Cape Breton Highlands - Hiking the Skyline Trail

     Of all the places we have been on this trip, the Cape Breton Highlands felt the most foreign, like a different country altogether. I imagine it's like Scotland, I could almost hear the bagpipes playing.

    I'm embarrassed to say all this time I thought the Cabot Trail was a long hiking trail, like the Appalachian trail. I was becoming more surprised by this as we got closer because I have seen no joggers and few signs of locals exercising. The portions are huge and the food is loaded with fat and sugar. It's very different than the West Coast, where they are obsessed with health.

    I was wondering who, exactly, was hiking the Cabot Trail. Turns out it’s a road! You sit in your car and drive along it. It has some lookouts with signs, if you can heave yourself out of your car to read then, should you have the energy and a place to put your lobster roll.

You can see the Cabot Trail in the hill in the background


  We drove the twisting Cabot Trail to the “Skyline Trail” trailhead. It is so popular you need a reservation to hike it, so I guess someone is hiking. It was a well marked trail through the trees to a lookout. There were warnings about Moose and what to do if you see one. Just when I was thankful there were no bears! There is always some animal to be wary of in Canada.

  At the lookout we spotted some whales. It was a tiny black mark in the distance.

  This trail was really easy, I kept expecting it to start going up, as I'm  used to hiking in the mountains. We did the circle even though we heard that after the boardwalk lookout there is nothing really to see. Turns out that is correct.






Birds ‘n Mammals

Evening Grosbeak - unhappily missed by Elsa

Purple Finch - only heard, but I've been hearing them everywhere so I counted it, lifer!

Possible Pilot whale


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Alberta Out-bound

Image
           Elsa's birding life list is at 97!  We stopped at Kinbrook Provincial Park, our last night in Alberta for a while. It is teeming with birds and she racked up a large number. The birds and the parkland setting make it a very pleasant stop. There is one bird - the Mourning Dove - that is cooing all day and all night. It sings the same refrain over and over. I remember when we camped there a long time ago with Melissa and Steve and their boys. Melissa was kept up all night by the Mourning Dove. "I'm going find that bird and I'm going to wring it's neck!" I can recall her saying at breakfast.     Elsa was imitating it and then pretending to be a Mourning Dove that goes off in a different song. She was cracking me up, birding humour I guess. It really does stick to the same little ditty.       The other sound heard at Kinbrook is screaming. The kids at the beach are always screeching away, and then you paddle away an...
Read more

Grand Beach - A Beach and many creatures

Image
    Grand Beach is an endless stretch of white sand a couple hours from Winnipeg. It is glorious! Who needs Hawaii or Mexico for beaches when we have this! The lake is so big you can't even see the other side, it might as well be the ocean. The water is a great temperature for swimming and it has a sandy bottom everywhere. We spent a couple days swimming and paddle boarding here. Here is a round-up of all the creatures we saw at the Grand Beach Campsite Frogs There are frogs everywhere in the wooded campsite. There are tiny ones and large ones, not many in between sizes (teens?). I have no experience with frogs, you don't see many in Alberta. We were amazed by them! We would stand watching until they jumped. Here is my picture of a jumping frog.     There was probably someone shaking their head at me taking videos of frogs. It's like the tourists I see going nuts over gophers. One lady was pointing at a gopher, she had a huge smile and said "Look!". I saw the go...
Read more

Regina - A Queen with a Lake, Cupcakes and Owls

Image
 Modelling in front of the Saskatchewan Legislative Building      The models have lunch. Did you know the city of Regina has a large lake smack dab in the middle of it? Wascana Lake is a picturesque oasis with fountains, pelicans and large leafy trees lining it. A 10 kilometer walkway goes all the way around it. Many people use the walkway, including numerous men on bikes blasting their speakers, advertising their vibe to uninterested bystanders. A pet peeve of mine (#398). Wanting a sampling of a Regina neighbourhood, we went to one called "Cathedral". It has wonderful heritage houses and elm tree lined streets. It is an arty neighbourhood, this translates to colourful murals and eclectic stores. There would be a high priced coffee shop next to a boarded up adult video store, and you know that's been left a long time!           We went in the 'Sinfully Sweet Cathedral' bakery. They have a cupcake for every sin. I didn't manage to ge...
Read more