Day 62 Sat- Cabot Trail adventure.

Stinking night, but up and ready to go…fortunately we could go a little slower today as we were about to set off on the Cabot Trail loop. But first brekky in the main house if our motel…it too was a grand old manor built in 1865…you can tell she has history… now used as an office and a breakfast room.,…I took my own add one’s first brekky today some ham and a banana…can’t do jam everyday…

Fed and watered we did a circuit of the town to get pics if the harbour and grand old buildings…
The was spent zipping in and out of coves around the peninsular…we left after the lovely sights were captured in Baddeck…now head the long way to Cheticamp…

To start with the sights weren’t that good to be honest…but the further around we got the better it become…Villages, harbours… the bays become more rugged and craggy….church’s dotted the whole way around…nearly 99% always white…so they certainly standout…
Some quaint sights like a clothing shop,advertising her wares with painted up cars…one even had bling on it….

Heaps and heaps of big motorcycles 🏍 with trailers or huge side saddles… beaches that actually had sand but had millions I mean millions of round rocks all along the bank of the beach above the sand.,.I am still trying to work out if it’s natural or man made…🤔🤔🤔 a few lighthouses either on the coast or relocated to varies spots…millions upon millions well maybe 1,000’s of lobster baskets stacked up all over the loop ready for next season which we read is from Oct - May….one harbour we drove past had heaps of Truck units with their freezer sections running..that must be storing the lobsters 🦞 in…heaps of walking trails which we didn’t have time to explore…

The craggy coast line become more so…then after lunch which was at Angie’s Place…John had another Lobster Roll… I had Seafood Chowder..minus the lobster or I would end up in an anaphylactic state… not good here…the young lady serving us asked where we were from and when we said Australia she was enthralled because her 5 yr old loves Bluey…a hit show all,over the world……anyway back to my point….once coming over French Mtn at 445m the landscape changed dramatically….
One thing I forgot as we stated this trail…there was a Gaelic College where heaps come to learn the language…it was bought here by the Gaelic speaking Scottish…

Also on the last leg before we made it too the motel we saw and had to turn back fir a Scottish Sheep Shelter…called a Lone Shieling…….it’s where the Highlanders or Crofter would shelter when the weathers as too heavy with wind and snow...he and his sheep would seek shelter in the stone cottage open at one end and if really bad weather would have pallets of Heather or bracken to cover the door way…after seeing this it too us through a lovely Forrest walk back to our car….well worth a stop and look.

We are it to our motel and I forgot we had been given the last room in the motel the Loft…it is actually very nicely decorated….but no kettle, no coffee machine or no microwave….I felt deflated it had been a biggish day already and we were about to head out on a 6k long walk after 6pm to the Skyline Trail to see the sunset 🌅 on the famous walk….Jess must have read about it and his amazing it is and she decided it was best we do the walk at sunset….

Also in our room are slopped ceilings like we had in some if the rooms on our European trip…well ha ha 😂😂😩😩 I keep running into the roof line on our room….they have painted it the same colour which detects from the angle ….that’s great but my poor old head has dinner Ted with it about 4-5 times so far…silly me… So back to the jug…while I was unpacking the car John went to see the manager and organised for us to borrow a kettle for the night….the manager kindly lent it to us from the kitchen where the residents have breakfast….apparently we have brekky here to…we have really lucked it this top end with most of our mites offering a continental breakfast…yeah…we quickly made a cuppa and set off back up the mountain range we had come down this arvo from the cabot trail drive…it really was quite spectacular as we drive back along the coast with the afternoon sun reflecting off the mountain range…

Before we left….we had had issues all day with our opine reception and by the time we hit our hime base for tonight absolutely none it was gone…the only way to contact Tim was on Wifi and the motel Wifi was terrible it kept dropping out..and very weak….so he had trouble getting all my replies from his texts to us..I think he thought I wa ignoring them…eventually I got it to work enough for him to know where we were so we could follow them to the walking start point..what a pain with out net…or ph…

So we managed to follow them to the trail we are to go on and already quite a number of cars…it’s the thing to do here apparently….we all got out and set off for what turned out to be a wonderful walk through low trees, massive massive different ferns growing everywhere…and when no ferns all different varieties of grasses and wild flowers…it truly was a picture perfect walk…it was about 3.25ks through some high wired enclosures….that were trials to see what would grown back with out the mooses eating the vegetation…it reminded me when we were standing in a lookout tower of the Sci-fi Terra Nova with the massive electric fence around the compound and if you went out of it the dinosaurs would eat you….I told Tim and Jess this they thought I was crazy…but I said to them instead of the dinosaur 🦕 eating us it would be the bears 🐻……rahhhhh….this didn’t deter them in any ways😂😂😂….off we set fir the mast part of what felt much longer than 3.25k which really is nothing…our original plan was to do the whole 8.2k walk but once the sun did go down and light was getting less and less we had to hightail it back along the less visible path with the threat that there could be a bear…there wasn’t but you just never know…it would have been ok anyway both Tim and John had their trusty bear spray we bought at the beginning of the trip….

Back to the huge Skyline board walk it literally made its way half way down French Mountain….which meant yep heaps and heaps of stairs down the steep cliff of the mountain…this little bunny was already tired so both John and I sat on a good viewing set while T&J headed down the steps..it was over an hour or more before any sunset started to happen….people coming and going,.,some used their Brain and bought wine and cheese with a baguette..
Jess advised we take no food with bears around…I did at the last minute through in some pretzels….which John and I did eat because we didn’t have dinner before we come and everything will be shut once done…so I had hoped the bears wouldn’t find me with my food….
The cliff face we were perched on about 290-405 m high depending where you were on the boardwalk…most of the walk there was on gravel…except for the last section down the cliff face…it was very well done and made it look very inviting until you realise that there are hundreds of steps to high tail it back up…both T&J looked exhausted once the climbed back to us…the sunset was in my opinion a bit of a fizzer…I have seen much better…but Jess was enthralled and I heard her say it was the first sunset she has seen go into the ocean 😩 bless her heart…it was magical for her and that’s why we came…

Well all good things must come to an end and we had to head back to our cars…it was a very fast exhausting walk back…everyone seemed to pass me very quickly…I seemed to be getting slower and slower my old bad foot wasn’t too happy in my new walking boots so a bit if pain to try and ignore…

We did make it back in one piece….no bears, no mooses…Tim did see a chipmunk 🐿…and we did have some little creature not sure as it hide well on the path to the viewing area…a few birds in trees singing,,,but sadly not much wildlife at all…for all the jolly signs they have around and yes it’s like our croc 🐊 signs that must be around….we have virtually seen hardly any wildlife at all..😢😢😢 in fact T&J have more in their backyard than what we have seen in the whole trip…
We made it home around 10pm a long tiring day…but glad we did it with T&J…no dinner or should I say no microwave to heat the dinner I had,….John had jelly and custard tubs we had bought days ago..I had salami and cheese wraps and a few biscuits with tomato 🍅 on it that’s enough a glass of wine and a beer for John ready for the cot.,,should sleep well tonight…Read more