9.28.13 Saturday Cape Breton Highlands National Park

 

Clear blue sky

CLEAR BLUE SKIES!!!!  We weren’t sure if we would ever see the sun again.  I woke up to the sound of crows just raising a racket.  What has them so stirred up?  Overhead there were two hawks circling.  I guess they didn’t care for that.

 

As we started north our first stop was Lakies Head.

Lakies Head Looking south

Lakies Head looking north

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our next stop was at Green Cove.  The rocks have long lines in them called dykes.  They were formed when the old lava flow hardened into rock and then cracked under the pressure of a shifting earth. Later lava flows filled in the cracks.      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The surveyors are marking out a site for a future WWI memorial of the battle of Vimy Ridge fought in France, April9-12, 1917 .  The battle was the first occasion when all four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force participated in a battle together and thus became a Canadian nationalistic symbol of achievement and sacrifice.  At this point there were no longer French, English, Scottish or Irish Canadians…They were “Canadians”. This is celebrated as “The Day Canada Became a Nation.”  The site will face directly across the Atlantic to Vimy Ridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The town with lighthouse ice cream.
 

We then continued up the coast to Neils Harbor .  It is a quaint fishing village that has a lighthouse at the harbor entrance.  The government decommissioned the lighthouse and was going to demolish it but the towns people got together and petitioned to keep it.  If the town would pay for the upkeep and the insurance they could keep their lighthouse although it would remain decommissioned.  The lower story was turned into an ice cream parlor and the rent from the parlor pays the insurance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes you just have to see how far you can go.  In this case Meat Cove was the limit.  Actually it is the limit. It’s is as far north as the road goes in Nova Scotia.  I don’t know how to describe it other than to show you the pictures.  I had originally planned to spend the night here on the cliffs but they did not have the electric we needed for the cooler and it was too full to add ice.  And even though the sign on the office, a storage shed, said open and the door was open nobody was around so we decided to continue on.

 

Leaving the Cabot Trail on
side trip to Meat Cove.

The last 6 miles is dirt road

Meat Cove

Meat Cove Campgrounds

Many come to enjoy the view.





There is a camp site on this point!



Stay Back 2 Meters,
is the warning  along the cliffs

Meat Cove Campgrounds

Heading back.



Back to blacktop

Harbor at Bay Saint Lawrence 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Italian he is known today as Giovanni Caboto,
in English as John Cabot,
in French as Jean Cabot,
and in Spanish as Juan Caboto.

We started looking for a picnic area and found Cabot’s Landing.  It was in this area that it is thought that John Cabot, the Venetian explorer, made his initial landing in the New World.  There is a memorial to his discovery.  Actually I think he was just looking for a picnic table too.

Cabot Landing Park

 

Cabot Landing has a sandy shoreline that erodes and builds with the storms.  At present it is eroding.  The drop to the beach was about 6 to 8 ft.  There was a stream of water about a foot deep and 8 feet wide running lengthwise to the shore.   

How long has this crab trap
 been buried in the sand?

 

Mountainside view looking
back to Cabot Landing.
It's way back there.

 

 

Area of Cabot's Landing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early in the afternoon we saw about six cars pulled halfway off the road and everybody staring into the woods.  It has to be a moose!  Sure enough there was a female lying in the thicket.  One of the guys, who got closer than we wanted to, said there were two younger ones behind her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Leaving the coast and heading across the mountains again we drove along sheer cliffs and through deep valleys. At the top of French Mountain 455 meters elevation (1492 ft.) we came around a curve and “Whoa... Drag your feet Linda we gotta get ‘er stopped!”  There in the middle of the road was Bullwinkle!  A big male moose with a rack that was unbelievable.   He tried to climb the bank on the high side of the road.  Then he came back down and strolled along the highway. Later looking at the pictures I counted 14 points.  He traveled about 200 yards down the road and climbed over the guard rail.  This is what we have been waiting for the whole trip!  WE SAW BULLWINKLE!

The day ended at Chéticamp Campgrounds at the western exit of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  The night was clear and the sky full of stars.  What a super day this has been.

Sunset brings out the colors

I wont be long until the
mountains are ablaze.