Cape Breton.....a most beautiful island, not to be missed!

There is way to much to say about Cape Breton, so I will stick with the highlights.  Our campsite was in the Cafe Breton National Highland Park. This park had a major flood last year for the lower camp so they are still recovering, so campsites are a little jammed, but we really lucked out.  We had a campsite that was bordered by woods on two sides and a babbling brook behind our site.  It was great.  We stayed 3 nights.  

  

The scenery and landscape is stunning.  We did take one day to drive along the Cabot trail and decided to go as far as Meat Cove, the most northern point in Cape Breton.  The roads were fine til we got to about the last 15 miles- just dirt roads that ended at someone's front yard....just like that!  It was named meat cove because way back in time, this is where meat was slaughtered for provisions.  Today, there are only about 60 inhabitants.  On the way back to our campsite, we had a most beautiful sunset.  And as we meandered down the road, no other cars in sight, we had a frightening encounter with a moose. A full size male moose decided to take an evening jog across the road.  Fortunately Bob was able to avoid hitting the moose. Good thing because We had no idea of how large a moose could get.  The top of the legs were at the height of his side view mirror with the body, head and antlers towering above the car.      Yipes, It took 10 minutes for our heart rates to return to normal.  There are guardian angels in this world!

   Meat Cove

 

 

The hiking trails are superb.  We chose the Acadian Trail and found ourselves ascending 1200 feet and then walking across a wonderful ridge.  The trail was about 6 miles and we walked through coniferous forests that smelled like Christmas!

I wished we had a few more days for hiking.  On the last day, we visited some of the artisans.  One was a rug hooker, a dying art.

Another was an art shop filled with unusual pictures of a tiny cow imbedded in each picture and wooden bowls made from burls.

Finally, one of our trails went along a stream bed with the most moss covered rocks that I have ever seen and sooooo green.

Stay tuned.....more to come before we say goodbye to Canada.