Badeck was great. Kinabalu lay happily at anchor off the Badeck Yacht Club and we dinghied in each day to spend time walking along the coast and into town, shopping at the fish market on the public pier, and exploring the amazing Alexander Graham Bell museum. Bob had always attributed AAlexander Graham Bell and his invention of the telephone to Scotland, but it seems that although he was born in Scotland, Alexander Graham Bell spent much of his time in Badeck, Nova Scotia. His work with the deaf in his early years, which led to the invention of the telephone and his flying machines all add to the extraordinary image that is portrayed. His house Beinn Breagh, on the opposite shore, is still owned by his family. We were at the opening of a fine new production, The Young Ladies of Badeck Club, which gave lots more insight into the Badeck area at the turn of the century.
We were in time for market day, which just happened to be my birthday, and not having been able to get into our chosen restaurant, we bought some of the best oysters I've ever tasted from a local lady who lives in Mabou. She gave us a shucker too!
And we found some garlic scapes, having been introduced to them, cookedon the barbecue, by Wilson and Thelma in Chester. Together with the best halibut and some Nova Scotian wine, we had put together a fine birthday meal to eat on board Kinabalu.......in a thunderstorm!!
It was a good decision to sail back to St Peter's Marina, leave Kinabalu on a morning for a few days, hire a car and head off to the Cape Breton Highlands. We had glimpsed the sun occasionally and loved the little anchorages but we needed a break from the awful weather.
We headed for the Margaree River region where we'd heard much about the salmon fishing. Fabulous rivers but not many people fishing this year, due to a catch and release enforcement, together with no barbed hooks. The Scots knew what they were doing when they settled in this area a couple of hundred years ago. We found a log cabin for the first night which was a great place to shelter from the drizzle!
The sun came out next morning and we drove north for the Cape Breton National Park, knowing that we needed a weather window from the fog and rain to see anything at all!! It's hard to register our joy at finding a short boardwalk trek, although you can see from "the Bog" photos just how beautiful it was.
Our lunch stop was at a camping area and the entrance to a waterfall trek ......Kate had given us a 12v coffee espresso machine to use on Kinabalu and in the car, which proved to be just what we needed!
This is definitely somewhere we would go back to although not sure that we would want to attempt it by bicycle, nor in a tent! Keltic Lodge at Ingonish was more our style:). We met Ushi and Erich during dinner and established that they had drive all the way from Cleveland Ohio for her birthday get away!
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment