A Rialta Kind of Adventure: Cape Breton Highlands N.P. and the Cabot Trail

With the music festival due to start in 3 days we had plenty of time to do the 298 km Cabot Trail, which is actually a road that winds around, up and down the low and highlands of the park. It is a marvel of engineering built in the 1920's. It is kept open year round which has got to be a challenge considering that the highlands of the park get 500+ cm of snow in winter. We decided to do it clockwise in order to be in position at the end for our first music concert in Sydney.

We started the drive heading north up the west side of the island. I got my geology fix early by getting to see the major rock formations lined up neatly on the edge of the beach. For clarity they aligned themselves vertically so that I could march along and identify each layer without having to lean over or anything difficult. Starting at the south end of one small beach I saw dark slate rocks peeling off the cliff, aged about 4-500 million years. Right next to them were thick layers of large crystal, lovely pink and orange granite with stripey intrusions of white and black, these guys are younger at about 380 million years. At this point a small lake had formed where lots of soft sandstone had eroded quickly away and on the other side of that was the currently eroding soft sandstone bluffs, aged about 350 million years. The beach covered with a colorful array of smooth rocks that rolled and tumbled with the surf.

As we continued past this beach the road began to climb and twist through the forest and over headlands. The fall colors were really getting going at this point, Thayer struggled to watch the road and admire the fantastic scenery at every corner. Fortunately there were lots of scenic pullouts where we stopped to gape and take photos. We could look all the way up the coast, seeing the twists and turns of the road ahead. The skies had pretty much cleared, just the occasional puffy cloud cruising by hoping to get into the photo. Once we got up onto the plateau we stopped for the "must do" hike, the Skyline Trail. It meandered through the stunted trees and colorful meadows to an amazing boardwalk and views out over St. Lawrence Bay to the west. The boardwalk had about 270 steps connecting sections of the walkway. It was built to keep people off of the delicate plants that struggle to survive and take years to recover when trampled by thousands of feet during the summer months. The return part of the hike led us through more sheltered woods and meadows. We were delighted to see two moose, the bull, sleeping in the woods and the cow feeding near the trail. She posed nicely for her photos, showing off her sleek coat and fat haunches. She was a fine looking specimen.

West side Cabot Trail

Skyline Trail boardwalk

Madame Moose

Fall colors on the highland

At the beginning of the hike we were walking and talking with a very interesting German named Klaus. He was riding a bike around the Cabot Trail and then will write articles for several magazines. Nice gig! Get a magazine to pay your expenses, get some companies to give you a groovy collapsable bike to ride and a bunch of brightly colored hi-tech clothing and off you go! We continued down the road to Pleasant Bay, joined Klaus for a beer at his lodgings and spent the night right above the beach near the marina. It was a wonderful starry night with crashing waves lulling us to sleep.

Pleasant Bay beach

Yes, many of these

The next day was a beaut! Bright sun, a brisk breeze and amazing fall colors blooming all around. We did a short walk through the only old growth Sugar Maple forest in Nova Scotia. Though the trees are not huge like we think of when we think "old growth" they were beautiful and had a lot of character. We drove on, up huge hills, down steep grades, around bends and ridges, stopping at many of the overlooks for awesome views. At one pullout we noticed a rig very much like our, actually a precursor to ours, that we had seen on PEI. We pulled up next to them and we started to chat. Jean Ramon and Lizette are from Quebec and are on a 3 month RV jaunt before heading to Japan and Bali.

Down, down, down we went into the North Aspy River area, a fascinating geologic area. It runs along fault line that is straight as an arrow with the west side several hundred feet higher than the east side, a result of different types of rock eroding at different rates. I went for a lovely hike through the maple woods seeing not a single other person in 3 hours.

Aspy River sugar maples

reflecting pool in the woods

Leaving the park, we headed to the very remote little town(pop=10?) at the northern most point of Cape Breton called Meat Cove. The last 8 km of road was a gravel road that climbed and dived along the cliffs overlooking the bay. The wind was howling and I thought we had made a big mistake. I was not convinced that we would be able to get out of the tiny little flat space occupied by the town. We found the single spot in town where we could camp for the night in the parking lot of the closed Chowder Shack. It did have an incredible view. We did the two attractions in town, the windswept beach, hemmed in on each end by towering cliffs, and the rickety boardwalk that went from the beach up the hill to the only open business in town, a restaurant. Still worried, I took my sleeping aide and survived the night.

Meat Cove beach

Dizzy heights on way to Meat Cove

Bluff over Meat Cove

The next morning we started the climb out of the town. As we passed the restaurant we saw two fellows hitchhiking so we decided to pick them up, they looked a little wild but ok. Thomas, from Holland, and Zack, from Vancouver and Seattle, distracted me from the road and before I knew it we were back on the Cabot Trail. We spent the rest of the day with our new friends, stopping at the Keltic Lodge and taking a splendid hike out to Middle Head. The Keltic Lodge had a comfortable and lovely sitting room but we didn't stay to enjoy it, as Thomas and Zack needed to get down the road. We were all headed to St. Ann's for some musical entertainment that evening. Once we arrived they ran into some people they had met at Meat Cove and introduced us. Leo and Mady are from La Reunion, a French territory(?) in the Indian Ocean. They are driving a classic old VW camper van, complete with a wild paint job, to the west coast of the US. We all ended up going to the music performance together and then camped out at a great spot nearby. Thomas and Zack had been couch surfing, WOOFing (work on organic farm) and were not very well equipped for the tenting they had been doing for 2 nights. It was pretty dang cold so we loaned them our down sleeping bags and a ground pad, and they were very grateful and much warmer. The following day Leo and Mady took them to the ferry bound for Newfoundland.

Breakfast with Zack and Thomas

Keltic Lodge sitting room

We ended up having an amazing time driving the fantastic Cabot Trail and seeing Cape Breton Highlands NP, but the best part of it all was meeting a bunch of fun and inspiring folks, all looking for adventure in different ways. Watch for some of them to reappear in the next post as we kept bumping into each other in unexpected places. We are starting to feel like locals, we have so many friends!