cape breton: walking on clouds

We left Merigomish, Nova Scotia stuffed with our host's delicious poached egg breakfast, which she assured us would keep us full until at least 1pm (an eerily accurate prediction). We drove straight across to Cape Breton, where we turned off the Trans Canada again to take a smaller highway north along the coast.

Our first stop was in a town called Inverness. We got coffee and hot chocolate, respectively, and walked down a long boardwalk to a nice pink little beach.

Further up the coast, we found a dirt road with a sign for the Whale Cove Cemetery, which turned out to be a small collection of gravestones on the leeward side of a high, windswept, grassy bluff. We watched the lobster boats passing by below, and a raven circled in the strong winds and screamed at me for a solid minute, probably because I'd come too close to its nest.

It started to rain just as we reached Cape Breton Highlands National Park, which takes up most of the island's northernmost pensinsula. The weather made for a remarkable drive along the Cabot Trail, with the ocean on our left and steep, cloud-covered hills on our right. We also walked along a short boardwalk trail through a bog up in the clouds, getting wet from the air itself even though it wasn't really raining.

The park was full of incredible views, although we didn't take many photos because of the rain. Luckily, the weather cleared as we circled around to the west side, and we had blue skies when we stopped for a hike at Black Brook Cove before heading on to another airbnb, which was cozy and delightful.