Park #2 of the Canada trip! Cape Breton Highlands couldn’t be more different than Kejimkujik, which was lakes, lush forests, and land locked. Cape Breton, from what I had read online, would be expansive vistas, steep hiking, and lots and lots of ocean views. Boy, did it not disappoint!
Cape Breton Highlands National Park
Part of the Canadian National Park System
~3 hours East of New Glasgow, NS
Cape Breton Highlands National Park is located on the opposite end of Nova Scotia from Kejimkujik NP, so we had roughly 6 hours of driving to get there. Cape Breton Island is not connected to Nova Scotia by land, but only by a driving causeway and the island has a different feel than the rest of Nova Scotia. I included a link because the history of the island is actually quite interesting, but I won’t wax on about that here. The Cabot Trail runs through the park and is an attraction in of itself as one of the most scenic drives in the world. As we neared the park on the northern side, we passed through the town of Cheticamp, which is a predominantly French town with French flags hanging outside many of the houses.
We were camping at Cheticamp campground, which is just inside the park near the town that the campground is named after. We were happy to be at our destination and having arrived before the kiosks were shut down for the night, so we could get some firewood and ice. The campground is very open, there is no brush between sites and the sites are rather close to each other. Thankfully we were arriving on a Monday, so the campground wasn’t full and we were able to feel that we had some privacy.
It was quite windy and wet, so we quickly got the tent set up and decided to go explore a little before nightfall came. We drove along the northern shore of the island and stopped at the many lookouts, going as far as Wreck Cove before it started to get too dusky that we decided to head back to camp. We spent the rest of the night relaxing at camp with our fire.
The next morning we quickly packed up as we had a full day of sightseeing planned. We were only staying at the park one night, but were staying in a hotel that coming night so we had much of the day to spend exploring the park. We continued our drive around the island on Cabot Trail.
Our first stop, besides a refueling stop, was at Neils Harbor a small town on the boarder of the park. There is a lighthouse that overlooks the harbor, you can’t go in it, but who can turn down looking at a lighthouse?
Second, we stopped for our hike of the day – the Jack Pine loop! We had a hard time deciding what trail to hike, since many are either very long or barely a half mile. The Jack Pine loop at ~ 1.5 miles did not disappoint, the trail was relatively easy, but offered views of the ocean and Jack Pine forests. It was still relatively early in the morning, so we were the only ones on the trail for most of the hike. After the hike we checked out Black Brook Beach, which is right next to the trail head.
We continued on our drive, stopping at Green Cove, Broad Cove, and Ingonish Beach. All of these either had short hikes to overlooks or were ocean views. At Ingonish Beach, we hiked Freshwater Lake trail, which was another short mile hike, before eating our late lunch in the picnic area. The lake is pretty interesting in that is separated from the ocean by only a small strip of land.
After our lunch, we were on our way to our hotel in New Glasgow. We were both sad to leave this park and we’ll have to come back at some point because we didn’t scratch the surface of all the things there are to do in this park. If you spent a week here, you could really sample all the park has to offer.
Until next time!
More pictures I just had to include because I could not stop taking pictures here!
average girl's adventures 