Together Is the Best Place to Be, Day 11: Cape Smokey

Nova Scotia 2007
Day 11: Tuesday June 26
Copyright(c) 2007, Jim Beachy


As I awaken, I remember that today is my Dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Dad!


For a change, at least according to the locals, the weather forecast is correct. Actually, they don’t call it a weather forecast. They say “They are giving rain,” or “They are giving a good day.” I noticed this habit first when we were talking to Larry Surette minutes after clearing Canadian customs, and it has been consistent. And if it was a nice day yesterday, they say “It gave a nice day yesterday.”
“They are giving lots of rain for today,” says my parking-space neighbor as he admires the bike and trailer. And he is right, and “they” are right. By the time we roll out at just after 8:00 AM, the rain is hard and is steadily increasing. Last evening Kitty had helped me wax the “big surfaces” of the bike and trailer, because I’d cleaned it so often that the wax was mostly gone. I use Dri-Wash ‘n Guard, a waterless finish cleaner. I’ve used it since I’ve had this bike and I’m happy with it. It’s very slick, gives a very hard finish, and is easy to clean between applications by simply wiping gently with a damp cloth and finishing with a polishing cloth. I generally do this every night, and frequently do some touch-up polishing in addition. It takes about 10 minutes unless it’s been in the rain, then all bets are off. But even though I’ll have to do it all over again tonight, I’m glad the finish has a new coat of wax.


Another spur-of-the-moment decision yesterday was to do the Bird Islands Boat tour today, so we had booked a trip for 10:00 AM. I believe it’s about a 25-minute ride from North Sydney, but I don’t know exactly where it is, so we want to allow plenty of time, especially with the rain. We find the place with little difficulty, several kilometers off Hwy 105 Exit 16 or 14. By now, as I back the bike and trailer carefully into place in the graveled parking lot, it is pouring and we quickly cover the bike just to keep the seat dry. Water won’t hurt either the bike or the seat, but once the cloth seat gets wet, the rider and passenger will have a wet butt for many hours until it dries out.

Captain Vince offers us a cup of coffee and we inspect all the puffin stuff, or “puffinalia” as he terms it, in his little reception room. “Don’t even bother going on the Cabot Trail today,” he says. “If it’s raining this hard here, the Cabot Trail will be completely fogged in and you won’t see a thing.” Encouraging words, those! If the weather doesn’t clear, I think we’ll ride to Baddeck, about 40 minutes in the wrong direction, and hang out there for the day, maybe check out the Alexander Graham Bell museum.

Anyway, this two-and-a-half hour boat ride turns out to be one of the highlights (non-riding, of course) of our trip so far. It’s a 40-minute trip just to get to the Bird Islands (actually named Hertford, similar to the name of the cattle that used to be raised there; and Ciboux, obviously named after something French). Captain Vince and his assistant Michelle are very engaging and we learn a lot about the area’s history and geography. “If you don’t see a puffin, your money will be refunded,” he says. “Well, actually, that’s if I don’t see a puffin. I can see ‘em pretty far away!”

But we do see puffins. Hundreds of them. And guillemots and razorbills and several different kinds of gulls. And about half a dozen other species of birds. And seals, both adults and pups, several of which have hauled up on the rocks. I’m watching one of the pups with the binoculars when he appears to look straight at me and raise a lazy flipper in a friendly wave. It’s so uncanny that I can’t help myself and wave back. A bald eagle is being dive-bombed by huge Great Black-backed Gulls, the largest gull species in North America with a wingspan, Captain Vince tells us, of over 90 inches. We see kittiwakes (I tell Kitty it’s a new kind of alarm) and several different kinds of cormorants. We learn that cormorants, which around water are the blackish birds you will often see sitting on rocks or in trees in the sun with their wings spread, actually have hollow quills that fill up with water, thereby reducing their buoyancy and allowing them to dive up to 60 feet. So they often spread their wings to “drain” their quills.

