Our computer woes intermittently continue. Between Photoshop not fully working and several additional issues the blog is behind. Today is Tuesday, August 9 and our last day in Nova Scotia. Tonight, shortly before midnight we will board the ferry to Newfoundland remaining there for the next month. Today’s blog will attempt to capture some of what we’ve been up to over the past week.
Starting with a week ago we left the private campground along the coast and moved inland to Whycocomagh Provincial Park overlooking Bras d’Or Lake. We spent a few days exploring Cape Breton Highlands National Park, the Cabot Trail, and the Baddeck area. Additional outings included a supply run to Sydney, the largest community on Cape Breton Island, and a puffin boat tour.
There are two boat tours to Bird Islands where one can observe several sea birds including the Atlantic puffin, the most colorful and majestic of the puffin family. One tour company has been doing boat tours to Bird Islands for 50 years and they are on their third generation of captains. We’ve done this boat tour a few times with the first back in 1982. The second boat tour, the newcomer, is in it’s 27th year. We did this one this time. The tour starts in Bras d’Or Lake near the inlet to the Atlantic. Bird Islands are found about 5 miles out from the inlet. A few observations of how things have changed since our 1982 tour. There are fewer Puffins, but not a hugely smaller number. In 1982 there were no eagles, five years ago there were some eagles, and now we saw well over 20 eagles on the Islands.
Whycocomagh Provincial Park is on a mountainside overlooking Bras d’Or Lake and above the Trans Canada Highway as it heads to the ferry terminal onward to Newfoundland. The sites are spread out and fairly private. We’re towards the top of the park with a view to the lake far below. A heat wave has fallen upon the area with temperatures in the high 80’s. Some of you may be chuckling that the high eighties are a heat wave, yet those temperatures on Cape Breton are rare. Late in the day our site is exposed to the sun with no shade at all except on the other side of our camper. So we park our chairs next to the access road in the camper’s shade and play cribbage. Next thing we hear is somebody saying it is Wells! We look up and walking along the access road are Julie and David Will, who Wells knows from an art gallery in Hamilton where he sold his photographs and they sold their beautiful woodworking. Marsha knows Julie from the Rogers Center. If we had not been on the roadside they never would have spotted us. After a chat we invite them to join us after supper tomorrow evening which they do.
The next morning we are preparing to move to another park and Julie and David show up on their ebikes. Julie was in the park bathroom and found a Rogers Environmental Education Center ball cap and guessed that it had to be Marsha’s. Of course, it was. If Julie had not found it and put two and two together the cap would be long gone. Thanks Julie!
Battery Provincial Park in St. Peters is our next and final campground before we are off to Newfoundland. This is where in the 1800’s a canal was built to connect Bras d’Or Lake with the Atlantic as a safer and shorter route from the south to the north. Again, the Provincial Park is high above the water with views to both the Ocean and Canal.
On Monday, we head to Louisbourg to explore the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site. This is a restored massive fort built in the 1700’s to protect France holdings in North America. It is complete with historical actors yet this is on an entirely larger scale than most historical villages. We have several photos that we’ll attempt to upload here.
Seeing North America 
That “village” looks more like an empire! It must have been fantastic to tour.
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