Apologies for some very truncated entries below due to me hitting Blogger's "Discard" icon rather than its adjacent "Save" icon when the car went over a bump! Bloody stupid design coupled with no recycle bin (that's "Blogger", not me).
Thursday 17th; Vince, Gary and I are collected from St Peter's by Charles and Despina and meet up with the others at the house around 9 p.m..
Friday 18th; A lazy start to the holiday. After a late cooked breakfast we enjoy a local Meadow walk and check out the local beaches in Port Hood that evening.
Saturday 19th - We spent the day at Port Hood's Lawrence's Beach followed by dinner at Big Stop (a sort of upmarket service station).
Sunday 20th We took a 2.5 hour drive up the coast on the Cabot Trail to the Cape Breton Highland National Park. Our destination is the Skyline trail head but on arrival we found the car park full and had to continue on and find another trail. I walked (hobbled) the first part and then returned to the car (in addition to my broken foot I was out of sorts with a tummy bug that ran through the rest of the family over subsequent days). The walkers had a picnic lunch on the trail and afterwards we visited the Whale Interpretive Centre in Pleasant Bay and then returned to the Skyline trail that everyone except me, Sharon and Mabel tackled.
That evening we enjoyed another campfire thanks to Charles.
Monday 21st was Rachel's Birthday but the weather wasn't great and so after a birthday breakfast we lounged around the house for most of the day and then went out for a meal at the Bistro in Port Hood to celebrate.
On Tuesday 22nd we all hired e-bikes from Mikes Bikes and explored one of the many off-road trails that had replaced the old railway network that had been abandoned on cost grounds. There is no rail network left anywhere on Cape Breton today.
Wednesday 23rd. We drove to the trailhead at Egypt Falls and then (me included on my crutches) hiked the 2.5K to the falls along what turned out to be an increasingly steep trail down a wooded gully. By the time we realised it was no place for a man on crutches we all felt committed to getting me to the falls. Concerns about how I'm going to get back up the gully are pushed to the back of our minds and with Charles, Stephen and Vince acting as pullers, pushers and backstops as required, we pressed on sometimes hanging on to ropes strung along the more tricky patches of the trail.
The falls were beautiful and everyone except me and Sharon were soon bathing in the large pools at their base. The kids loved it! After a while Charles climbed up to the pools at the upper level and soon all but the three youngest kids joined them.
After a picnic lunch it was time to face the inevitable and probably the ultimate challenge I would face whilst on crutches - the climb back up the gully. It turned out not to be as challenging as we had all imagined it would be. With the help of the three boys pulling/pushing /holding/ catching me as the situation required we made our way back up to the car park. The journey down probably took an hour and the journey back an hour and a half. We were rewarded with a round of clapping from the ladies and kids as we staggered across the ridge and into the carpark
On Thursday 24th the rest of the party minus me, Sharon and the three youngest went "Tubing" on the Margaree River.
Sharon and I drove into Port Hawkesbury with the kids to shop and on our return Sharon prepared a spag bol for the evening meal. It was very gratefully received!
Friday was (for the most part) a warm and sunny day and so we went to Inverness beach for the day. [Nearly every village and small town (there are no large ones except for the capital, Sydney on the east coast) in Cape Breton is named after a Scottish town; the exceptions are named after French places.]
Tom and Nina flew in from Maryland that evening but stayed overnight in Halifax due to their very late arrival (Tom is my American friend whom I met in 1985 when I picked him up hitchhiking on my return from my abortive first post university job at a sailing school in Brighton).
On Saturday we drove to Baddeck and visited the very impressive Alexander Graham Bell Museum. I have written about my first visit there earlier in the summer in a previous post. The family were just as impressed as I was then.
Then we met up with Tom and Nina for lunch at the Freight Shed on the pretty water front.
By fortunate coincidence, SV Chelsea with Iain and Susan on board was moored up on the quay and we therefore invaded Chelsea and her crew on mass after lunch. It was great to catch up with them again and Sharon and the family were delighted to meet some of my super friendly Canadian sailing buddies. Iain was waiting for a suitable weather window to get to Newfoundland.
