August 2026 – Page 2 – Meanderings & Mind Munchies

Whale Cove

Greg decided that today we would drive to Inverness. Along the way, we stopped at Whale Cove to take some photos.

As Greg was taking photos, one of the local residents walked by and struck up a conversation. She told him that if he wanted an even better view of the cove, there was a gravel road just around the bend that led to a cemetery. Although the cemetery was private, the owners didn’t mind visitors.

So off we went to check it out. (If you look at the bluff in the first photo above, that’s where we were headed.)

Inverness

The town of Inverness was bustling with locals and tourists. We headed to the beach to use the facilities and have a look around.

The Dancing Goat

Then we headed to The Dancing Goat for lunch. This restaurant had been recommended to us when we were staying back in Baddeck, so we wanted to try it out.

The restaurant was very different from what I expected. It was a little like a Starbucks if Starbucks also offered sandwiches.

On the way back to Chéticamp, we stopped for more photos.

It was a very windy day. The waves were crashing into the shore.

Impressions of Cape Breton

I thought I would share a couple of my impressions about Cape Breton for any readers who might want to visit here someday.

The roads aren’t great. It can be quite a bumpy ride, particularly when towing.
Parking is a hassle. There are few if any public parking lots. Most parking is on the street, and the roads are narrow, particularly for trucks.
Cape Breton and PEI have a very small town, summer vacationer feel to them. At least at this time of year, tourists seem to outnumber the locals. Despite that, the two islands don’t feel touristy in the way that the Jersey Shore does.
When we were staying in Baddeck, all of the road signs were in Gaelic and English. Now that we’re in Chéticamp, all of the signs are in French and English. Also, many of the signs in museums and parks include the Mi’kmaq language.
French seems to be the primary language. Most residents are bilingual, and most of the tourists seem to be French-speaking Canadians. Whenever a park worker or store clerk greets us, they say, “Bonjour. Hello.” I gather that, based on how we respond, they know which language to continue in.
People are incredibly helpful and nice.

Les Trois Pignons

Our whale watching trip for today was canceled due to high winds, so we had the entire day free to explore.

We decided to drive up the Cabot Trail along the route that we had chosen not to take with the camper.

But first, we stopped at Les Trois Pignons, which means The Three Gables in French. It was a cute little museum describing the history of the Acadians who settled in Chéticamp.

The museum featured a large exhibit of hooked rugs and placards explaining the history of making hooked rugs. It was surprisingly interesting, considering that I have never found hooked rugs to be particularly attractive.

All of the framed pictures on the walls are actually hooked rugs.

The women who made these started by taking the raw sheeps wool, carding it, turning it into yarn, dying it with all the colors that they planned to use (in one instance, 29 shades of brown!), and then hooking the rug based on a design that they had drawn onto canvas.

Believe it or not, this is a hooked rug! It is about 6 ft x 10 ft.

With a new appreciation for the ingenuity of the early Acadian settlers, we headed off to check out more of the Cabot Trail.

Cabot Trail to Pleasant Bay

Here are some of the photos from our drive. It was a very hazy, humid day.

This is the only photo that really shows it, but it was so hazy that the Atlantic Ocean blended into the sky at the horizon line.

Bog Trail

One of the park rangers noticed me taking photos of the wildflowers, and she suggested that I check out the Bog Trail if I wanted to see even more wildflowers.

Sadly, the only wildflowers we saw on the trail were pitcher plants, bog cotton, and white-fringed bog orchids. However, we did get to see this shy fellow.

His croaking led us to his location, but he was still difficult to find.

The Whale Interpretive Museum

Once in Pleasant Bay, we toured the Whale Interpretive Museum.

I’m not generally a museum person because I experience information overload, but this museum was small enough to get through in about an hour and very interesting.

Seafood Stop Restaurant

Yes, that’s really the name of the restaurant. The folks who own our campground recommended it, and we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to eat more lobster.

Once again, I dug in before remembering to take a photo.

Greg and I both had the lobster cold plate, which included cold lobster pieces, potato salad, cole slaw, pasta salad, a roll, and melted butter for the lobster. Yum!

Wild flowers

Since the rest of this post has no associated pictures to go with the narrative, I thought I would take the opportunity to post some pictures of all of the lovely wildflowers we have been seeing while in Canada. Honestly, even the dandelions are prettier here.

(I Googled the names of the flowers, so there are probably errors.)

Yes, I know I included two photos of wild roses, but they are so beautiful, and they were growing everywhere.

Wind!

The woman who owns the campground where we are currently staying warned us when we arrived that the following 24 hours were going to be windy, and boy, was she right!

As we sat in the camper our first night, the wind was so strong that the camper was rocking. At one point, the wind lifted our large mat up outside and knocked over the grill. Apparently, winds as high as 150 km/hour are not uncommon here.

Canadian health care

Yesterday was another travel day. Greg decided to drive all the way back to Baddeck and then across the island to our new location near Chéticamp rather than go west on the Cabot Trail through the mountains. It cost us another hour on the road, but it was safer and less stressful.

I could tell when I woke up in the morning that something was going on with my bladder. By the time we arrived at our campground outside of Chéticamp, I knew I had a UTI.

So when we woke up today, we headed to the local urgent care center. It cost us $125 to see the doctor, and we had to pay in cash. Then we waited. This urgent care center also takes appointments, and it was clear that appointments took precedence. We waited about an hour and a half to see the doctor.

He confirmed that I did, indeed, have an infection and prescribed an antibiotic.

Since it would take a little while for the antibiotic to be ready, we decided that it was a perfect excuse to go out to lunch at Le Gabriel in Chéticamp. It had been recommended to us by Lisa, the woman who owns our campground. I thought the food was decent, but nothing special.

