Cape Breton Island

July 16   We arrived at North Sydney, CBI at 6:30 in the morning, unloading from the ferry, the Joseph and Claire Smallwood. The ferry was very comfortable and fast, although we spend half of our time sailing along the Newfoundland coast.

Our first stop (after breakfast at Tim Hortons) was at Glace Bay (because it’s there) for fuel, then on the Louisbourg. This was the main French centre to protect the French access to the fisheries and the Gulf of St Lawrence. It was very authentic, with people in costumes both doing and describing how things were in the early 1700’s. We even saw a demonstration on how to load and fire a musket (didn’t get it on video – darn).

After Louisbourg, we headed down to the south end of CBI, the back to Baddeck, in effect circumnavigating Lake Bras D’Or. At Baddeck, we stopped to see the Alexander Graham Bell Museum. He was a powerful character, besides inventing the telephone, he worked on aviation and hydrofoil ships, but his greatest love was working on methods to help the deaf to speak.

I especially liked the exhibit on flying and the Silver Dart, even though I was a year late ;^)

At Baddeck, we had a lobster dinner at the Baddeck Lobster Suppers (next to the Legion ;^) which included all you could each seafood chowder and mussels.

July 17 We are doing the Cabot Trail. Starting from Baddeck, we head out counter-clock wise. We see a lot of Gailic even on the official signs like town names, etc. At the start of the Cabot trail, there is a school of “Gailic, and Celtic Studies”. In other places, there was a lot of French.

The trip around the Cabot Trail is beautiful, as advertised. We took our time, even took the diversion to Meat Cove (recommended by a rider on the ferry). It included about 8 km of gravel road, that got increasingly steep, twisted and narrow, until we thought we would start hearing banjo music ;^).

After surviving Meat Cove, we encounter actual mountains – slow, twisty and steep, just how we like them. I think we went right over the top of Mt MacKenzie. Stopped at one look off and talked with some people from North Carolina. They loved the scenery and the relative coolness.

After travelling north to south twice and seeing everything, we should be honorary Capers, at least for a couple of days.

Down the west coast of CBI, across the Canso Causeway and we are on the Nova Scotia mainland. We planned to stay at Antigonish, but a NASCAR race meet meant we moved on to New Glasgow for the night.