The Cabot Trail is one of the iconic Canadian road trips, and something I’ve wanted to do for along time. We were excited for the day ahead. This is likely to be a very long post, and will have lots of bird photos. You have been warned.
In our original plan for the trip, we had booked a boat trip out to Bird Island to go puffin watching. But sadly, a couple of days earlier, the people running the boat had called to cancel with boat issues. That was very disappointing as this trip had been one of the things we were most looking forward to. We both agreed that we did not have enough time on Cape Breton, and the we need to come back Two days was not nearly enough, and we never did see the puffins!
Instead, to look on the bright side, it did gave us more time to explore the Cabot Trail, and we got to do a bit more hiking than we otherwise would have had time for if we did do the boat excursion.
We started early, as I was determined to to see some of the many birds that we were hearing around the cabin. I didn’t have a lot of luck, but did see a couple of new birds. The was a ruby-throated hummingbird that was hanging about that made up for all the warblers that we had heard, but did not see.
Eventually we headed out, driving back to Baddeck to picked up a few groceries for the drive. While in town, we made a stop at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, where apparently they made the first flight in the British Empire in 1909. Off the ice in the bay outside Baddeck. We decided not to go into the museum, as we wanted to make more progress on our drive.
Pretty typical scenery for the start of our drive out back towards Baddeck. One option for the day was to take this short ferry across this inlet. If we had have done our Bird Island trip, I think we might have gone this way.
One of the many lighthouses we saw along the way.
From Baddeck, we headed north, working our way along the Cabot Trail, which winded its way up the east coast of the island, offering amazing views at almost every twist and turn of the highway. Pretty much as soon as we got on to the official “trail”, we made a short stop at Colaisde na Gàidhlig, The Gaelic College. Founded in 1938, its focus has been on the perpetuation of Highland Scottish Gaelic culture.
The College
It seemed like a bit of an odd place for it, but we wanted to have a quick look as we had seen many signs for it and Justine wanted to check out the gift shop. It ended up being a fairly short stop, as there wasn’t a lot to see, and we weren’t really interested in buying a tartan. So we continued on our way.
Cedar Waxwing at one of the stops we made to check out the view.
The drive was spectacular. There were many amazing places to pull out and take in the views. We kept this rhythm up - driving for a bit, stopping at pull outs, and continuing on. Eventually we passed through the town of Ingonish. We made a quick stop hoping to pick up a sandwich or something to take on our hikes, but there really wasn’t anything so we continued on.
This was parked at the Franey Lake Trailhead! So cool - would love to have something like it. It had German plates on it, so we imagine it had been brought over to do an pic roadtrip!
Our first stop was at the Franey Mountain trailhead, which has been recommended to us by Matt and Alex. We would have liked to have done the whole hike, but it was a bit too long for the amount of time that we had.
We still wanted to see it, so we parked at the trailhead and started hiking up the trail for a little while. We weren’t sure how far we’d go, but we figured we’d start out, see what it was like and pick a good return point. As it turned out, the trail was under major construction and was being re-routed, which provided a very natural turn around point for us.
The trail was fairly easy, climbing quite slowly up and into the forest. It was beautiful, a much different type of forest than what we’re used to in the west, much more of a mixture of deciduous and coniferous trees. But there were lots of birds. Or at least lots that we could hear. And the bugs were pretty bad. Justine busted out the bug hat, but I was less smart and chose to skip it this time. I paid for that hubris.
It was a lovely trail, as we climbed up into the forest.
All smiles before the bugs found us.
We barely saw any of the birds that we could hear, but did manage to get a few good photos. It was a bit maddening, how many we could hear and how few we could see. They were doing a lot of work on the trail, and after about an hour, we got to a spot where the original trail was closed as they were rebuilding it. There was a new trail that was continuing on, and we followed it for a little while before, deciding to turn around and head back.
Getting artsy with one of the bad photos.
My first of the Blackburnian Warbler.
Also a new one - the Blue-headed Vireo
The first couple of kilometers of the Franey Trail.
After coming back down to the parking lot, we hopped in the car and continued our journey up along the Cabot Trail. The next stop wasn’t much further along, maybe 10 or 15 minutes. It was another hike that we wanted to do at my namesake Lake, Warren Lake. This smallish lake had a trail that circumnavigated it and was about 5 km in length. It seemed like another good opportunity for us to get out and do a bit of hiking and we hoped that it would show us some additional new scenery.
Our first view of the lake from the trail.
Our walk around Warren Lake.
But the bugs were bad! The minute you stepped out of the car you were absolutely swarm by black flies. It was pretty awful. But this is where I had a chance to use (and very much appreciate) the bug nets that Justine had bought for us. It wasn’t something that I thought we’d need, but I was so glad that we had them, because the bugs were intolerable.
