Cape Breton Island

Cape Breton makes up the eastern end of Nova Scotia, and is ruggedly beautiful. Our first activity was a short hike to Egypt Falls -

I wanted the people there so you could appreciate just how wide it was. It was challenging to photograph for that reason -

Our first evening was spent at a lovely little country inn that gave us this view from our room:

At breakfast the next morning, the fog was so thick, we could only see the reflection -

We then started driving the Cabot Trail, which is a 185 mile loop around the northern portion of the island. There was astounding coastal scenery…

… and the birch trees were just starting to leaf out -

The area is known for its stunning hikes, so you can guess what we did! This was a view from the Middle Head Trail on the east coast (we drove the Cabot Trail counterclockwise) -

It was reminiscent of Acadia…

As you can see, the weather had finally cleared up. I was SO happy!

Can you see all the buoys in the cove? They mark lobster traps.

As we hiked out to the point, we happened upon…

This was the first of many that we saw on our traversing of the Maritimes. Adirondack chairs were on every porch and patio, as well as tucked along trails at viewpoints.

Remember the red sands of PEI? Well, a lot of rocks here were strikingly pink -

I like to remind you occasionally that I don’t use any filters when photographing or do any color editing of my pictures. It really looked like that! And the water was that blue.

If you “google” the Cabot Trail, you’ll probably find some version of this scene -

This was taken from a very popular scenic viewpoint on the west coast.

One of the most popular hiking trails along the Cabot Trail is the Skyline Trail. I was a little leery of having to share it with tons of other hikers, but because we were so early in the season, we were the fifth car in the enormous lot (which was nearly full when we finished our hike).

Unfortunately, the first 3 miles of the hike was pretty flat and very boring for us, so we focused on interesting small things like the lichen above, which grew all over dead branches on otherwise green spruce trees. And, surprise, we admired lots of beautiful birds and their songs -

When we got out to the boardwalk, we finally understood why everyone raves…

… over the views -

We also found out, as we finished the trail, that you can go out and back just to the boardwalk and only have to hike a total of 2 miles, rather than the 6 we did.

One disadvantage of visiting here in the shoulder season was that some places weren’t open. We missed hearing live Celtic music (which the island is known for); the one pub in a little town we stayed in specifically for this was to open 3 days after we left. And on a personal note, my late father’s favorite single-malt distillery was also closed and scheduled to open for the summer season the week after our visit.

I don’t have anything spectacular to close out this blog, other than the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean -