Oddities and Orignal on the Trail

Today we got up early to drive the Cabot Trail, one of the most picturesque drives in North America. To get to the Trail we had to drive about an hour to Cheticamp. On the way there we saw an eerie sight. On the lawn next to a remote grocery shop were nearly a hundred scarecrows all dressed up, most with Halloween masks. Nixon and Reagan were having a tea party with an alien, it was very odd. We had an enjoyable breakfast in the Hometown Kitchen in Cheticamp and were pleased to see the local bobbies enjoying their fry up too. We stopped off at Flora’s, a gift shop, to look for a memento of our trip and saw that the hooked rugs that the region is famous for were on sale for $60 upwards (the cheapest pieces were only 6x4!). We decided against getting one of those and purchased instead a fridge magnet to add to our growing, useless collection. The rain from yesterday had followed us and as we headed into the Cape Breton Highlands National Park and onto the Cabot Trail we were relieved to see that the Fire Risk chart indicated ‘Low’. We had only been on the Cabot Trail for 5 minutes when I noticed a couple of cars parked up by the side of the road ahead of us. We slowed to see what they were looking at and we saw a family of 3 mooses!! They were incredibly tame and we got out of our huge jeep and stood by the roadside watching them for fifteen minutes or so. It was a great start. Back on the trail we stopped and did some walks within the park – around a bog and Warren Lake but the rain deterred us from doing more. We stayed in North Sydney that night, a small town that seemed quite deserted. We stayed at the Heritage Home B&B and although we ended up with a self-contained flat, we still went out for Chinese! Even though the restaurant only gave you greaseproof paper napkins, it was still the best, sorry only, Chinese in town. Back at the B&B we enjoyed watching Desperate Housewives curled up on the sofa.