Day One on Cabot Trail (8/23/2015)

Today was one of those days.  A missed turn and a mis-adventure made it a pretty long day.  However, we got an early start -- we were on the road by 8:40, so it must have been those other co-travelers who were holding us back in the mornings!  LOL!  We had decided to "do" the Cabot Trail before we leave this province of Nova Scotia, so we had to go back through the town of Pictou and pick up on 106 (with its bumpy roads) and pick up 104 at the roundabout, then head to the northeast corner of this province.  We stopped at Cape Breton about 10:30 at the Visitor Center and got more information (we are going to have an RV "full" of "information" by the time we get home), then worked our way to where the Cabot Trail begins.  We drove the right side first, then came back down the left side.

 Our next stop was at the Alexander Bell Museum at Beddeck, across the bay from his summer home here.

Bell's Mansion

They had a nice map of this island here.  We are really north!  (We spent the night above the black area.  Meat Cove (where we didn't spend the night) is at the very top, on the left.

Not too long after leaving the Museum, we missed a turn and ended up on the road to the ferry at Englishtown.  We figured out pretty quick that we missed the turn, but there was absolutely no place to turn around, so we thought we would just take the ferry across this bay.  Nope.  When we got to the ferry landing, the loader guy immediately motioned us to stop.  He said there was no way we could load because of the drop onto the ferry (I don't know if that drop varies with the tide, but otherwise, there should have been signs, and even the lady at the Visitor Center suggested we take the ferry).  Anyhow, we had to unhook the car to get turned around.  I think this was a 7-mile jaunt, so 14 miles roundtrip, could have been worse, probably cost us a half hour.  Back on the main road, we continued on our way.  Saw some beautiful scenery, coastal and inland.  This area is mountainous -- who knew!! 

Joe is fascinated by all the little seafood restaurants that spring up just about everywhere.  If he had his way, we would be stopping at every one of them.

We made one roadside stop at a beautiful rocky coastline, waves crashing into the pretty boulders, a couple boats out in the water.  We looked for whales, and Joe thought he might have seen "something" but we couldn't spot it again. 

 

There were pretty rocks that Joe adventured out on.

And of course, I followed.

There was a "mailbox" here, for information I think, that Joe thought might be a good design for a birdhouse.

Before we left here, I called about a campsite for the night, at the very tip of this island, at "Meat Cove."  Yes, they had room, no hook-ups though.  Probably take an hour from where I told her we were.  And by the way, if we needed fuel, we should get it in Cape North.  Ok, we could do all that.

The roads up here are either good, or awful.  Joe hit one pothole he didn't see, and jarred everything, including our bones.  So he eventually pulled off by a little creek or river, and checked to make sure all the parts under the front were still in the right place.

We eventually came to the gates of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  To camp inside the park, it would cost about $55.  We thought we wanted to drive on out to that point way up on the northeast end, which is out of the park, so we didn't have to pay anything just to drive through, and the road took us in and out of the park a few times.

But we had nice scenery, inlets, rivers, crossing the causeway, a little fog.

We stopped to fuel the car in South Harbour about 5:00, thinking we would go on an evening Wildlife Viewing Drive in the car once we got camped at Meat Cove.  This is sort of where civilization ends.  But we had pretty coastal views, along with switchbacks and bumpy roads.  And then the pavement ran out and we were on dirt!

The last 4-5 miles were patches of pavement (on the hills) between dirt.  And they must be tearing up every bridge in Canada because we have certainly seen a lot of this.

Before we got all the way to Meat Cove, we were pretty sure this was a mistake.  But again, there was no place to turn around.  We could imagine that we would be the only campers in the campground so no surprise that she had room for us, but would there be a 35-foot level spot?  We climbed the last hill and saw the hillside with tents set up, so we knew we had "arrived," but it didn't look very promising.  We walked around a little, trying to figure out where we could park.  We would actually be renting a picnic table and a fire ring, for $30, no services.  And you sort of find your own piece of grass.

Rugged cliffs off to one side.

Finally, we walked over and talked to the gal.  I told her I should have asked her more questions (like, "is the road paved?")  She didn't seem too concerned, and walked us over to the one spot she thought we could get level in.  She had had a 32-foot camper in the night before (we could see his tracks in the mud), and if we parked exactly where he had (and didn't get stuck), she thought it would work.  As she talked, bugs (mosquitos?) were swarming her head.  This was advertised to have the possibility of whale viewing from the campground, and we were on the coast, on a hill, but I couldn't imagine that we could sit aside with the bugs buzzing around. 

So we opted out, unhooked the car for the second time today, and Joe somehow got turned around.  I drove the car, and he followed me, and we went back out on the same unpaved, bumpy road (now with a little fog) that we had come in on.  I guess we did our Wildlife Viewing Drive on the return trip, although it wasn't as planned.  And we didn't see any wildlife.  We did see some nice scenery though.

I called from here for another campsite, so we went back to where we had fuelded the car, just a little on past that, and ended up at Hide Away Campground and Oyster Market in South Harbour, with electricity.  By now it's 7:00.  They had us go check out a couple of spots to see if we could get in (lots of trees here), so we did that, and picked one.  We asked about restaurants, and were told there were 2, about equal distance but in opposite directions from each other.  One we had just come past.  And if we "hurried," they might still be open. 

Well, that began the next saga.  "Hurry" does not work well with us.  But we tried.  We are really nestled in between the trees.

But the spot is a little downhill, so Joe had to put some boards under the jacks.  When he did that, the steps would not come out.  So we had to mess with that a while.  We finally deduced that the whole rig must be twisted a bit, so he readjusted.  Then the board under the jack slid in the mud, and it fell off that jack, which is not a problem, but a bit jarring.  So I re-set the board, and by trial and error, we got as level as we could with steps still working.  We go a bit downhill, but we made it work.

So we got back in the car and drove up to the first restaurant.  Cars in the parking lot, people inside.  We walked in and waited to be seated.  A young boy was at the cash register, finalizing somebody's bill, but no one came to seat us.  Finally Joe walked up to him and asked if we just seat ourselves.  He told Joe that it was take-out only now, they quit seating at 7:45 (it was 7:47).  So we left.  We drove to the other one, back past the campground turnoff, in the opposite direction as this one.  It was already dark, no cars in the parking lot.  So we went back to the camper, Joe had chili hotdogs (I had one serving of chili in the freezer), and I had scrambled eggs.  By now it was about 8:30.  A long day.

We drove 267 miles (not all positive miles though), bought RV fuel for $1.101/L ($3.33 U.S.), and didn't fall out of bed even though we have a downhill slant.  That does it for today.