Just after Vince settled the lunch bill, the restaurant suffered a power cut, which it transpired took out about one third of Cape Breton. As a consequence Tom and Nina's visit to the Museum couldn't go ahead. A great shame because he would have loved it.
Instead we headed for the nearby Iona museum village - the site of the first settlement in Cape Breton founded by Scottish emigrants in the 18th Century. We knew the exhibits would be closed by the time we got there but I assumed we would be able to walk around the village like I was able to walk around the similar museum village at Sherbrook last summer. However, we found it cordoned off and so had to make do with admiring the view while the kids played in the sunshine.
Back at the house that evening Charles lit another campfire and we had hot dogs for supper!
Sunday was another lovely summer day and we drove to an old gypsum mine now flooded to create a pleasant fresh water swim spot. The trail from the carpark along a disused railway track that originally connected the mine with Inverness Harbour a few miles away, was about 3k and fairly flat so I was able to traverse it (slowly) without difficulty. Charles had also brought the three Kayaks (his own inflatable and two plastic ones that were provided as part of the house rental).
Charles and Co. carried these along the trail and soon great fun was being had in them. There was no risk of a capsize from wave action on what was now a small and very sheltered lake and so after a while I decided to join in the fun and with Charles' help clambered into one of the Kayaks and paddled around.
After a while the more daring members of the group headed across the lake to the cliffs on the opposite side where a couple of ledges at about 10 and 15 feet up had clearly been in use as jump-off spots. Eventually even Ines and Despina were launching themselves off the cliff into the water below. I confess to being rather anxious whilst the girls were jumping because it was necessary for the jumpers to launch themselves outwards a fair distance from the rock face in order to avoid a submerged ledge at the foot of the cliff.
The gung-ho boys had no trouble clearing it but I was worried that the more hesitant girls might not propel themselves far enough out. In the event everyone got through their jumps without mishap and I was able to relax.
Monday was a fairly lazy day. Tom and Nina managed to get out reasonably early to undertake a guided Celtic Music walk along the nearby coastal trail. They turned out to be the only participants and so received 100% of their guide's attention who also serenaded them along the way.
A little later the rest of the party minus me, Sharon and George set out to undertake a 6k walk to the Celtic Music Centre. Later still, Sharon and I drove to the Centre to meet the others for lunch and live music.
The music, was "old Scottish" so named because the Scottish Catholics who emigrated to Cape Breton during the reformation rather than face persecution at home, took their music with them. Over subsequent years Scotland's music style evolved into the Square Dancing music still played widely today. The Scots descendants in Cape Breton however continued to play the tunes of 'Old Scotland' and this style of music thrived until the new wave of popular music flooded through North America and the UK in the 1960s. As a consequence Old Scottish music in Cape Breton almost disappeared from Cape Breton culture. Fortunately, however, a few die-hard enthusiasts engineered a renaissance and old Scottish music is now as popular as ever in Cape Breton. Indeed, musicians here are now playing an important role in reintroducing the music to Scotland. Our lunch venue - 'The Judique Celtic Music Interpretive Centre' was packed out with locals and tourists alike and it was only a Monday!
That evening we watched the sunset on Port Hood's Sunset Beach.
Our last full day, Tuesday was one of the highlights of the holiday - a whale watching boat trip from Pleasant Bay Harbour on the extreme north west coast of Cape Breton. It was a 2.5 hour drive but worth every mile (not that I had to drive). It turns out that the coast in those parts is a breeding ground for north Atlantic long finned Pilot Whales and as a consequence we saw scores of them including some babies.
It was a great way to sign off the holiday especially for the first timers and the kids. It was quite a windy day and the sea was fairly choppy as a result which ensured a lively boat movement with plenty of spray.
The kids thought it all great fun with the "Oohs" and "Aahs" of whale sightings interspersed with shrieks of laughter as they were doused with another dose of spray as the boat rolled and plunged into the waves!
The journey 'home' was interrupted by a stop for fried chicken and ice cream and then it was back to the house to clear up and pack for the following day's journeys.
George and I will get a lift to Halifax with Tom and Nina whose first stage flight leaves there an hour after our 1230 flight to St Pierre. The rest of the gang don't fly out until the evening but they have to be out of the house by 10 a.m.. At least that means they will be able to look around Halifax town before they fly home.
