A walk, A drive along the Cabot Trail, 5 Holes of Golf

Up and at them, first stop the Pro Shop.  Get a score card so we can analyze the course :)).  Find out that you can do 5 holes after 5 for $30, this drops us off right at our room door.  Perfect.  Jim is quite excited now.  Then we mention that we are going to head down to the beach.  The lovely lady in the pro shop says, well you head into town to the "beach access" and walk down to the boardwalk.  Seriously, the ocean is right there, why can't we just cross over the course.  NO NO NO, not allowed.  Seriously, golfers are such sticklers.  So off we head to town and to the beach.  This time I brought a bag for all our rocks and sea glass, but had to remember poor Jim had to carry it back. 

Lucky us there is a farmer's market with all sorts of baked goods.  Yes and lovely little crocheted hats for your toilet rolls, the baking we bought, the toilet hats we didn't.  I felt so guilty, the little ladies who were selling things looked like they had been making these for the last 60 years.  It brought back wonderful memories of my grandmother and her tea cosy.  She had made me one, blue with brown stripes (I'm surprised it wasn't in the Newcastle United colours).  One day one of the kids, I am presuming one of the boys, put it on his head and had his ears sticking out the holes for the handle and spout.  This led me to teach him my favourite childhood song, "I'm a little teapot, short and stout"..........  Yes you can admit, if you are over 50 this was probably your party song when you were 5 or so :))

7000 steps and we were back in our room, ready to start the trek through the Cabot Trail.  

First stop was a lovely little harbour town called Cheticamp.  So far the drive has been pretty uneventful, lovely ocean views, windy roads, close to the coast, not to hilly.  Lots of whale watching cruises from Cheticamp.  

Shortly after Cheticamp, the fun begins.  Up and down hills, windy "ess" turns".  Holding onto the door handle as Jim tries to pass people.  "weeeeee", 4 hours to do the Cabot Trail, I don't think soooo.  LOL.  OK, time to slow down.  It is so beautiful.  We took the tourist board advice and went "clockwise" around the trail.  This puts you on the inside of the mountain and away from most of the steep drops, although when you are passing over the middle, there are still lots of drops down the passenger side to make you gasp.   

I truly felt at times like we were on top of the world.  The roads were in wonderful shape and travelled right along the top of the mountain.  Yes "what goes up must come down".  The rivers or brooks as so many of them were called are so picturesque.  I was craning my neck everytime we passed one looking for moose.  Didn't see any but saw a number of "fly fishermen" fishing for salmon in rivers that looked like they hadn't changed since time began.  OK, OK, probably less fish, but still so serene.  Fishermen don't talk nearly as much as golfers do.  The pictures below were taken at Black Brook.  Jim and I couldn't hear each other, the roar of the waves was unbelievable and 20 feet into the river as calm as calm could be.

All the rocks were pink.  

Back on the road, half way through is Ingonish.  A lovely little resort town about 1/2 way around from where we started.  Lots of bikers and hikers here.  Campers everywhere.  A fair bit of the trail is inland away from the water, so if you want to do it right I would recommend taking 3 days to do it.  Stop up at at Pleasant Bay or Dingwall and stop at Ingonish.  (First night definitely at Cabot Links)  This way you could actually get out and walk the trails and go down to the little fishing villages (just think more pictures to look at LOL).

On a road that goes in a circle, we did find one interesting little spur from it going down to St. Ann's Bay.  Such fun there was a ferry there that took you across to the other side of the bay.  The ferry took 3 minutes, held about 12 cars and cost $5.50.  And the highlight was you were now driving along the bay coast, rather than back through the mountain.

340 kms and 6 hours later we were back in Cabot Links.  Are any of my friends surprised that Jim got us back in time to play golf :). 

A beautiful sunset dinner in the Panorama restaurant at Cabot Links.  Jim had a wonderful lobster dinner and seafood chowder, while I had an amazing Salmon dinner with a wonderful starter grapefruit and roasted beet root salad - so refreshing.

As we sat down to dinner I warned my hubby that - (ok girlfriend alert - gag gag) I was really looking forward to golf in the morning and we had had a busy day so an early night, with less wine consumption was on my agenda.  Welllllll Jim says maybe we could just pop up to the pub for 1 nightcap and listen to the musician.  NO NO,  OK FINE.  We get there and it was hopping, Jim was looking more and more tired, thankfully there are no seats.  Back to our room we go, 9:30 I look over and Jim is sound asleep, fully clothed on the bed.  I wake him at 11 to let him know he still has all his clothes on, turn off my light and voila I have to wake him at 7:30 in the morning.  :)))