Day 6, Friday 26 September

Lovely sunshine as we made our way to the breakfast room for an early start. Into the van for the drive south east across the island, through Charlottetown and down narrow roads to the port. The scenery was rolling farmland with a much bigger scale than in the UK and no hedges or walls diving the fields, just quite a lot of mixed trees. The colours are not yet very developed but every now and then there are individual red or yellow trees, or small groves.
Everywhere we go there are very white birches close together and often quite twisted so they look very old.
We had a short wait at the small port, with massive trucks on one side and a bunch of islander bikers on their Harleys on the other on their way for a weekend blast around Cape Breton. The loading and departure were quick, efficient and seamless as we looked down on hundreds of cormorant and other birds below us. The weather stayed glorious for the crossing, and nowhere near as cold as we had expected.
The approach to Nova Scotia was very narrow and zig zagged past low spits and little lighthouses. Ian and some of party stayed below learning to play poker with our single Canadian as tutor.
Onto the main island for an hour or so's journey to the causeway that took us across to Cape Breton. There was a visitor centre as we arrived on the island where we had today's picnic, looking out onto the sea.
Onwards through scenery much more like Scottish highland but covered in mixed forest and clapboard rather than stone houses. The mountains are higher and steeper than we have seen to date.
We broke this part of the journey at the Glenora distillery which we learned had been set up 24 years ago with people from Bowmore and using their recipe. It's a modern distillery with little to see but nearly everyone managed their dram. Ian bought a bottle of the fifteen-year-old as recommended by Jim Murray in his bible. Our Canadian thought I was a bit bonkers to exclaim over my first sight of a chipmunk.
On to the motel in Cheticamp, a town with French heritage which had had a thriving gypsum industry. We checked in and got back in the van so Chad could show us views from the Cabot Trail, the road leading into town then right down the island. It is said to be up there with the Amalfi Drive as one of the most scenic in the world.

Chad then wanted to check out the views of and from a lighthouse at the end of the Isle de Cheticamp, reached by a causeway. I was the one who discovered that the fence round the lighthouse was electric.
From the motel, we walked to Le Gabriel restaurant where there was live country, with a hint of Scottish, music being played.