Retirement Travels: Nova Scotia, Canada

Fri, Jul 26

It rained again this morning. No wonder everything is so green around here.

This afternoon the weather cleared as we entered Nova Scotia. It's hard to believe we've come here. I've heard of the place, but never thought to much about it.

The welcome center and it's Welcome to Nova Scotia display is by far the best I've ever seen in our travels. And the staff and the facilities were outstanding. A lot of places could take lessons from this one.

We settled into Hidden Hill Family Campground near Truro.

At the welcome center, we were told that there is a Blue Grass Festival this weekend in Bible Hill (that's right, there is a community named Bible Hill). It's very near Truro on the Bay of Fundy (Nova Scotia side of the bay). It was only a few minutes drive, so we decided to go. It turned out to be a really big affair for this community and we had a great evenings entertainment listening to blue grass music. It was very good, with some very pronounced accents at times. We thoroughly enjoyed it.

Sat, Jul 27

We are steadily progressing East in Nova Scotia, arriving at our Easternmost campground, Baddeck Cabot Trail Campground.

Quickly after settling in at the campsite, we drove into the town of Baddeck (I've been corrected several times on the correct pronunciation - BA (long A) Day. You have to leave out the first D and emphasize the remaining D). We are actually on an island, which is a part of a peninsula on the Eastern end of Nova Scotia.

This is very pleasant small town on the shores of Bras d'Or Lake (Bra (long A) - Dor Lake). The Lake is a huge fresh water and salt water lake which has two narrow openings to the ocean.

We explored and are planning our agenda for the next few days.

Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone lived here and on the waterfront he and his wife, Mabel are enshrined sitting on a bench.

Clara joins Mr. and Mrs Bell. I hope they are not having a private conversation

This afternoon we found out that there is a Ceilidh (ka lee) tonight. A Ceilidh is a traditional Gaelic social gathering, which usually involves playing Gaelic folk music.

It is held at the St. Michael's Parish Hall which can hold maybe 60 people and it was sold out.

We got tickets early and it was another one of those Wow! evenings. Two hours of some of the best entertainment we could have expected.

Two nights in a row of fun music!

Sun, Jul 28

Today we had nowhere to go, and we didn't get there!

We more or less picked what looked like an interesting place on the map and headed there. Unfortunately, we didn't pick well.

We started at the Alexander Graham Bell Historic Site in Baddeck. I thought it would be interesting, but it really wasn't. We stayed a little while, watched a movie about Bell, then left. I would have thought it would be much better. Oh well, you gotta have some bust along the way.

The view from the Alexander Graham Bell Historic Site. Ain't bad!

We'd heard of Sydney, so we headed there - a 2 hour drive. Turned out to be just another large town with chain restaurants and looks like any place USA. Then we'd heard of the Louisbourg National Historic Site and it was only a few miles (kilometers) away, so we headed there. Unfortunately, we got there too late to make it worthwhile to take advantage of. We've heard some good things about it, but didn't have time - so we headed back.

Some of the terminology is interesting

One of the highlights of the day was a McLobster at McDonalds. It was pretty good.

A day of driving without much to comment on.

This is a good point to throw in a picture of where we've travel so far on this trip.

In two weeks we've traveled from Scranton, Penn to Braddeck, Nova Scotia. We're at the Easternmost point of this trip.

I guess every once in a while, ya gotta have a day that doesn't turn out great. This is about the only one I can remember in all of our travels. But as the saying goes "A bad day here is better than a good day there".

Mon, Jul 29

Today made up for yesterday!

We drove the Cabot Trail. It is primarily what brought us here in the first place. I wasn't sure what it was when I first heard of it. I actually thought it might be a hiking trail. I actually chose this campground because it was advertised to be on the Cabot Trail.

Turns out that the Cabot Trail is a 200 mile loop road along the edge of the ocean (and Sound) on Cape Breton Island on the Northeastern tip of Nova Scotia. And it is an absolutely beautiful drive.

These pictures were taken on the Southern Shore of the island. The geology of the Southern Shore is dramatically different from the Northern Shore

Locally they advertise it as the most scenic drive in North America. I wouldn't classify it as such, but I would certainly put it among the top 10 or 15 most beautiful drives that we have been on in our travels. I think my all time favorite would have to be Trail Ridge Road across the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

The Northern side of the island

There were many fishing villages along the way

All the lobster pots are stacked now because the season ended a few days ago. Scallop season starts now. Yum!

Although the drive is 200 miles, and we don't like to drive that much in a day, we really didn't have much choice because it's a loop with no shortcuts. So we did it and it wasn't too bad. We stopped numerous times (for craft shops) and the views.

The leather shop just about broke me!

It wasn't until the last hour that it seemed like it was a long drive.

But Wow! Some of the views were breathtaking. Clara and I both commented that some of the scenery reminded us of Western North Carolina. It was like taking the mountains of Western North Carolina and plopping them onto the coast of North Carolina.