14th
May 2016
Scotland – And
rain to go with it !
It was a clear
starlit night when I got up at 4 am to check for the Northern Lights, (and go
to the loo !), but at 7 am I awoke again to a heavy rain shower. Luckily it didn’t last too long, and I was
able to get up, breakfasted and on my way in dry but overcast conditions. Had another shower (well, when they are
there, you have as many as you can, even if they cost $0.50 a time !), topped
up the water tank in anticipation of some more wild camping in the coming days,
and also emptied the honey-pot (think about it !). just as I was (fortunately) finishing that
chore, a local came up for a chat – Cameron Beaton. He is retired, and has a trailer in this camp
ground, but has always wanted to go on the road for a while. He had a motorhome for a while, but his wife
didn’t enjoy camping, so he had to sell it. Unfortunately he has always been held back by
family sickness or in more recent times, deaths, but still harbours a wish to
go places – Including Australia. We had a really nice chat for half an hour
about all sorts of things, and then he gave me a couple of lapel badges for
Pictou (local town) and New Glasgow, just up the road past Pictou. I gave him some of my Australian stickpins
for his 4 grandchildren in return.
I have already
mentioned the Scottish heritage of Nova Scotia in general, but up here it is at
its strongest – In fact Pictou is apparently where the original load of some
200 Scottish migrants arrived on Sept 15th 1773 aboard the good ship Hector. Everything is
Scottish – The street names, the towns (inverness, New Glasgow etc), the pubs,
while ceilidhs are the big thing around here advertised everywhere. Even the weather was shortly to turn Scottish
! I went down to the waterfront to see
the replica of the Hector, made myself a vegemite sandwich to eat on the road
(a usual morning snack for me for elevenses), and set off NE up the coast towards
Glasgow.
As Glasgow is the
last big town before heading up to the Cape Breton Highlands in the north, I
stocked up with a couple of groceries I had forgotten yesterday, filled up with
cheaper fuel (Can $0.90 per litre), And then went to Tim Horton’s in order to
use their wifi to try to get my blog uploaded.
All I will say is that I think in future I will go and have my coffee in
McD’s or Burger King – The coffee and service is not really very good at Tim’s
– For instance, if you want sugar, they put it in for you, and I swear they put
about 3 teaspoon’s full in ! Wifi wasn’t
much better either, although eventually got logged in and got pics posted, and
banking done, but by the time I got it all done, it was past 12 noon, and I
wanted to get a few miles under my belt, so I left them to serve all the
Canadian customers who seem to love their coffee.
From New Glasgow
it was a rather boring cut across inland, with the sky gradually getting greyer
and greyer. The forest here has green
fir trees (spruce ?), but all the deciduous trees look grey and dead. In fact, they are starting to get a bit of a
red tinge to them, and they are in fact all in spring bud, so in a couple of
weeks it will all look much better.
Passing more
ocean inlets (or St George’s Bay inlets, perhaps I should say) we gradually
dropped down towards the Canso
Causeway where Cape Breton Island now joins with
the rest of Nova Scotia. Yes it was once
truly Cape Breton Island, and is still called that, but in 1955 this Canso causeway
was built officially joining it to the mainland. There is a small swing bridge over a channel
to allow shipping to pass through if necessary, but I imagine most ships would
go round the north of Cape Breton Island.
By now it was
raining hard, and most of the next 90 kms up the west coast of Cape Breton
Island was a bit of a blur, with my concentration needed to avoid pot holes and
lying water – The roads up here are mostly quite good, but this one today was
an exception. Needs a bit of TLC. At about 2 pm I did get a brief lull in the
rain and took the opportunity to stop and make a quick sandwich, that I then
had to eat sitting in the car as the rain came back with a vengeance.
The entire
northern part of Cape Breton Island is a National Park, and I was trying to get
up there as I knew there would camp sites. I eventually got into Cheticamp
along a very scenic cliff top road (or it would be on a nice day !) and it was
still raining hard, so I went straight through to the Nat Park on the northern
side. I have a friend of a friend to go
and see in Cheticamp, so I will have to hope I can find him tomorrow when
hopefully it is not raining so hard.
Found the camp
site – Deserted. But the gate was open
so I drove in and found a spot, and basically just put everything on the front
seat so I could sit in the back without the roof up. If it doesn’t stop raining, I will just have
some soup or noodles or something, and sleep in the back without the roof up,
as I don’t intend to get all wet trying to set the awning up. Some days (and nights) are easier than
others, but that is all part of the adventure. Today has been a bit of a Ho Hum
day. But as I have said before, if life
was always perfect, if you always got black wine gums, then there wouldn’t be
much point to it all, would there ?
Causeway where Cape Breton Island now joins with
the rest of Nova Scotia. Yes it was once
truly Cape Breton Island, and is still called that, but in 1955 this Canso causeway
was built officially joining it to the mainland. There is a small swing bridge over a channel
to allow shipping to pass through if necessary, but I imagine most ships would
go round the north of Cape Breton Island.
No comments:
Post a Comment