Mabou, West Mabou Beach, Port Hood,

Mabou

West Mabou Beach near Mabou River

Mabou River seen from West Mabou Beach

Mabou River seen from West Mabou Beach

Mabou River seen from West Mabou Beach

SandPiper walking ahead of me on West Mabou Beach

SandPiper walking ahead of me on West Mabou Beach

SandPiper walking ahead of me on West Mabou Beach

SandPiper walking ahead of me on West Mabou Beach

Campground in Port Hood

From Port Hood going to Mabou

Bras d'Or lake in front of Charlene's Bayside Restaurant.

Day 7 - Whycocomagh, Marble Mountain and West Mabou Beach

We left battery park after seeing all 4 of the tall ships in St Peters and then stopping at the gift shop to look for souvenirs. I was disappointed that the dragonfly earrings I found were the same as the pair I bought last year.

On the Bras d'Or scenic drive. Hundreds of Licence plates

Better view of the licence plates

We drove to Whycocomagh from St Peters using the Bras d"Or scenic drive, stopping at Marble Mountain, which was probably the most scenic view on that part of the drive. We hadn't been on the road long, when I asked Terry to stop.

On Lac Bras d'Or McRaes point beach

Bras d'Or lake - Dunphe's cove?

Bras d'Or lake at  Dundee

This guy had licence plates hung on trees. Hundreds of them. Reminded me of my cousins used to have plates on their wall as children. The owner saw me taking pictures and came to say hello and said he'd been doing it for like 20 odd years, and yeah people have sent him plates from all over Canada! We saw a RCMP coming out of St Peters and one in West Bay around Bras d'Or lake.

Marble Mountain visitors park. Accessible by water and land

Bras d'Or lake viewed from roadside near Marble Mountain

We stopped at the Marble Mountain lookout.  We noticed that if we'd come by boat we could dock there too, and there was a road to go to the water, and a nice beach.  I had put my camera on the bench and when other people showed up we were in the car. A German tourist kept telling me "CAMERA" and after the third time I realized he meant I left my camera on the bench!

View of coast at Marble Mountain on Bras d'Or Lake

View of Marble Mountain whalf and beach

 We had site 31 at Whycocomagh and setup in the blistering sun, oh my God was it ever hot!!! After which we went to West Mabou beach. In fact we took the 252 to Mabou! I'd never taken the 252 all the way to Mabou. We also went to Fort hood, but never stopped, but we saw the beach was nothing special and near a trailer park campsite. He was looking for something for dinner and didn't like the restaurants around Fort hood, but we never checked Mabou.

West Mabou Beach

West Mabou Beach

West Mabou beach is one of the nicest beaches in Cape Breton, and there wasn't that much people. It's like mostly only the locals know it.

For dinner we ended up at Charlene's Bayside in Whycocomagh. I had the haddock he had the fish sticks.

Tall Ships in St Peters

Battery Provincial Park Lighthouse

Can you spot the bunny at Battery Provincial Park?

Tall Ship Mist of Avalon

Tall Ship HMCS Oriole

Tall Ship St Lawrence II

Tall Ship When and If

Tall Ship St Lawrence II

Tall Ships HMCS Oriole, Mist of Avalon & St Lawrence II

Tall Ships HMCS Oriole & Mist of Avalon

Tall Ship St Lawrence II and far in back is the When and If -

Notice on the last photo, the pleasure boat is called "Yappin & Trappin". Was not expecting to see any tall ship so we were thrilled to see the 4 we did get to see. The first three were there Thursday night, the last one came in Friday morning.

Day 6 - Battery Provincial Park - St Peters Canal & Tall Ships

Bird at Mira River

Geese seen around Gabarus

 We left Mira River and drove down the Fleur de Lys trail. At first it went around Mira River to Marion Bridge then went towards Gabarus.

HMCS Oriole arrives at St Peters Canal

Battery Provincial Park only had spots for us for one night, not for Friday or Saturday.  We called to see if we could find anywhere to stay and Whycocomagh still had 2 spots. We weren't planning on staying there but it had spots!!!

Battery Park Chalet with Canada 150 flag

Putting up small tent at Battery Provincial Park

HMCS Oriole docked at St Peter's Canal

Lion's club Marina on Bra d"Or lake in St Peters

The HMCS Oriole was already docked in the canal when we arrived at Battery Park. By dinner time there was 3 boats, including the St Lawrence 2, the HMCS Oriole and the Mist of Avalon. We were told the If and When was arriving later.  We went to Lion's club marina to take photos on Bras d'Or lake, and we saw 2 RCMP vehiles in st Peters.  One car one, SUV.

