Our “vancation” comes to an end, so today is mostly a driving day, returning us to the Nova Scotian mainland from Cape Breton, and then returning to the Halifax area to return the U-Haul from the place where I picked it up. We have an AirBNB booked for three nights in Lower Sackville, a Halifax… Read more…

There were quite a few hiking trails in the National Park near our Cheticamp campground, and we didn’t have a long drive planned. But instead of exploring one of those paths in the morning, we instead drove to a trailhead Rett had found outside the park that led us to an old gypsum quarry, now… Read more…

A morning stop at a cute shop, for pastries and a Lavender Fog for Rett, which we drove out to eat at a beach where the red soil made the waves look like they were rolling in from an ocean of Coca-Cola. A stop to see my lighthouse, and my grocery store, at Neils Harbour.… Read more…

With the weather cleared up, it was time to head for the famed Cabot Trail. Which isn’t actually a trail, it’s a regular paved road that forms a loop, much of it within Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We’d be doing the route counter-clockwise. There was no rain in the morning, nor none overnight, so… Read more…

We were expecting morning rain, but not as early in the morning as the rain came. Luckily there was a dry window for breakfast and packing up the tent, and it certainly helped to have the van available. The open rear doors gave a sort-of-dry surface for staging, and Rett sat in her dry seat… Read more…

Bikes strapped to the rails, panniers strewn haphazardly across the floor, we took off in our U-Haul van for Cape Breton. The miles on the 103, 102, and 104 passed not with the clarity of bicycle speed, but with the hilly, endless, evergreen forest melded into an impressionist blur. We crossed the short Canso Causeway… Read more…