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Published: September 25th 2012
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At 8:00 this morning our tour guide, Ryan, picked us up at the hostel and together with five other adventurers, we set out for Cape Breton Island. Adventurers is the appropriate term, too. This is a bunch of travel aficionados, most of whom are at least two decades younger than we are. The conversation all the way to Cape Breton was about people's travel adventures.
One young woman on this tour, Gina, a Californian, amazed us when she revealed that she is just getting back into hiking after nearly losing her life in a 150-foot fall three years ago when hiking on the Half Dome in Yosemite. You can see her story and pictures at
http://http://theunfoldingself.wordpress.com/ We spent much of the day today traveling to and through the Cape Breton Highlands, with many stops along the way, some practical (groceries, bio breaks, coffee) and many more to view the sights. One interesting place we visited was Glenora Distillery, the only place outside Scotland that makes single malt whiskey (they aren't allowed to call it scotch). I wanted to buy a bottle for Sarah's 40th, but apparently it's illegal to mail or ship liquor, so you're out of luck (for
now, at least), Sarah! But I did get some nice photos of the grounds and the creek from which they draw the water the use to distill the whiskey.
Our tour leader had made arrangements for us all to stay at the HI hostel in Pleasant Bay for the two nights we are on the road. This is a small hostel, and we nearly filled it, though there are a few other people staying here besides us. The tour price includes the hostel fees, and dinner the first night (delicious home made vegetable soup and spaghetti), which was cooked by the woman who runs the tour company. We stopped on the way up and bought groceries together for the other meals we will eat together over the next two days. Tomorrow night most of us will eat a local crab dinner, prepared here at the hostel.
The group stopped at Skyline to take a two-hour, six km hike late in the afternoon. Roberta was brave enough to go along, but I didn't trust my knees on such a long hike, so I stayed in the van, listened to podcasts, knitted, and even slept for about an hour. The
seven of them got back just as darkness fell, and I confess I felt some trepidation as I watched the darkness advance and they were still not back. Roberta owned that she found the hike very strenuous, even though it was on level ground, because of the fast pace these younger hikers maintained after having started at such a late hour. I was sorry to have missed the sunset and the moose they saw just before they got back to the parking lot, but I'm quite sure I made the right decision not to come along on that hike! My legs are in better shape than they were two weeks ago, but still not ready to do 6 km in only two hours. Pace is everything at this age.
Traveling in this area for the first time since coming here in the 1980s with John and the kids brought back a lot of memories! Such as the morning we woke up in our tents beside the sea in the middle of a squall that was blowing other people's tents into the ocean. Unable to get our camp stove lit, we traveled many caffein-deprived miles desperately looking for a cup
of coffee; when we finally found a restaurant open on a Sunday morning in Cape Breton, the server set down our cups with the observation: "Hope you don't mind decaf." I can still see the expression on John's face when he heard that!
We finally arrived at the hostel around 8 pm, everyone ravenous after their hike, and devoured the fantastic food. Tomorrow more adventures await us, including whale watching! We are guaranteed to see whales or money back.
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