Neil’s Harbour to Cape Smokey   |   Campsite: 46.60547° N, 60.39083° W

When I wake up rain is falling. I move slowly, not at all wanting to go out into the dismal conditions. I stretch after eating some breakfast. By 6:20 I am up into the world and conditions are grim. Knowing that I need to move forward I force myself out into the fray. The fog is thick, again preventing me from seeing anything beyond 100 metres. The walk to Ingonish is bland as I can’t see anything or get any joy from the morning. By 10:00 I walk into Ceilidh’s Variety for a bit of food, some coffee, a chance to get out of the rain, and an opportunity to charge the laptop. By 10:30 I am walking to the town of Ingonish and the  Freshmart about five kilometres down the road. I stop briefly at the liquor store somewhere around the village of Ingonish Beach. I cook lunch on a picnic table during a miraculous break in the rain, but before I can pack the bag rain begins to fall once again. There is a hairpin turn in the road around some big water named Ingonish Harbour, forcing me to walk many useless kilometres in order to circumnavigate the terrain. Smokey Mountain follows—a 437 metre elevation that just keeps rising. As cell service is non-existent here I have no idea where I am on the map, only that the hill continues to proceed upward. Sometime around 4:30, I stop walking, sitting against a birch tree on the far edge of the shoulder to rest. Everything is thoroughly soaked through. I feel painful blisters between my toes as both my boots and socks are soaked. Thick rain and fog coats this terrain. When I check my day’s distance, I have walked 43.95 kilometres. I was hoping for more because for the past two days, I have been dreaming of getting out of the province of Nova Scotia. The past two days have seen rain, wind, and fog, with the forecast showing nothing but the same until Tuesday—six days of grimness and dismal weather. I’m disgusted with this province and I just want out. The next two days will be joyless, uncreative, uninteresting, and boring. A quick calculation tells me I have 101 kilometres yet to walk to the Newfoundland ferry in North Sydney.

Today’s distance walked: 43.95 km    |    Total distance walked: 2,480.78 km