Roadside Chronicles: Life On The Road: Day 6: Cheticamp to Neil’s Harbor

May 25, 2013

Looking back at Cabot Trail

Spent part of morning in Cheticamp doing some errands (yes we hit the bakery/Boulangerie)…and getting a bolt for the muffler (bouncing around not good). It was raining pretty hard so we decided to drive to our hiking area instead of doing nothing. The Cabot Trail is very picturesque even in the rain…not ideal conditions to drive in the rain and fog! I am not a big fan of “exposure” so we drove it in a clockwise route which put me further from the
drop off...greatttttttt! Okay!

More of Cabot Trail looking down Pleasant Bay

We come to a red light…what is a traffic light doing on the Cabot trail you ask?

Construction and the lady in the Visitor center in Cheticamp didn’t mention it. Welllllllllll, we get to the construction area. The southbound lane (next to the drop off or side closest to the guard rail) apparently had winter difficulties and it was gone, pfffft, gone…in its place while they are constructing a new lane out of nothing is a cement divider meant to keep us from dropping off the side of the mountain. Sweat city!!!

Nova Scotia has some nice colored rocks:)

Couldn’t drive past fast enough. Kept telling David to just gun it! We met a tractor trailer coming the other way later on and I was really wondering why he was even up there! The section before Pleasant Bay had some pretty serious switchbacks and 12% grade over a long distance (thanks whomever warned me of that so I could let hubby know he had better listen to the signs this time!). At this point, I only thought there was ONE steep grade section with switchbacks....

Pleasant Bay where we spent a pleasant afternoon

Did I mention there was hardly a sole on the Cabot Trail? We spent some time in Pleasant Bay walking the beach and relaxing (after that drive I needed it). It seemed that MANY people came down this road to the bay and it seemed they came down to check us out…no real reason but far too many cars were coming down and leaving….hahah!

Harbor at Pleasant Bay

So after Pleasant Bay (which was very pleasant) off we went in search of a place to make dinner and overnight. WELL...I immediately realized there was another steep section... if the 12% grade was bad the next section was a white knuckler (for me not David) at 13% over a 4km period…first going up and then going down. The going down part was the hardest for me to deal with as you can see the road and see it turning and I am hoping those breaks are as good as David says they are.

Just us...

We are in first gear. Going up the Chevy engine was beginning to heat up. I was REALLY happy when we hit rolling hills again. That said, What a ruggedly beautiful land Nova Scotia is…along with New Brunswick (that is my list so far). This is what we learned from a conversation with a friendly Acadian man in Cheticamp. Acadian French is not at all similar to French or Quebec French. Acadians cannot understand Quebec for the most part.

Harborside

Acadian has many English words in it…which we noticed when we went into the bakery and some women were chatting. Acadians are friendly people. He pointed out what we had noticed…they are METICULOUS with the care of their property. AND we found out the reasons why their yards are so neat (no junk)…apparently the area has some really high winds at times (I thought the 50mph gust of yesterday were bad…over 100 mph can happen) and things cannot be laying around the yard to fly around.

Neil's Harbor/Lobster holding tubs

Their yards are also well manicured. The roads are another story. We also learned that the lobster/crab fisherman are not fishing right now because the BUYER won’t give them a decent price. Tim Horton’s is a place to gossip. That is what we learned:) In our travels today, we missed the turn off for Dingwall (a road run/race was going on and I saw more people in a couple of miles than I have since I left home we were not sure where they all came from!) so we decided to carry on.

Neil's Harbor...again just us!

Stopped in Neil’s Harbor for Chowder but they were closed (probably not yet open) but talked with a fishing family and they pointed us at a potential place to overnight. I am not going to say where it is in the park and we weren’t supposed to overnight there but we were told at this time of year they aren’t policing the park that well.