My planned route for today, but I go wrong!
I woke up itching. When I got out of my sleeping bag, I saw the reason why. The undershirt I had on yesterday incorporates a mesh strip along the main seams to help with the ventilation. The blackfly of which the Park Ranger had warned, were small enough to penetrate this mesh, and I had a band of minute bites up my arms and down my sides. The North American blackfly are like tiny vampire houseflies and their bites individually are not much, but when their individual attacks add up it can be very painful as this photo from the Internet shows. After washing, I sprayed Deet along the mesh seams of my shirt and rubbed insect repellent cream on my face and hands.
Not my leg, but my arms had a band of these
going up them and they itched like crazy.
Coffee and pancakes with maple syrup is a must for breakfast, half inch thick pancakes though not those effeminate french frappes. Today I'm heading further north to Breton Island and the Cabot Trail.
To get there I head west towards Port Hawkesbury which is approached via a long strip of road called the Canso Causeway that leads into Port Hastings. As it is the main road onto Breton Island it is always busy. The road leads up to a roundabout and I knew the road I wanted branched off from it but managed to take the wrong one; bearing in mind that it was not a proper roundabout, more a curved cross roads, and it goes anti-clockwise.
Where I went wrong.
I was still heading north though and after a few minutes thought to myself that by now the road should be heading west. Never one for making u-turns, I continued along figuring that a westerly road would turn up soon. This is a dangerous assumption to make, as I began to realise with more experience of the Americas, particularly Canada, but I had my moments in Mexico too. Some of the roads are logging roads in Canada and can travel hundreds of miles to end up nowhere in particular. However twenty or thirty miles down the road a reasonable side road appeared and I was now heading west. About an hour later I was on the road I wanted and the sea was just where I had thought it should be.
Community of Cap le Moine on the Cabot Trail, NW Nova Scotia
The Cabot Trail is very pretty as it follows the coast road that winds up, down and around the mountains there. The lay byes were big and generous and allowed some nice photos to be had of the coast line. The map I had on my laptop from 'smellybiker' indicated that there were several campsites ahead and I thought I knew which one to go for. As I approached it though I could see it had several camper vans parked and decided to go on to the next one. Here too were camper vans, so keep going. All along here is national park, so I knew that there were several alternative sites.
Along the Cabot Trail
As the road turned east between the mountains at the top of Breton Island I began to think of turning back, but there was one campground up here with minimal facilities that might suit me. It turned out to be perfect, so perfect I stayed on an extra day. There were 'facilities' and a stream running by that was 4 or 5 feet deep in places, deep enough to plunge into for a wash. The great added bonus for me was that there was no one else camping there, and all I had to do was fill in a form and put my money in a envelope then post it into the box provided. A Park Ranger arrived later and emptied the box and someone turned up to check the 'facilities'. Interestingly, because there was no water on tap here, an alcohol gel dispenser was available to wash your hands with. I noticed this in several out of the way spots and the toilets were always clean and never smelly. I wish we could say the same for our own public toilets in Britain. Having pitched my tent and sorted myself out I headed back the way I had come to buy a few things for tonight's meal at one of the bigger campsites that I noticed had a shop.
Big Intervale Campground
Camped amongst idyllic settings.
The hut on the site was a little communal cookhouse with a wood stove and trestle tables. But as I was here on my own I just used my little stove round the back of my tent.
Miles covered so far = 345mls
Tomorrow. A lazy day
Miles covered so far = 345mls
Tomorrow. A lazy day
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