We finished our chores by early afternoon and decided to reposition ourselves to be ready for starting the next day on the Cabot Trail. We went to Baddeck, NS which is the start of the Cabot Trail and home, by chance, to the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. Bell was Scottish by birth but lived in Baddeck in Cape Breton. I knew about his work with the telephone but was unaware of the extent of his other accomplishments. He worked with Marconi on early radio, sound recording and playback, metal detectors, airplanes, and hydrofoil water craft, and other things I was unaware of. They have the restored hydrofoil craft that set water speed records in the early 1900's and a full size early airplane. Cool stop.
We bumped into acquaintances we had met in Newfoundland, then headed up to St Ann's where we found a lakeside camping spot. We parked up and had supper. We heard some bald eagles screeching, two of them that flew over then were perched across the lake. One of them swooped down and plucked a fish from the lake which was an amazing thing to witness. The skies were clearing and the night was warmer. We slept well back in our own bed (after a couple of months the van has become home).
Come morning we started on the Cabot Trail. The early part of the trail is somewhat routine until we got to Wreck Cove area and the. Cape Breton National Park. There were some steep areas with views up and down the coast and pullouts in the park for some coast access where we could watch waves and walk Pete on the beach.
We pulled off the Trail into Neil's Harbour then followed the coastal road all the way up to Meat Cove where we took a campsite for the night. We are once again perched on a windy cliff with amazing views. The selling point are the hot showers!
We did a short hike to a lookout that looks back on our campsite; the winds up there made Pete edgy and made me feel unsteady on the cliffs so common sense kicked in and we retreated from the cliff trail and returned to the van for seafood chowder. The winds have died down and we are having a great evening doing the blog and wave watching (no whales... yet).