Day 15 -- to Cheticamp, NS

Our original plan was to spend two nights at the Broad Cove Campground, near Ingonish, on the east side of Cape Breton Highlands National Park. When I made the plans, I thought maybe we could do the Cabot Drive around the park and come back to camp for the second night. But we came to realize that driving the whole circuit in one day just isn't practical, because it takes so long on the narrow roads that wind up, down and around the mountains high above the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It's a stunning drive, and one that we wouldn't want to cram into one day.

So, we changed our plans at the very last minute and had our second night's reservation transferred to the Cheticamp campground on the west side of the national park. The only down-side was that we had to pack up again this morning. But on the bright side, we had all day to meander along about 50 miles of the Cabot Trail, north from Ingonish, around the north side of the island, and then down the western side to Cheticamp.

The relaxed pace today was heavenly. We had time to browse through Celtic souvenir shops


and to stop at a wayside rest for a picnic lunch and a romp on the playground. We took a rocky trail alongside McIntosh Brook through a mossy, fern-covered ravine to McIntosh Falls, which Natalie pronounced her favorite falls of the trip, even trumping Niagara, probably only because she was able to plunge her feet into the water.


And, perhaps the most spectacular activity of the day was a whale-watching excursion that took us out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence from Pleasant Bay, on the northwest corner of the Cape Breton, on a Zodiac raft. After about 30 minutes of cruising up and down the coast and really riding the waves (Natalie, Charlie and Clare had death-grips on the side rails for fear of getting bounced right out of the boat),


we came upon a pod of about 25 or 30 pilot whales and watched in awe as the creatures, which grow to about 20 feet long, surfaced right next to us -- some within an arm's length of the side of the boat. We circled the spot for about 45 minutes, watching the whales dive and rise, dive and rise. What am amazing experience. As two or three of the whales came within feet of where she was sitting in the boat Natalie joyfully announced, "I've been waiting for this all my life!"


Funny thing -- we were joined on the whale-watching tour by another family that I recognized from the Shubie Campground back in Halifax, where we stayed three days ago. They had been in the campsite right across from us. They are from Toronto, and are touring Cape Breton Island before heading on to Prince Edward Island, just like we are. Maybe we'll run into them again.

Back on land, we drove the rest of the way to Cheticamp on the Cabot Trail, teetering along high above the St. Lawrence gulf on roads that slice across the steep mountains. With each turn, the road opened up into sweeping vistas of mountains and sea.



Tonight, we are wedged into a tiny site in this wooded -- and very buggy -- national park campground. The ranger boasted that this is the quiet campground, at least compared to where we were last night. That remains to be seen, as we are growing weary of our giggly neighbors and sounds from the party crowd down the way.

It's Day 15. We have eight more to go. We have camped 11 nights in 9 different campgrounds. Keith and I are both getting a little weary, and are starting to look forward to the comforts of home - a hot bath, our own bed, a clean bathroom, and the opportunity to get dressed without standing in a puddle of someone else's dirty shower water, performing the awkward flamingo-like balancing act of holding up one pant leg and trying to step into the other without getting them both wet.

Plus, giggly couple next-door have a Chocolate Lab with them, and watching that pup makes us miss Ruby tons.