June 19 – 21, 2017: St John, Newfoundland to Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia

We left Pippy Park Campground at 10:40 AM NT on Monday, June 19.  We were taking a ferry from Newfoundland back to Nova Scotia, but the ferry wouldn’t leave port until 5:00 PM NT.  Even though we had an hour and a half drive to get to Argentia, Newfoundland, we didn’t need to hurry packing up and all.  It was kind of nice enjoying our coffee before moving on to the next place.  The drive to Argentia was uneventful.  We had a few hours wait to load the ferry, and as we were waiting, it started to get foggy, windy, and it rained a little.  In fact, it got really foggy.  We weren’t sure how the fog would affect our travel plans, but in reality, it didn’t affect anything at all except the view.

Since the trip would take about 16 hours and we would be traveling overnight, we did get a room so we could get a good night’s sleep.  We drove the truck/RV on to the ferry, got whatever articles (clothes, laptops, etc) we wanted for the trip and walked up to the deck where our room was located. We wouldn’t be able to return to the truck until instructed to do so to disembark.

Nice and cozy, isn’t it? Even though there are four berths in this room, we didn’t have to share the room with anyone else. All we could see looking out that window was fog, fog, and more fog.

We really enjoyed this trip.  After getting settled, we walked around the decks a little and then ate dinner in one of the ferry’s restaurants.  We talked with the pediatric surgeon again that we met on the ferry ride over to Newfoundland and again at the Coffee House by Witless Bay when looking for icebergs.  He was thinking it might be time to start the trip home.  We were thinking it was time to go to bed even though it was early in the evening.  The room was comfortable and we soon fell asleep to the sound of the fog horn blowing every 90 seconds.  The horn wasn’t loud and certainly didn’t prevent us from sleeping soundly.  We did wake up early the next morning.  After a nice hot shower, we strolled down to the lounge and enjoyed a cup of hot coffee.  It was relaxing, but we still couldn’t see anything because of the fog.  Apparently, it had been foggy the entire trip.  The restaurant opened up for breakfast around 7:00 AM and after nourishing ourselves, we went back to the lounge to wait for the ferry to dock.  About 45 minutes from port, we noticed that the sky was clearing and quickly, too.  In no time at all, it was almost completely sunny.

Certainly not a flattering picture of me. Although it was nice to see the sun, it was windy out on deck. And, I believe the condensation on the ferry caused by the fog was hitting me in the face.

The ferry arrived at North Sydney, Nova Scotia and we disembarked at 8:45 AM ADT on Tuesday, June 20.  We had about a three hour to drive to Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia, arriving at the campground at 12 noon ADT. Cape Breton Highlands National Park is located on Cape Breton Island, which is the northern most point of Nova Scotia.  Cape Breton Island is separated from the rest of Nova Scotia by the Strait of Canso, a long, thin, deep channel of water connecting the Atlantic Ocean to St George’s Bay, a sub basin of the Gulf of St Lawrence.  As we first entered Cape Breton Island, we noticed road signs written in Gaelic and English.  As we found out, Nova Scotia, and in particular Cape Breton Island, was predominantly settled by Gaelic-speaking Scottish settlers in the early to mid 1800’s.  We even drove past Colaisde na Gàidhlig/The Gaelic College.  It’s too bad I didn’t take a photo of one of those signs written in the Gaelic language.

The road to the park is the Cabot Trail, a well-known scenic highway around Cape Breton Island.  The views were indeed scenic, but the road was narrow and very windy.  The travel trailer managed this road without any problems, but we were glad we weren’t pulling the fifth-wheel.

As I mentioned, we arrived at Broad Cove Campground in Cape Breton Highlands National Park at 12 noon and set up camp in site 77.  This was a very good campground that had hiking trails and was close to the water,

This is site 77 at Broad Cove Campground. The campground is very nice with level pull-through sites and clean restrooms.

One of the campground’s hiking trails took us down to the Atlantic Ocean.

Not too surprisingly named, this is Broad Cove Beach and it looks out on the ocean.

The walk down to the beach wasn’t as far or as steep as we feared and when we arrived, we were treated to a very nice view.

On the beach, a sandbar separated the ocean from a tidal basin of sorts. The ocean is to the right of the sandbar.

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Looking further to the left of the sandbar, the tidal basin opened up to a larger body of water.

Had we been so inclined, we could have gone swimming here at the beach.  However, the water wasn’t warm enough for that, so looking and walking was the order of the day.  We did drive along the Cabot Trail and found a roadside cafe, called the Chowder House, that served seafood at Neils Harbour, Nova Scotia.  We sat inside the cafe because it was raining a bit and very windy.  However, there were picnic tables overlooking the ocean and eating there would have been nice.

We did a little more hiking on Wednesday, June 21.  The trail was close to the campground, not very long, and took us to a waterfall.

This isn’t the largest waterfall we’ve encountered in our travels, but waterfalls are nice to see nevertheless.

It felt good to hike and it made us hungry and thirsty.  We had driven passed a restaurant near Ingonish, Nova Scotia, on our way to the campground on Tuesday that served craft beers.  The place was called Coastal Waters Restaurant and it seemed like the place to go.  We really enjoyed both the beer and food and would recommend this place if anyone travels to this location.

We would continue our travels on Thursday, following the Cabot Trail around the rest of Cape Breton Island on our way to Prince Edward Island.  The time spent here at Broad Cove Campground was very relaxing and the weather was great, so no complaints.