ourselves installed, ordered pizza and enjoyed the fabulous sunset. I went for a walk down the hill and watched a pod of dolphins playing in the harbour. Matt took the boys down for a look while I waited for the pizza - just beautiful!
Next day we drove into Port Hawkesbury and a very nervous me sat my drivers license. Passed with flying colours (17 points off compared with the 42 Matt accrued ;) ) and headed for home. a most fabulous way to end a most fabulous holiday!
Starting to think raccoons are a imaginary though....
