Day 2: Monday September 9th ~ St Ann and Englishtown

Everyone was up bright and early today, ready for the 3 1/2 hour ride from Halifax to Cape Breton Isle. The early fall day dawned sunny and breezy, high predicted around 60. Good biking weather.

We stopped for lunch at a "biker bar" (push bikes, that is) in the town of Baddeck, which hails itself as "Where the Cabot Trail begins and ends." The Cabot Trail by the way, is the only through road for the entire Northern part of Nova Scotia. Until it was constructed in the 1930's, the only way to get to the isolated hamlets in these parts was by boat. Baddeck is one of these fishing villages, perched on a bluff overlooking a large saltwater Lake called Bras d'Or - locally pronounced "Bradoor".

 

Baddeck Biker Bar

 

We were anxious to get on our bikes for a brisk afternoon ride of about 25 miles around St Ann's Bay. We stopped in at our Motel and were greeted by one of the loveliest motel settings imaginable. Here is the view from the windows of our rooms:

 

 

Rooms with a view!

 

 

St Ann's Motel and Lobster Restaurant, Cape Breton Isle

 

Richard, Kirt, Tim and Peter set off at a blistering pace to sprint around the bay and earn a much anticipated Lobster Dinner at the restaurant next to the motel.

 



 

The first ride ~ 27.5 miles

 



 At the end of the bay is Englishtown, a tiny village connected to the rest of the Isle by a tiny ferry. This ferry  traverses a 200 yard channel left open, I suppose, for boats to pass through. Otherwise, we could see no purpose in having a ferry when a bridge would do just fine. Richard, Canadian by birth, speculated that running a ferry is just a nice government job to keep the local economy going. Who knows, but it was fun to ride on - and free for bikes! ($5 for cars)

 

 

The Englishtown Ferry approaches

 



By the way, Cape Breton Isle may be on the coast, but it is a rocky, hilly coast, as you can see from the picture above. We were told that today's ride around the bay was a "flat one" by local standards. This does NOT bode well for the rest of the week. No wonder they didn't build this road until the 1930's!

 

Near the end of the ride we climbed up yet another steep hill (8% grade) and came upon a unique set of buildings belonging to the Gaelic College. We stopped in the gift shop to look at kilts, dirks, pipes, whistles and anything else marketable which the canny Scots of this area can think of to separate cash from the tourists. The purpose of the college is to preserve the language, music, games and culture of Scotland. Hoping to learn at least one Gaelic phrase, I asked the sales clerk how to say "God Bless you." She replied, "The Scots don't use that phrase." I decided to buy a dirk.

 



 

We ended a great first day on Cape Breton Isle with the Lobster dinner we had promised ourselves. Besides the local custom of giving the lobster a lemon wedgie, it was marvelous!