I had made a critical mistake and that I had worn shorts and a T-shirt rather than pants and a long sleeve and ended up paying for that later in the day, when the bites became more apparent.
We did the hike counterclockwise around the lake, and the trail was generally flat meandering along the lake side for the first couple of kilometers. It was quite a lovely walk, despite the bugs, and every once in a while the wind picked up enough to buy us some respite from the little bastards.
The trail was similar to the one we had just done on Franey, yet different enough to keep it interesting. The lower elevation and the fact that much of it was along the edge of the lake meant that the scenery was different and ever evolving.
At that point, the trail cut inland to go around the end of the lake and we crossed a couple of bridges. The most notable this cool suspension bridge that they had built over a small river. It was a really nice bridge and the river was interesting, much like the lake, the water was very red in color. I’m not sure if that was from there being a lot of iron in the water or just the colour of the mud in the rocks is everything in this area seem to have that reddish hue.
Great bridge!
Built to last - it was very solid, or as much as a suspension bridge can be.
Blackburnian Warbler
The bugs through this stretch or particularly bad as we were working our way around the top of the lake through an area of dense shrubbery and swampy marsh land. You had to keep moving or else the bugs just swarmed you. It was mostly black flies, but there were also mosquitoes and they ate me alive. Eventually, the trail made the turn back along the far side of the lake and we continued our hike through the woodland. This part of the trail was much muddier and it looked like they were doing a lot of work on it. Earlier in the day we had heard a ATV or something like that and you could see where they have been pulling out old boardwalk and starting to build some new, but generally, they had just made a mess of the trail with the machine.
As we got close to the beach at the end of the lake, near the parking lot, we came across a spotted sandpiper who must have had a nest nearby. The bird gave us its broken wing display, trying to lead us back down the path. It was really cool to see, and the minute we walked far enough along the path away from the nest site, the bird righted itself and came running back up to make sure we hadn’t done any harm to its nest. I would’ve liked to have gone and looked for the nest, but that would stress the poor little bird out. Eventually, we made her way back around the end of the lake across the beach and made straight for the car so that we can get out of the bugs.
After the hike, the rest of the day was spent making the drive around the Cabot Trail. The drive from Warren Lake, continued along the East Coast for a little while before, turning in land and cutting across the tip of the Peninsula. Pretty much where the trail turns inland, we made a short stop at Black Brook Cove Beach. Our friend Bradley had mentioned it and had told us it was worth a stop, and he was right!
After our short stop, we started to work our way inland. The inland drive was different, no less spectacular than the shorelines, but mostly focused on forests and the small mountains of the area. While the distances are not that far, we really should have spent two or three extra days on the Cabot Trail to really give it it’s due and explore all the cool things that we would’ve liked to have seen. We had to skip many stops because the day had gotten away from us, as it usually does.
After crossing over the peninsula, we made a stop at French Lake, which had a nice view out over the plateau at the top of the mountain, and it should have been a good spot to see moose, but there were none to be found. Justine had really wanted to see moose on this trip, and as we made our way through the heart of the park, we kept our eyes peeled, but sadly never saw any. We did find a few birds as we sat and watched for a little while and then continued on past the famous Skyline Trail, which was a hike that we were going to do in the morning.
After a short stop, we started making our way south along the far shore. This coastline was, hard to believe, even more spectacular than the eastern shore. There were a lot more elevation changes as we worked our way up and down the coast heading south towards our stop for the night.
At this point we still had about an hour drive south to the cottage we had rented an Inverness, and so we continued down the spectacular coastline. We did make stops at a few of the lookouts with spectacular views out over the ocean and the road that continued to meander up and down the mountain sides along the coast.
Inverness is probably most famous for the Cabot Links golf course, which is arguably one of the best golf courses in Canada. I would’ve loved to have been able to play golf there as the course looked absolutely spectacular. But as it was, it was really late. It was probably close to 8 o’clock by the time we had gotten checked into our cottage and got ourselves sorted out.
They have a nice pub at the golf course, and so we ended up there having dinner as the sunset over the golf course. They even had someone come out and played the bagpipes right at sundown, which was a pretty amazing experience it conflicted a little bit with the live music playing in the pub, but you could hear the sound of the bagpipes and we could even see the bagpiper standing out on the golf course right in front of the ocean as the sun set. It was pretty magical.
The bagpiper at sunset.
After having some dinner, and as it was getting close to sunset, we drove down to one of the local beaches to catch the sunset. We were just in time for Justine to get the perfect photo as the sun slipped out of sight.
We made our way back to our little cottage and called it a night
The cottage in Inverness ended up being our least favourite of the bunch.
The map of our drive on the Cabot Trail. It was a long day full of adventures!