Our Travels
Travelling the beautiful roads of Cape Breton left these ‘leaf-peepers’ in awe
When my friend Karen messaged me and told me that she and her mom, Anita, were coming to visit me in Nova Scotia, I excitedly replied, “It’s the Celtic Colours! We will have to go around the Cabot Trail!” Karen, who is from Alberta, had no idea what Celtic Colours was, and she later told me that she and Anita thought that the Cabot Trail was a walking trail. No wonder they didn’t seem as enthusiastic as I was—until I told them that Celtic Colours is actually a fantastic nineday festival in the Highlands of Cape Breton Island, when all the beautiful colours of the maple trees are at their peak, and that the Cabot Trail is a 298-kilometre scenic roadway that wraps around the northern part of the island.
As it turned out, the three of us began our two-day excursion on October 14, 2018, a day after the end of the festival, but the
leaves were still glorious! We headed out from New Glasgow, N.S., and drove east for more than two hours. My visitors are very active and told me they wanted to go hiking on both days. We stopped at the Uisge Bàn Falls hiking trail in Baddeck, N.S., that afternoon. It was not a very long hike, and when we reached the end, we were surprised at the intensity of the 16-metre waterfall. There had been a great deal of rain a few days prior, so there was a lot of water cascading over the rocks.
As we continued to drive along the Cabot Trail, spotting a myriad of brightly coloured leaves on the maple trees, Anita kept saying, “Oh, how pretty!” or “Wow, how beautiful!” and noted how rare it would be to see similar sights during the fall in Alberta. Sitting in the back seat—my choice, because I wanted them to have the best view—i just smiled to myself and said, “You just wait. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
The beds at our Millbrook cottage were very comfortable and I awoke with a start early the next morning when I heard Karen exclaim, “Mom, wake up! You have to see this!” I jumped out of bed and joined them in the living room, where we were treated to the most magnificent shades of orange and red leaves blended in with green pines, misty clouds forming around the mountains and the sun just coming up over the water from the east. It was a true beauty to witness first thing in the morning.
Later, the plan for the day was to hike Skyline Trail at Cape Breton Highlands Park. When we got to the parking lot, there were more than 40 cars there. The trail was already so busy because it had been closed for a week, due to an aggressive moose.
The trail was a fairly easy walk through the woods. At the end of the four-kilometre hike, we were met with the most spectacular view of an endless horizon seen from the top of the steps leading down to the ocean.
On our way back to the car, we met a couple who told us there was a female moose right on the trail up ahead of us. They said there were a lot of people crowding around her, even though we were
warned by park authorities not to go near or make eye contact with any moose we came across. It was a while before we met anyone else on the trail, but eventually another couple came along and told us the moose was still there, but was now a little off the trail.
We were getting tired from the hike, but I got a rush of adrenalin when we spotted the moose. I gave her a wide berth, but still was able to take three quick snaps of her. My hope of not encountering a moose rapidly changed to gratefulness that I did get to see this majestic animal.
Our last stop was at the beach in Inverness. I told the girls that we had to experience putting our feet in the Atlantic Ocean. Although there were others walking along the white sandy beach, watching the extremely large waves, we were the only ones wading our bare feet in the cool water. It was getting dark as we enjoyed watching the sunset going down over the water.
The rest of the drive home to my house was in the dark. On the way, the three of us reminisced about our trip. I asked the girls what their favourite part had been and they unanimously agreed it was the beautiful orange and red leaves they saw during the drive up Smokey Mountain along the Cabot Trail—a view they had never seen before and one we in the Maritimes take for granted. Pictures don’t do justice to the beauty of the surrounding mountains and valleys, and the amazing colours. The sights are simply overwhelming. It’s an experience and, trust me, you won’t really know the feeling unless you go there.