Thursday, July 9th
I let the chilly morning wind take my tears as we headed north on the western shore of the trail this morning. My youngest daughter turns 23 today, she was 16 the last time I celebrated her birthday with her. I remind myself that her absence is her decision, it is her journey and I continue to travel on my journey as well.
We leave Cheticamp ...and yes, there was coffee!....and enter the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. There is a heart stopping view around every curve...I have to remind myself to focus on riding. We pull over for photos at nearly every pull out. I brought my GoPro video camera but I forgot the bottom part of the mount for my handlebar ...so here is a link to a spectacular video:
Breakfast stop at the Midpoint Motel; service was slow but the food was worth the wait. No one is in a real hurry up here, we ain't either. And there was Cheez Whiz along w the assorted little tubs of jelly...never saw that on the table, so I treated myself to cheese toast!
We practically have the trail to ourselves this morning....just us, leisurely negotiating the curves and elevation, stopping to take in the sweeping views of the ocean and coastline. My eyes can't get enough of the visual feast laid out before us. At the north point of the trail, we come over a rise and there's a moose! I slow to a halt, it's still there...so I try to get my phone out of my pack for a photo....but she obviously got tired of watching us and sauntered off into the woods.
Stopped at Neil's Harbor on the northeast side, we are now on the downhill run. Neil's Harbor is a postcard perfect little fishing village w a lighthouse on the harbor. The coastline of Nova Scotia is one little fishing village after another. You could spend weeks traveling the island on the winding coastline road. Ingonish isn't the next village.....jaw dropping gorgeous, then we hit a section of the trail that is one switchback curve after another, down to Cape Smokey. We stop to walk along the boardwalk on the water where if you look hard enough, there are Leatherback turtles, puffins, and pilot whales. The weather is spectacular; cool weather, hot sun!
Between Ingonish and St. Ann's, the road gets fairly bad...up to this point the asphalt has been perfect. We bump and bang down to North Shore and pull over for a coffee/pastry stop. The section from North Shore to St Ann's is soooooo bad we are idling at 10mph over asphalt that is not even navigable! Finally at St Ann's, it smooths out a little and we are almost to Baddeck. I'm sorry to see our journey is almost at end.....it has been a spectacular ride and well worth the six years I've waited to do it!
Now we travel some of the same roads we traveled to get to the trail. We make the decision to ride to or near New Glasglow.
Friday, July 11th
We realized at breakfast this morning that there was no longer a Harley shop at Yarmouth-where will we buy the T shirts!?! We have already left Sydney behind us, so we change course and head to Halifax to hit up the big Harley Davidson dealership for the obligatory destination shirts. We ride interstate for about an hour and a half to arrive in Halifax....and there is a big HOG rally...motorcycles everywhere! I snag two shirts, Paul has his, we make our purchase then head outside to chat w some of the locals. And for the 100th time we hear, 'Florida!? Did you ride ALL the way up here...or trailer!?' No...we don't trailer...we ride.
Out of Halifax, we take coastal road 333 which is an awesome ride! Great asphalt, lots of curves, perfect ride to Peggys Cove. Virtually all of the 'chamber of commerce' type tourism photos you see of Nova Scotia feature the very picturesque village of Peggys Cove. It was really a huge disappointment....the place was crawling w tourists, bus loads of them and frankly, it has been the only place in NS where we have had that experience! I felt like I was in a Disney version of Peggys Cove, like the fictional Amity Island at Universal Studios. We DID have a fabulous lunch - crab, lobster cakes - snapped a few photos and we were out of there.
Connected back w the interstate, which in this area is virtually a secondary road, twisted the throttle, and clicked off the 228 kilometers to Yarmouth. It is a quiet, historic port town...we check into the 'best' hotel in town...Best Western Mermaid and take a walk downtown for dinner. Rudders on the harbor is booming, we sit on the patio overlooking the harbor and order the regional specialty, Digby scallops. The food is fabulous, we stuff ourselves - again - and congratulate ourselves on a wonderful ride around Nova Scotia....agreeing that Life is Pretty Damn Good.
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