In which we all show up 45 – 60 mins early for the departure time, eager to begin the Trail!
Had a lousy nights’ sleep, waking at 3:30 a.m. and unable to return to sleep. I headed down to the breakfast spot at 7:05 thinking I’d be the first one there but was suprised to find more than half the group there already! Another lovely day, set to be hotter in the afternoon (26C predicted) so most of us were eager to be cycling more in the morning than afternoon.
So with maps loaded, luggage packed away on the vans and room keys turned in with agreement to have the dinner charges processed whenever the internet comes up again, we headed out. Almost immediately started going uphill – up and over the main highway to a parallel road which then headed out for some lovely country road cycling. It turned to gravel at one point, but apart from the washerboards that was a pretty decent surface.
Definitely lots of ups and downs, but nothing too drastic.
Plenty of goldenrod, yarrow and fireweed to colour the shoulders.
fellow cyclist Doug, from Salmon Arm; his wife is on the only e-bike
the washerboards took some avoiding. It was gently uphill.
It was starting to get warm, and my Karoo was reading 26C already at 11 a.m.
We peered over every bridge we crossed as we’d been told that one of them (the fourth, but we lost count!) inevitably had trout on view. Never saw any, alas.
Loving that new bike…
Margaree River
All was good to this point, undulating on quietish and fairly well surfaced back country roads, and then we joined the main road. By this time we were a group of 6 or 7; this helped as there were poor shoulders and then the road surface deteriorated significantly. There were huge potholes, and fissures, and the edges crumbled away steeply at some points – no shoulders, so the traffic passing had a challenge as did we. For the most part they were very courteous, bar the black pickup trucks – we’ve noticed a trend with them. I ducked into the Lake O’Law park hoping for some water (none) but washrooms were available and a lovely lake with a nice breeze coming off it – and a loon on the lake. I had been ahead of the rest and watched from below as Jill and Henry cycled by with the larger group so went up to the road again and starting pedalling on but met them coming back and we had a nice break at the lake before heading out once more.
Lake O’Law
A fairly quick 7 km later we arrived at the lunch stop, the Dancing Goat cafe and bakery, and eventually got an excellent sandwich and really good coffee (after three tries/reminders it finally arrived as people all around were served first – seems they’d forgotten mine). Bread is really good around here – the “oatmeal bread” is particularly good but nearly all are home baked and fairly tasty. They were super busy – clearly a popular stop and full of locals – the area around comprises isolated cottages/houses quite widely spread apart from one another, modest looking houses ?some summer homes as well?
We were happy to turn off the main road at this point and onto a much better surfaced road which delivered us after numerous further undulations to our hotel, the “Normaway Inn”. A lovely driveway with trees on both sides ushered us to a very rustic hotel and a few outlying cottages; most of the others had already arrived and we were quickly checked in.
A strong smell pervades the hotel, which turned out to be something the piano tuner in the lounge was using which smelled of floor wax? The rooms were quite rustic – but quaint. It was very hot by this time (29 and 30C) so many of us headed off on an optional loop to a swimming hole. Jill, Jean and I decided to try the river closer than the popular swimming hole, and found a place near the fish hatchery to dip – it was absolutely lovely to cool down, and very invigorating. We also had it to ourselves and heard that the other swimming spot was very crowded so are feeling quite smug!
A church on the way in Margaree Forks
It was also interesting to see all the different stages of salmon at the fishery. There are no wild Atlantic salmon anymore, as they have been severely overfished and so the only salmon around are farmed.
Back to the inn to do the inevitable laundry, get organized for the next day, and visit the farm’s resident donkey (19 yo) and the two new Highland calves – three have been born this week, and one this morning. Happy hour on the croquet pitch, then a few games of croquet before dinner.
The inn is a family affair, with the older uncle roaming around doing some painting today, and greeting people. The nephew, who has an accounting degree from St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, is the computer tech who got the internet up and running after the power failures but seems to appear everywhere and is incredibly cheerful. He booked us in, fixed the internet, sang in Gaelic at a concert in the evening (see below) and processed the bills after dinner along with ?his sister?
And the concert… we had been invited for a concert from a local musician at 8:30, set up by Pedal and Sea, and about half of us showed up. It was fabulous – the musician (Neil McDaniel) played piano, guitar, long tin whistle, and mandolin, and gave us some history of the area and the background of the songs he was playing. The newly tuned piano had an amazing depth of sound – it looked ancient but my could he get music out of it… the uncle came in and taught us a little Gaelic for one of the songs’ choruses, which we had to sing! and a bit of history of Gaelic in Cape Breton (once the native language, now making a comeback after kids were punished for speaking it much like ike indigenous languages). There is a gaelic immersion program in one school now. It was very interesting, quite a hoot with the diversions they made in their talks and it turns out this is quite a famous site for music with a music barn that has been frequented by many famous names; Ashley MacIsaac, Philip Glass, the Rankins, amongst others and New Year’s Day ring ins filmed here on CBC. The unassuming uncle taught Gaelic at school in Sydney at one point, and coordinated a number of concerts here of original Cape Breton music, not to mention one or two Ceilidhs (and yes, there was dancing at those!).
An interesting day finished with an interesting twist.
Ride total; 69.9 km and 652 m original ride; 11.5 km and 105 m to the swimming hole.
Highlights of today: the music concert and the highland cow calves