Day10: Monday June 25
Copyright(c) 2007, Jim Beachy
Heavy storms have moved through the Port Hawkesbury area throughout the night, but this morning arrives as another spectacular, clear day with a cool morning temperature of 65 F (about 18 C). I’m trying to get the hang of this metric system. I now know that 12C makes for a pretty brisk morning ride. Also, 18 C is a little warmer than 12 C. For the first few days, I thought those yellow “safe speed” road signs were a bit optimistic. 70 seemed a little fast for some of those corners. Then I realized they were speeds of 70 kilometers per hour, not miles per hour. No, just kidding, but it still startles me a bit from time to time to be leaning into a fairly sharp corner and seeing “60” as the recommended safe speed.
We eat breakfast in the inn’s restaurant and talk to a couple from Illinois whose new bike had a fatal oil pump problem that blew up the engine just before crossing into Canada, so they left the bike in Maine for warranty repair and rented a car (in Canada) for the rest of their planned trip to Newfoundland and then on to Labrador. I can’t help myself: It’s a Harley-Davidson. But it can happen to any bike, and tomorrow it could be me. I applaud them for making the best of it and continuing their trip even though it hurts each time they see a bike on the road.
Even though the bike and trailer were covered during the night’s storms, the seams of the covers aren’t waterproof so there’s always a little remedial drying that has to be done after a night spent sitting in the rain. So after wiping down the sleek black surfaces with soft absorbent towels we always carry in the trailer, we strike off for our Bras d’Or Scenic Drive adventure.
From Port Hastings we take Rt. 105 to Whycocomagh, where we find a secondary road — make that an extremely secondary road — that leads us through Orangedale and West Bay around the perimeter of Lake Bras d’Or. I’m a little suspicious the first time British Emily Version 1.40 says in her matter-of-fact voice, “Drive 3.6 kilometers, then turn right on unpaved road.” Could this really be the Bras d’Or Lake Scenic Drive as scoped out in the Doers’ and Dreamers’ Guide? At one point I even stop and dig out the book to make sure I built the correct GPS route, and it is exactly on target. We turn right at the appointed time and the road seems Ok, with pavement as normal, albeit pretty rough. After about 10 kilometers, we find Emily to have been prescient: The pavement abruptly ends and I have a decision to make. Following the night’s rains, it’s not dusty, and the graveled surface is relatively smooth, plus it’s a very long way back out the way we came. So I decide to press on. This seems like a good decision until we reach a construction area complete with flagmen and a very large orange “Detour” sign. I stop to talk to the flagman and he just wants me to move along, pointing to his sign that says “Slow,” not “Stop.” I finally get him to listen to me and he says the detour is Ok for motorcycles and that pavement will resume in “a short distance.” I can’t even bear to ask what “a short distance” means. We squiggle and fishtail uncomfortably through the muddy construction detour, which fortunately is very short, and after about 5 more kilometers, pavement does in fact reappear.
With all due respect to Her Majesty, I find that Her Majesty’s maps aren’t quite the equivalent I’m used to seeing in the USA. There are a number of road errors on these secondary roads where we find ourselves on a bridge where dry land is indicated, or we might find ourselves driving miraculously across a large GPS-indicated lake when in fact there’s no water within a kilometer. When I search for fuel, the GPS has been listing the closest fuel in Maine, hundreds of kilometers distant. But with all that, the road detail is reasonably accurate and eventually we navigate around the lake to St. Peter’s where we catch Rt. 4 toward the northeast. Now this turns out to be a very nice road, although a bit rough in spots. “You’ll know when you’re getting near Rita MacNeil’s Tea House,” says a woman in a gas station, “because the pavement there will be really good.” She is exactly right! And so we navigate a lovely stretch of highway that mostly keeps the lake in view to the left, and there are some spectacular vistas as we sweep toward Sydney. We do not stop at Rita’s, apologies to Paul Fenton’s (of WOTI) wife, who is a cousin of Rita’s.
Other than Rt. 4, the roads we’ve traveled have been mostly tree-lined with only occasional views of the lake, and a local resident tells us there’s only more of the same for the route we’ve scoped out, so on the spur of the moment we abandon our route and ride 30 minutes or so to the Louisbourg Fortress. And again on the spur of the moment, we decide not to take the bus and spend the hours we’d need to see the fort, deciding instead to ride back to an interesting-looking peninsula I’d seen on the GPS, just west of North Sydney.
But first we book a room in North Sydney, then wander off to a GPS-improvised route west of North Sydney, just south of Rt. 105, on a little peninsula that I guess is called Boularderie, based on the number of towns with that word in their name. “There appears to be little hope of getting off this thing without hitting an unpaved road,” Kitty suggests helpfully in my headset. “Well,” I respond, “I’d never do this without the GPS. I think we can cross the peninsula on paved road and get of here Ok.” Her Majesty’s maps are indeed good enough, and we surely do escape on paved roads. And as a bonus, we find several picturesque churches on the west shores that offer fine photographic opportunities.
After making our way back to the hotel and walking down the hill to eat at Rollie’s Wharf, we power-walk among the piers, walking to the end of a number of piers designed to berth ocean-going vessels that come into port. We see hordes of white jellyfish and some vicious-looking red ones with long trailing tentacles, the likes of which I’ve never seen before, so I ask a guy who’s fishing from the end of a pier. “Yeah, those red ones are jellyfish too. They’re poisonous. We call them ‘bloodsuckers.’ They really don’t suck blood but they leave nasty red welts if they touch you. The white ones won’t harm you.”
We walk past the huge pier where the Newfoundland ferry will dock later this evening. I’m not sure about the schedule, but as of now there are about 40 trucks and the same number of other vehicles already lined up in the parking lot for the next ferry to Newfoundland. Hmmm — now there’s a destination to consider for our next visit to Nova Scotia!
Today we’ve traveled 389 km, for a total of 3,760 km. Ok, for the conversion-impaired, that’s about 241 miles for the day, 2,281 miles total. Tomorrow morning we are set to take a boat tour to the Bird Islands. I’ve always been a would-be ornithologist and I’ve always wanted to see Atlantic Puffins. This will bring about a probable change of plans: Stay one extra day along the Cabot Trail, and trade one day’s riding for a 75-minute ferry ride from Caribou, NS to Wood Islands, PEI.
Well, I’ve enjoyed one more day of high speed Internet access. After we set out on the Cabot Trail tomorrow, I don’t know what to expect. If we disappear for several days, just talk amongst yourselves until we surface again. We’ll be back.
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