Four nights with three full days. That's a long stay - for us. What did we do with it?
The morning of the first day, we enjoyed the beachfront, took a quick visit to the visitor's center (what else?) and relaxed.
The beach at the Airbnb.
Some coarse sand
The Inn. Currently closed needing some expensive repairs.
Brilliant poppies around the Inn.
The afternoon, we went on a quick hike on the Jack Pine trail near Black Brook Cove and then took in the views from Neil's Harbour back to Ingonish.
Off we go!
We ran across a few other hikers along the way. Some overheard Tom's jokes and quips and were quite impressed - actually laughing out loud! These Canadians are so polite!
Canadian Bunchberry - dogwood relative
Happy Hikers
Neil's Harbour
The town of Neil's Harbour
St Andrews in Neil's Harbour
Ingonish
Ingonish - roughly same view - Don's family vacation in 1969
Oh, and did we mention it was Sue's 60th birthday? Happy Birthday, Sue! We ate at the fanciest restaurant in town. Which wasn't fancy. But they did have good, local mussels!
You can always count on your kids...
Day two. Back to psycho-tourism. We drove the Cabot Trail 180 miles around the whole of Cape Breton.
We had covered the part from Ingonish Beach up to Neil's Harbor, the day before, so we picked up from there. We had an audio guide that was okay and helped us pick places to stop. Not as good as Guide-Along/Gypsy Guide "Gary", but who is?
Beulach Ban Falls and Mosquito Fun Zone...for the mosquitoes, that is. We ran away, fast!
The Lone Shieling. A summer house for early settlers, up in the hills.
Built for the family and animals...and Sue.
Creek bed near the Shieling
Next stop, McIntosh Brook trail. A nice, fairly short hike to some falls.
Intrepid hikers
...the easily amused...
Now, we've crossed the high, northern part of the Cape to the Gulf of St Lawrence side.
A ways down the other side of the cape, the Cabot Trail exits the park and the weather turned rainy. There was was less to get out and see, but it was worth the drive.
Picnic lunch in the car at small harbour.
We had driven from Baddeck, up over Cape Smokey, on our way in a couple days ago, but this time we stopped and admired the view.
Cape Smokey at Pathend Brook Lookout
Diner that night was some nice steaks we grilled back at the Airbnb that we picked up a market in Baddeck on the way in. Good way to end the day.
Our last day on Cape Breton, we went on a guided ranger walk on the Middle Head hiking trail. Not great weather, but lots of great info about the flora and fauna in the park and some cultural stuff, too.
Working lobster boat
Gulls with some babies
At the conclusion of the walk, it was lunchtime. We decided on the Chowder House in Neil's Harbour, about 20 minutes away. We wanted lobster.
But first, we needed gas. We were nearly empty and hadn't bothered to fill up on the way in the last day. There were two stations in Ingonish Beach. We chose the one on the way to Neil's Harbour. We pulled up and the owner told us they were out, but the tanker was 20 minutes away. We decided to wait. Twenty some later minutes we gave up and headed toward the other gas station. A few minutes out, the tanker passed us! So, we turned around and headed back, only to find the tanker was parked up the road next to a snack bar. I guess the deliveries were going to wait until lunch was over! So, we turned around again and headed south for the other station. They had a line and we had to wait 10 minutes before we could start pumping. But, we did fill up and were on our way.
So, lunch turned into "linner". The worst part is that Chowder House ran out of lobsters! Patti and Tom got the last ones. I had to settle for a lobster roll. Some "settle"!
Chowder House for "lunch". Variable weather, so inside seating it was!
Bay of, to be exact. We were off to see the worlds biggest tides. It was the day after a new moon, so the tides were extra high. We went to Burntcoat Head Park https://www.burntcoatheadpark.ca/ - "The exact site of the worlds highest tides..."
We got there just at low tide. You could walk waaaayyyy out onto the bay floor.
Low Tide
Dry!
Out to sea!
Sue at typical high tide level
Tide about half way up. Compare with earlier picture.
We waited until the tide was a bit more than half way to high tide and then left. Why? We were not bored...yet anyway.
We wanted to see the tidal bore, where a river actually changes direction with a small incoming tidal wave. We headed to South Maitland and the Fundy Tidal Interpretive Centre.
Tide is out. River flowing out.
Front edge of bore just appearing
Wave coming upstream.
Not bored.
Here comes the bore
The flow reversed
Full bore. Flow upstream
Fully bored. We headed for Cape Breton. With a stop in Truro for Walmart dark comedy moment.
There are no pictures, but we were a model for some "how not to" teamwork posters. The big problem didn't occur until we got to self checkout. Here's how it went down.
I was the scanner guy. I pulled an item from the cart and scanned it and put the item on scale. Sue skootched the remaining items in the cart toward the back of the cart and loaded scanned items from the scale back into cart front, saving time to get us out the door faster. ...except I didn't notice, so I kept grabbing the already scanned items in the front of the cart, rescanning them and setting them on the scale - again. Except Sue didn't notice and dutifully reloaded into the cart with that item. We could have done this all day - round and round - to hundreds of dollars for a couple dozen items, except, just then the real chaos started.
I noticed what Sue and I were actually doing and exclaimed "Uh oh. This is bad" (or maybe something saltier), just as Tom and Patti were executing a blueberry hand-off - getting the blueberries for me to scan. This distracted them. The handoff was a difficulty of 2 on a scale of 1-10. But the execution was a zero. Blueberries everywhere! I stepped on the blueberries while I was deep into examining the scanning disaster, staring at the checkout screen looking for dupes and how to get rid of them. Meanwhile, Patti was off hunting new blueberries and Sue was hunting for help. Help arrived. The Walmart employee banished us from the self checkout, made us stand in the corner, cleared the register and scanned all our stuff herself - for which we are eternally grateful...and embarrassed. We said "Sooooory!" and quickly got the heck out of there!
Kudos to the Truro Walmart.
We stopped for dinner in Baddeck, about an hour and a half from Airbnb in Ingonish. More Lobsters and some coconut cream pie! ...complete with bibs!
Our place for the next four nights was in Ingonish in the Cape Breton Highlands of Nova Scotia.
Relaxing on the porch.
We had out-run the heat wave - at least for a while.
The view from our porch.
Tomorrow - an easy day. Maybe a 5 on the psycho-tourism scale from 0-10.
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