Figures it was hard to find camping in Cape Breton this week. Between the Canada 150 celebrations, free entrances to National parks, Tall ships... no wonder.

More Photos from Mira River Provincial Park

Cormorant fishing in Mira River

Day 5 - Sydney, Big Glace Bay Lake & Dominion Beach Provincial Park

Main-A-dieu Beach

We were up early and at Main-A-Dieu beach by 8am. We then travelled back to Mira Gut Beach, where were walked a bit until people started showing up. In fact Terry was tanning in the lifeguard chair when I realized the lifeguards had just arrived, around 11am.

View of Port Morien and it's beach that we couldn't find access to

 We saw seals at Dorkin beach. Stopped at Port Morion but could not figure out how to get to the beach there, yet later in the day at Sydport we ran into a vendor that lives at Port Morion and collects rocks from there for his art!!!

Big Glace Bay Lake

We also stopped at Glace Bay Lake beach for a bit. This appears to be a good place to stop for the night if you were out of a camping spot.

View of Dominion from Dominion Beach

Lingan Generating Station

Dominion Beach Provincial Park

We found the road #4 in Sydney and it goes to George Street which becomes Mira Road! We also noted that road #4 has every fast food know to man and found in Sydney. We went back to the SydPort, and there was a large cruise ship in port and lots of vendors. I got a Tshirt for Mado.

We got back to Mira River around 2pm after stopping at Wendy's where we saw a Sydney police car. Found amazing beach glass at Main-A-Dieu beach though I didn't find much since it was coming to high tide.

Sun setting on Mira River

Toby caught a mouse!

Toby stole one of Zoey's Pads!

They like to hang out on the bed together.

Sometime in July Toby caught himself a field mouse. It was tan colour like deer and wild rabbits.  Terry has been letting the cats out when he's out tanning and progressively the cats have gotten used to roaming around the neighbourhood but coming home at dusk. If not on their own, lured by cat treats.  

So Terry and I were sitting talking together and Toby walks in and drops something at Terry's feet. I looked and realized it was a field mouse.  Terry was all freaked out and let me deal with it "Since your kids had mice". Uhm. Yeah.  So it was a fresh kill as the mouse was still warm and rigour had not set in.   Of course he would gift it to Terry.  Toby is so fond of Terry, it's like his best buddy. Though he stunned that Toby would gift him a mouse.  Well Toby was returning the favour, by giving him a tasty treat!  I wonder how many field mice Ziva and Toby have caught so far? 

I honestly didn't think that Toby the pure breed born of 2 pure breed parents would ever be able to hunt. But apparently he and Ziva have almost caught birds and squirrels as well. Toby likes running up the big maple to chase after the squirrels. 

Day 4 - We end up in Mira River because Cape Breton Highlands National park is COMPLETELY BOOKED.

Let me start by saying, that Cape Breton Highlands National Park should have more overflow camping, or at least campsites that are first come first served. Having everything booked months in advanced is not good. This was was canada 150. I couldn't use my pass because I couldn't camp anywhere near the park. Even the private campgrounds and most motels, hotels, and B&B's were fully booked months ahead. I coulnd't book months ahead. I didn't know if I'd be going on vacation due to my sore head after the MOHS surgery.

On day 4 we woke up to rain. The bit I slept. I was up till almost 3am and got woken up at dusk pretty much. We packed up everything and were out of there by 7AM.  We drove to Neils Harbour and stopped at the Lighthouse/chowder house to go look at the Atlantic. I took many pictures of Seals from this point.  We also saw an RCMP car driving out of Neil's Harbour

Then we drove down to Broadcove, and found out that all sites there and at Igonish Beach were all booked solid. So we went to the Beach at Ingonish and we were to the Beach at Ingonish Beach. We saw an RCMP in Ingonish near the entrance of the park.

Afterwards we decided to head towards Mira River and were thrilled to find out they had at least a spot for us for the next 2 nights but were booked solid for the entire week-end.

United Heritage Church in Sydney

We ended up in Sydney for dinner, we went to the SydneyPort to Flavour on the Water for dinner.

Sydport

From Flavour on the Water at SydPort