July 12 - Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, - 230 Miles

We had the most beautiful combination of forests, mountains, lakes, sea shores, and roads we have ever seen.  In addition, we watched whales, went to a secluded but fascinating fishing village, had especially good food, and had perfect weather!!  It just doesn't get any better than this!

Our day didn't start out to look like a good one.  We had thunder, lightning, and a deluge of rain last night, with heavy rain still coming down when we woke up.  We snoozed a little bit, then gave up and packed the motorcycles in the rain.  (We both carry folding umbrellas for just such a rainy day packing.)  Fully dressed in all of our rain gear, we glumly rode to breakfast.  After breakfast, the rain had let up a little, and we started off to make the loop of the "Cabot Trail", thinking we'd ride the 200 miles in the rain.  (John Cabot discovered Cape Breton Island in 1497, so this loop road around the northern third of the island is named for him.)

After about 25 miles, not only had the rain stopped, but the roads on the western side of the island were starting to dry out.  This is about the time we started to recognized the extraordinary beauty of the island.

Cape Breton Island has to be one of the world's most beautiful places, from the sheer natural beauty of its forests, mountains, lakes, and sea shores.  It is largely unspoiled, having a relatively small population, low traffic, low intrusion of people into the forested areas, and small businesses rather than large.  The island is a part of the province of Nova Scotia Province, even though the only connection is by one bridge.  The island is very large, with our trip of 230 miles being less than one-third of the island's perimeter.

The island has several interesting faces.  The West side has steep mountains coming right down to the sea, without much vegetation at the lower levels.  (It reminds one of Highway 1 along the coast of California, in its one lone road along the steep mountains.)  

Along here, the weather cleared up, and we had blue skies and broken clouds the rest of the day.

The road alternately climbs higher along the mountains, and then comes back down almost to sea level.  It enters the "Cape Breton Highlands National Park" and on the northwest end of the island it goes inland.  An interesting transition takes place as one goes up to the highlands.  The trees start out as deciduous, turn to pines, then fir, then spruce, then an alpine setting.  All this time, the sea is visible as a background.

Coming off the highest part of the Highlands Park, we came to a restaurant which sat high on a bluff overlooking the sea to the North.  We had fish & chips "Cape Breton Style" while watching whales off the coast.  These were "Pilot Whales", according to the young lady waitress who seemed to know all of the various kinds of whales sighted at various times of the year.  We saw at least 20 Pilot Whales, in pods of 2 to 6.  Also from this high bluff, we could see the northernmost mountains steeply falling to the sea.  These remind one of the mountains falling to the sea on the northern coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Also at the restaurant, we met three other motorcycle riders from the Chicago area.  They were all railroad engineers (train drivers) who worked together.  We just had a particularly good time, swapping stories and comparing riding notes with them.

Going on around to the eastern side of the island produced a quite different type of vegetation, thicker and more beautiful yet.  The other thing emphasized on this side of the island is the beauty of scenes with the  ultra-green heavy forests coming down to red colored cliffs which drop straight down into a deep blue sea, with a little white surf.  We saw this absolutely beautiful scene over and over, as large and small inlets came into sight.  This area produced more spectacular combinations of forest, mountains, and sea than anywhere Norm or I had ever seen.

Then riding again, we decided to go to the northernmost point of the island and explore the little town to be found at the end.  The little town, Bay Lawrence, turned out to be a bustling fishing village, with tremendous activity in sending boats out to sea and bring others in to unload crabs (we would call them King Crabs, with legs of 14" to 16" long).  The fishermen were quite friendly, and told us of some of their operation.  This village had a wonderful natural harbor, which with a little help from man provided a very safe dock and anchorage for the fishermen.  

We asked how the winters were, and were told that the area last winter had 10 to 11 feet of show, and the surrounding forests had 20 to 25 feet of snow.  So the fishermen have to hustle to make enough for the year in a very short season - and they were hustling today!

To top our day off, when we finished the Cabot Trail, and came to the town of North Sydney for our motel of the night, we took a wrong turn, and got lost.  We asked a couple of local fellows for directions.  As they were getting into their car at the time, they said "Just follow us" and they took us to our motel.  How about that for friendly!

What a day!  Can you believe fitting all of that into one day?

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