Cabot Trail West side, Skyline Trail, and Moose

 

It was warm again here today, touching 32C around our campground. Luckily it was cooler in the Highlands, down to 24C at times. We toured the west side of the Cabot Trail today, including a (for us) challenging hike. 

That's the Cabot Trail winding up into the hills

 

From this rest stop we watched a flock of Northern Gannets diving in the distance:

 

This is the third day of gorgeous weather for us here, better than any we've had on other trips to the area. There was some haze, but still a great touring day. It's cooler today, nice because we took an 8 km hike around the Skyline Trail. Part of the trail was nicely gravelled, part is stony dirt with lots of exposed tree roots. Luckily we did the tougher part of the loop first, and the return route was easier going.

Interesting antler display, Moose antlers are really heavy.

A bit of the tougher part of the trail

Here's the native life we encountered on our hike. These were taken with little or no zoom on the lens, except for the closeups of her(?)  head:

 

This is the closest we've ever come to a moose in the wild (or in a cage either for that matter). It was a young one, likely last year's calf, but a LOT bigger than us!

Here's a couple of tourists on our hike, the Skyline Trail. The hike was rough in places. The payoff is this spectacular look-off about halfway around the trek:

That's part of the Cabot Trail road down there

An easier part of the trail

 

 

We paid a short visit to a local Abbey. Odd place for one, and we'd never have even heard about it, let alone found it, if not for a woman we talked to in one of the shops. No signs to it, but the Abbey offers guided tours Mon-Fri for an hour or so. This being Saturday, no tour, but we were welcomed to wander around outside. A place of great tranquility, just past Pleasant Bay:

 

 

Tours of Bird Island and Baddeck

The highlight today was a boat tour this morning, a 3 hour tour of Bird Island. They guaranteed Puffin sightings, and boy did we see puffins! And gulls, razorbills, kittiwakes, cormorants, eagles, herons, and many many grey seals.

There were about 22 passengers this morning:

A puffin coming in for a barely-controlled landing:

We saw a number of seals: 

Cormorants lining up to dry:

Lots of eagles. The mottled ones are the immature birds. They are flying, but it takes 2-3 years to develop the usual bald eagle plumage. The eagles tended to hang back in the caves, because the gulls and kittiwakes would dive-bomb them if they sit out in the open. The smaller birds out on the rocks are razorbills, somewhat similar to puffins:

The official count of eagles we saw was 50, mostly mature birds with a few juveniles thrown in. They came out here a bit early this year, hunting gull chicks mostly. They also make the little puffins and the like very nervous, and will likely push them out to sea a week or two before they usually go in mid August.

In the afternoon we had a quick tour of Baddeck, finding a yarn supply shop of all things in this little busy touristy town. When we got there two men were already sacked out in the comfy lawn chairs provided for waiting men, and now there were 3. One of the fellows was from Markdale, so he even knew where Flesherton is (just 10 km up the road)!

Back at camp it was uncomfortable sitting outside, due to a number of Black Flies pestering us. Inside, our little electric fan made it comfortable, and we had a good night's sleep in spite of the warmth.

 

Cabot Trail East to Meat Cove and back

Today we took a day trip up the east side of the Cabot Trail loop. We're camped about 30 km east of Baddeck, and took the east side road right up to the top of Cape Breton, at Meat Cove. A gorgeous day, which it usually hasn't been for our trips on this side of the trail. We got to a number of places we'd never been before. Sunny and 18C at 8:30 am.

Amazingly, everything at the Clucking Hen was calorie-free, so we stocked up! Several other stops at local craft shops, beautiful views around every bend, not too much traffic. Just a really enjoyable drive. 

This is likely the nicest weather we've ever had on the Cabot Trail tours, warm and sunny. There was noticeable litter though, which we really noticed after seeing how clean Newfoundland was that way - very little (virtually no) roadside litter there, in the areas we visited. 

We stopped for a cup of chowder at Neil's Harbour Chowder House, intending to compare it later on with some we saw advertised at Meat Cove. Purely scientific of course. Both the seafood chowder and the snow crab & corn versions were very good. Lots of lupins and wild roses out.

Neil's Harbour

 

A good stop at Cabot's Landing prov park beach, where Cath got her feet and her seat wet. We have pictures of stopping there with the girls on an earlier trip - that was in 1982!

We did make it all the way north to Meat Cove, with its gorgeous views. There's a campground there, and some people have braved the pretty awful road with some big rigs to camp there. I was happy to not be towing! I had a bowl of their chowder - different from the Neil's Harbour version, but both were really good. When we saw they cook their lobster in salt water, Cath had to have it instead of the chowder - really good too.

Meat Cove camping:

 Tent sites:

Outdoor dining at Meat Cove:

A happy diner:

And back in our base campground:

Ferrying back to the mainland

We left Terra Nova behind today, not without some regrets, but it's nice to have the ferry rides behind us now. It was a beautiful blue-sky day for the crossing, and everything went smoothly, with only a couple of vehicles in front of us on the ferry.

An interesting sky while waiting for the ferry:

The ferry - same one that we had for the trip over, 2 weeks ago:

Any guesses why we took this pic? (hint - nice Van!):

The crossing was indeed smooth, but felt really long today. It takes almost an hour longer in this direction, over 7 hours today.

Cathie got one of the full meals from the restaurant today, $19.80 for salad, ham & scalloped potatoes, veg, strawberry shortcake and coffee; very good. Cheapskate Gord settled for a hot dog at the snack bar takeout.

The ferry was a bit late getting to the mainland, about 7pm, but we did pick up 1/2 hr with the time change from Newfoundland time to Atlantic Time.

We were just the 3rd vehicle off the ferry, so got quite a jump on the big rigs this time!

We're camped at a KOA that's only minutes from the Cabot Trail drive.

Our base campsite for a few nights, while we tour the Cabot Trail:

Camped at Grand Codroy RV Park for 2 nights

Last night and tonight we're camped at "Grand Codroy RV Park". Sounds pretty grand eh? Compared to the provincial parks we've been staying at, it is! Electric hookups, laundry on site, and wifi. Luxury! A  big feature is that it's only about a 30 minute drive to the ferry. We'll be heading back to the mainland tomorrow on the 11:45 am ferry.

Yesterday we drove here from the Twillingate area, stopping for lunch at Jungle Jim's in Deer Lake. It doesn't sound too appealing, but we did enjoy it. French onion soup, BLT, Greek salad, chicken quesadillas. Guess we were looking for a change from seafood (gasp)!

It was a very nice day for a drive, until we got to Cornerbrook. The road climbs some serious hills around there, and as we crossed the peak and continued southbound down the other side it was like somebody flipped a switch. The weather went from blue sky and white fluffy clouds, to dark, overcast, light rain and fog. At 3:30 in the afternoon it was like dusk (which hasn't been happening until 9:30-10:00 pm or so) and quite foggy. We were down to 50 kph and slower, straining our eyes looking for the moose that were going to jump out in front of us. Didn't see any though. They do take the moose road hazard seriously here - it was only other Ontario vehicles that were passing us in the fog.

Here at the campground today (Tuesday) it was a beautiful day. Once again, no pictures at all, not sure why. We got some laundry done, and dried some in their propane-fired dryers. No static and no dryer sheets needed in those. We also were able to hang some things out on our own handy clothesline.

We were surprised to discover lots of Black Flies here. They were so sneaky that we had several bites before realizing they were so bad. Likely part of the reason they got us so bad is that we were outside a lot enjoying the pleasant weather.