And the puffins, with an estimated population of 450 nesting pairs on these two islands. Most of you, I suppose, have seen pictures of these charming smallish birds that fly underwater. They have a beak similar to a parrot and wings a little like a penguin, to which they are distant cousins. Unlike the cormorant, they have a sac that they can inflate (hence the name “puffin”) to increase buoyancy, but they deflate it to dive, using their stubby little wings to fly underwater. Some stand at the entrance to their homes, which are simply holes in the cliffs, and observe us as we pass. They are probably using their Atlantic Field Guide to Humans to figure out which countries we are all from. Others float on the water. They are pelagic, spending their entire life on the sea except when they nest. They can range up to 2,000 miles from home in their life’s journeys but they always find their way back. Rather like our own journeys, maybe?

Well, this is a motorcycle trip, so I now return you to your regularly scheduled trip report, already in progress. By the time the boat tour is finished, the rain has stopped and the weather to the north, toward the Cabot Trail, has cleared, so we decide to strike out at least as far as Ingonish, on the order of 100 km to the north. Our schedule is considerably more relaxed now that I’ve decided to take the ferry to Prince Edward Island instead of riding a full day through Nova Scotia to reach the Confederation Bridge from Nova Scotia to PEI.

We suit up and ride the long way, joining the Cabot Trail via St. Anne’s rather than taking the ferry at Elizabethtown. I am in a remarkably relaxed mood and just easing northward on the Cabot Trail. The clouds have given way to sunshine and blue sky as we’ve ridden northward. “Well,” I tell Kitty, “It’s easy to tell where Nova Scotia puts their paving dollars: The road to Rita MacNeil’s Teahouse and the Cabot Trail.” Other than on the “big roads,” this road surface is the best we’ve encountered.


Dead ahead is Cape Smokey, a headland that thrusts its unrelenting way through the land mass, not conceding its demise until it terminates in a steep cliff that plunges headlong into the sea. The road has to be built over it instead of around it, and from previous trips I recall the sharp curve at the bottom and then the series of built-for-bikes curves as the road clings tenaciously to the side of the hill as it winds to the top. And suddenly, with no warning, I’m out of my slow-down mode and rocketing through those magnificent turns, grabbing third gear, second gear, any gear at all that keeps my revs above 4,000 rpm. I can feel Kitty’s legs tighten around the seat as I throw the bike from left to right and left to right and back again. I suddenly remember I’m towing a trailer — hey, can I actually do this with a trailer? My Wing is screaming through the curves and… well, time out here… does a Gold Wing actually scream through a curve? A rocket bike revved to the max at 8k, that’s screaming through a curve. But Wing at 5k in second gear? Maybe not so much screaming… whining, maybe? Ok, so my Wing is whining through the curves and I hold a mean clean line on most of them and somehow it seems my bike feels the same exhilaration I do. It likes uphill curves so much better than downhill curves!


When we reach the top and stop at an overlook, I have to fight the overwhelming urge to go back to the bottom and do it again. I am shaking with adrenaline overload. Wow, what a rush! And I suddenly realize that this is why I’ve traveled over 3,600 km, over 2,200 miles, to be on this specific road. I’ve traveled hundreds of thousands of miles on my bikes to be on many roads, but in the back of my mind, ever since Kitty said “Nova Scotia” six months ago, when I thought of the ride for the ride’s sake, it has always been about this road. About this moment. To ride this road in the sunshine on a day when the pavement is cool and the tires are sticky, when faith is strong and the heart is undivided. The Cabot Trail just has to be one of the Top 5 motorcycle roads on the North American continent! I don’t know what the weather holds for tomorrow, and our Cabot Trail ride has only just begun, but I will remember that I had this moment in the sun when the bike came alive and almost guided itself through the curves of one of the best three-mile stretches of pavement on the continent.

We get a room at the Glenghorm Beach Resort in Ingonish. I ask the waitress at dinner what “Glenghorm” means and she reports it’s Scottish for “where the blue meets the green.” It’s poetically apt for this location, for from our room we can see and hear the blue Atlantic waves crashing constantly against the cliffs lined with green pines.


And for all that, it’s been a 145-km ride for the day. Sometimes the best things happen on the shortest ride. I’m a 1,000-miles-a-day guy. Go figure.