The rest of the day was spent doing laundry. Very exciting.

Middle Head Trail

Oh, my gosh! It’s the sun!

We woke up to a beautiful day. Greg had decided that today we would hike the Middle Head Trail, which starts just past the Keltic Lodge off the Cabot Trail.

If I had only known what I was getting myself in for, I may have refused to go. After walking three miles the day before, my body was not prepared to walk four miles today. I can always tell when I’ve pushed my body too hard. I get weepy and start grinding my teeth. By the end of the day, I was there.

I love the way wildflowers grow alongside the trails.

This photo was taken at the headland. I have other photos, but I’m not particularly impressed by them. It’s impossible to provide a true sense of perspective in a photo.

The photo below is of a Zodiac boat doing some whale watching. We actually did get to see some pilot whales as we were hiking the trail.

I was completely wiped and ready to go back to the camper by the time we finished the hike, but Greg had one more place he wanted to go.

He had read about the Lone Shieling Trail, which was a short hike through a protected old wood forest.

But first we had to get there. Yikes! Between the hairpin turns and the 8% grades, I was terrified. Greg told me that this was the route we would take with the trailer in the morning. I may have had a teeny weenie meltdown at that point.

It was a beautiful drive through the mountains, but I did not particularly relish the idea of dragging 8,000 lb of trailer with us the next day. (Luckily for me, Greg told me later that day that he had looked at a terrain version of the map, which showed quite a few sharp ups and downs that we would have to drive. That revelation was enough to convince him to take a different route to our next destination. About an hour longer, but far less nerve-wracking. Yay!)

The hike through the old wood forest was lovely, but buggy.

After the hike, I told Greg that he owed me some ice cream for putting my nerves through that driving experience.

We tried eating our ice cream outside, but the bugs were relentless. On the drive back to the campground, we were smashing gnats and mosquitoes against the windshield and windows the entire way.

Cabot Trail

First, this is a photo taken from our campground. We are perched on top of a cliff.

We are currently at the northern end of Cape Breton. I feel as if the clouds tend to sit on top of the mountains here, which makes things very foggy and misty.

This was the scene during part of our drive this morning. It was even worse yesterday when we were pulling the camper. Greg’s nerves were completely shot by the time we arrived at the campground.

Since the weather forecast was for rain in the afternoon, we got going early in the morning to take advantage of the drier conditions. It was still dreary, but at least it wasn’t wet.

Greg had picked out some trails for us to hike along the Cabot Trail. But first we took a detour down the coastal road, driving through tiny Neil’s Harbour and stopping to take a photo of the lighthouse.

The lighthouse was unattractive, so I’m not posting a picture of it.

We stopped at this pretty little pond (below) in order to use the porta potties.

Then we stopped at Jack Pine to hike the trails.

I love the way the Canadian parks situate these chairs at scenic overlooks

Some photos of the hike.

If you look closely, you can see a couple sitting on the rocks.

Then we stopped at the beach to take a picture.

Next we stopped at Green Cove, where we got to see some seals hanging out by the rocks. I’m not going to post a picture of the seals because all you would see is a black dot on the water. But here are some photos of the cove itself.

Those small rocks in the water off to the right are where the seals were hanging out.

At this point we headed back to the camper for a late lunch and a rest.

Baile Nan Gàidheal

I apologize to my Scottish Gaelic speakers for mangling the spelling of the above heading, but I’m not sure how to find Gaelic letters on my phone.

Anyway, today we visited a Scottish living history museum. The Scots were the first Europeans to settle in Cape Breton. They were pushed out of their native Highlands by the British, who imposed high rents and took over their land for sheep farming.

The Scots brought their Gaelic language and culture to Cape Breton, and it has thrived here ever since.

The living history museum sits high on a hill overlooking Bra D’Or Lake.

The building with the grassy roof represents the kind of home that the Scottish would have lived in in Scotland in the late 1700s. As you can see, there were also folks dressed up in period costumes.

The log cabin was the first type of house that the Scots built after arriving on Cape Breton. They were primarily farmers, growing many of the same crops that they had grown in Scotland, such as potatoes.

As time went on, they were able to build a more substantial home.

It seems like every house had a loom on the second floor for weaving. Even the men helped when it came time to soften the wool. They soaked it in urine, sat at a table, and sang Gaelic songs while pounding the wool cloth rhythmically on the table.

The school house. This must have been after the government required them to teach English in the schools. Speaking Gaelic was frowned upon by then.

Malagawatch Church, built in 1874. Most of the Scots were either Catholic or Presbyterian. This was a Presbyterian church.

Here is where they did the wool carding.

The ferry…again!

We took another ferry back to the Cabot Trail. This time we were first in line.

Neither of us had noticed the guide rope the first time we had done this.

Our view while on the ferry crossing to the other side

Lobster!

After arriving back at the camper, we both took showers. The power had been out when we woke up in the morning, including the water. Greg had to go out and buy coffee for breakfast. Apparently, someone down the road had run into a pole.

After getting cleaned up, we headed off for a much anticipated lobster dinner.

Seriously, you can never have too much lobster.

This lobster dinner reminded me so much of my father when he used to cook lobsters for us at the Jersey Shore. They were so tender and tasted so good with melted butter.

Ceilidh

Apparently, no visit to Cape Breton would be complete without an old-fashioned Scottish ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee).

A ceilidh is an informal social gathering where people dance, sing, and tell stories. Although there was no dancing at the ceilidh that we attended, there was plenty of lively music and storytelling.

Then it was back to the camper for a much-needed rest.