Day 45. Day 1 Cabot Trail. Meeting Andre!

Baddeck to Indian Brook, Nova Scotia

10/1/23. 35 mi. AIS: 3:00. 11.6 mph. Elev. 1654 ft.

Ready to go at 8:30am…Andre was prompt. Only one problem… the fog. We spent about 30-40 minutes chitchatting with Andre and it lifted some… so we were off. Andre took our bags as planned and headed off to deliver to our destination today. He stopped after he delivered our baggage in the morning to checkup on us. We were doing just fine. I think we are going to be an easy job for him… not too needy in other words! So with that he left us until tomorrow. He will pickup our bags and connect with us enroute somewhere. He described us as “very experienced”…yup😊

As you can see we didn’t have very far to ride and with only 1 pannier to carry the extra clothes we wear to start the day and pet off with each climb… plus lunch… we were riding really light! Felt like we were skipping up the climbs today but in all honesty, today was just easy.

We stopped here and there for photos and to take a look. My biggest disappointment was the Gaelic College visitor museum was closed on Sunday!

A highlight today was seeing two other cyclists with panniers headed in our same direction. Going out on a limb but we guessed father/daughter. That was a pleasant surprise… we haven’t seen any multi day bicyclists since Labour Day weekend.

Once we entered the Cabot Trail highway we followed the along the edges of St Ann’s Bay. The trees are in the early stages of changing colors but it will get better everyday I expect.

There is a huge festival week starting this weekend called The Celtic Colours Festival. It’s spreadout on the whole Cape Breton Island. Looks like it’s quite an event and draws thousands of people to the loop and outer areas. There’s Ceilidh (Kay-lees) everywhere. It’s a Celtic Kitchen Party like no other. Part of me wishes I could be there because I love the music and the dancing… but the other part of me likes that it is calm this week.

We arrived early 2:00pm and our little house wasn’t ready yet. One of the hosts felt bad… we were just fine sitting on the deck enjoying another beautiful warm fall day (again.. no wind)… so he brought us a couple of nice German beers and some nuts. How kind! Of course we did not refuse. That hour went quickly and we were in our mint green house on a little pond. Cozy, comfortable and extremely cute. Great shower too!!

Dinner was early tonight. The restaurant nearby closes at 6pm. That’s fine…we are getting used to eating at 5:00ish and pedaling back before the sun goes down. Days are definitely shorter. The restaurant is called The Clucking Hen. Very popular on the trail… mostly breakfast and lunch.

Tomorrow…

Maybe 32 some miles again tomorrow to Ingonish (IN-gun-ish). Looking forward to the ride. It will have one really big climb…1.4 mi. at 9.4%! Called Cape Smoky Mountain. This will be our first test of hill climbing strength. At least on this hard climb the scenery will be good.

We have to stop and get a permit for the Cape Breton Highlands National Park that we enter on Tuesday.

After tomorrow I expect to be out of wifi service so my posts probably will be delayed a day or so. Expect to get bombarded at the finish!

Corrections…

Yesterday I said the Cabot Trail was 285 miles… but that should have been kilometers! About 177 miles.