The weather was rough but apparently not as bad as Halifax which was hammered by Cristobal throughout the day. Although it was foggy, cloudy, and rainy, it tended to occur in patches up here in Cape Breton and, as luck would have it, the timing worked out pretty well -- it rained when I was in the car and driving and stopped when I stepped outside. Mind you, I was doing a driving tour of the Cabot Trail so I only left the car for a few minutes at a time.
The Lonely Planet called the Cabot Trail "The best road trip on the planet" and they did not exaggerate. Just as every Canuck should see the Rockies, I think the Cabot Trail should be on the "must see" list as well. It's roughly analgous to driving the Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler: no Rocky Mountains but you're inside a National Park with lots of lookout points, camping sites, trails, and a few towns thrown in along the route in case you need to hightail it back to civilization. It's also quite a fun drive as well with lots of hills, curves, and a few almost-haripin turns.
For physical geography buffs you have all 3 types of rock (metamorphic, sedimentary, and, igneous) and even a fault line running through the park. Flora and fauna are in abundance as well with even whales supposedly coming close to shore (I didn't see any unfortunately). When I finished the loop through the park I headed towards Baddeck which is a nice resort town and also where Alexander Graham Bell spent many years working on his inventions. They've got a national museum there honouring him now and I spent a few hours in there. Interesting factoids about Bell:
1) He was like a speech therapist at the time and was quite skilled in teaching the deaf to speak.
2) Unlike Thomas Edison, he was an amateur inventor -- in fact, once one of his inventions became commericalized, he would lose interest and do something else.
3) He did a lot of pioneering work on aerodynamics and invented a hydrofoil which broke speed records (A replica is shown below).
4) I always thought he was from Ontario -- his family did move initially to Brantford from England. However, once he got his career going he moved to Boston, then Washington, DC, before finally settling in Baddeck, NS.
When I left the museum it was raining fairly hard and I decided to nix any idea of exploring Baddeck which is supposed to be a nice resort town. I'm now at Cape Breton University in Sydney.As for Tropical Storm Cristobal...well, it looks like it won't interfere with my ferry crossing yet. It looks like it's moving fairly rapidly and it will beat us to Newfoundland. I wonder if the Ferry captain is going to follow in its wake!
Well, I've got to get up early tomorrow to catch the ferry -- 14 hour trip!
