Cape Breton Highlands National Park

Day five. The morning came with brilliant speed and strong winds that brought the smell of the ocean into our home. The open windows in our bedroom forced us to layer up with another blanket half way through the night, a welcomed inconvenience. Smells of eggs and spinach, potatoes and strong coffee came from the kitchen where Forest has been cooking up a mad storm of breakfast quiches. God bless him. Waiting the recommended 10 minutes after eating, I decided to go out for a run by the sea. There is a pot hole infused dirt road in front of our house that borders the ocean cliff; a fine place for a run. The wind was a training partner that I came to love and loathe. In one direction it’s a helpful coach, literally pushing you here and there when you need it, in the other direction it’s the hand of the devil pushing you backward and blowing dirt in your eyes, but I pushed out 3 1/2 miles under 7:30 per mile so that justified all the alcohol I would consume today. We all wanted to do some more hiking in the Highlands, so.... we didn’t. Instead we made it to the visitor center right before the park entrance to let the kids play around on the playground. We did do a “hike” sorta... more like walking really slowly beside a river for a mile up then back. We stopped at our turn around point by a section of the river that was small and slow moving so the kids could play on the rocks and sand. When does the adult stuff begin? Must be soon...
We heard that a local bar in the town of Cheticamp had some Cape Breton fiddlers playing this afternoon so we headed over to the small pub only to be told we couldn’t come inside...because we had kids. Apparently in Canada when the music starts playing the restaurant turns into a pub, and kids aren’t allowed. But the owner said with a wink that if we order some food and eat real slow then technically we would still be doing the restaurant thing and not the pub thing and it would be ok...but once we’re done eating that’s it. So we listened to about 30 minutes of really good fiddling before we had to leave...but really, once you’ve heard 30 minutes of world renowned fiddle music in the highlands of Cape Breton where children are taught to play the fiddle before they feed themselves who needs to hear more?
So home we went and home we stayed for the rest of the day. It was warm today, windy, and not a cloud in the sky. Addie got her chance to swim in the freezing ocean and the Adults finally getting their time to do adult things...napped.
Tomorrow we say goodbye to Cape Breton; time to move onward and northward toward the new land they found just a few years back. They called it Newfoundland, because that makes so much sense.Read more