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
MacIntosh Brook to Neil’s Harbour | Campsite: 46.81292° N, 60.31991° W
Wind. It blows my tent around in violent fits. It is not a cold wind. I slept in shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. The wind will persist all day from morning, all through my 1.5-hour 457-metre climb of North Mountain, through a thick fog until I reach the Big Intervale campground. I am able to buy some coffee and lunch from the Cabot Trail Food Market in the village of South Harbour, through to my desperately-frantic search to pitch the tent beside a church in order to get out of the rain and wind in the village of Neil’s Harbour 47 kilometres down the road by 4:00. Today was not fun. I stopped taking photographs halfway into the day, as the fog was so thick it prevented anything from being recorded. For most of the walk, I was unable to see 100 metres in any direction. Today was similar to much of the walk through the province of New Brunswick—the walking simply served as distance to be covered in order to fulfill my objective. So far the weather in Nova Scotia has been bearable at best. Either it has been amazingly clear or depressingly cloudy, foggy, windy, rainy, and damp. Today was absolute shit, smeared with a moist shit sauce. By 4:15, after a few failed phone attempts to gain lodging, the tent is raised between an old church and an adjacent cemetery. An inconsistent rain falls against the tent, driven onto the rain fly by a strong, gusting wind. The highlights of my day: not being apprehended by park rangers illegally camping at MacIntosh Brook; lunch of poutine and apple cider purchased at the Cabot Trail Food Market in the village of South Harbour—even if it had to be eaten sitting on a rock beside the road, again, as forced to do in New Brunswick. I am grateful for being warm and relatively dry in the tent by 4:00, having reached the village of Neil’s Harbour. There is not much to comment on here…
Today’s distance walked: 47.23 km | Total distance walked: 2,436.83 km
“No Boats on Sunday pays homage to a time in Halifax when hard-working locals restricted boat traffic on Sundays. This was their way to enjoy time with family and friends. We believe in the importance of being present in the moment, and truly experiencing the things we love most.” — No Boats on Sunday cider can copywriting
Mkwesaqtuk / Cap Rouge to MacIntosh Brook | Campsite: MacIntosh Brook
Campgrounds, in my experience, are fairly horrible places. Loud. Full of families with crying kids. Car headlights suddenly flooding my tent at 2:00 in the morning while some idiot roots around in his hatchback on the hunt for some essential item culled from his life of organized hoarding into the “wilderness”. Campgrounds I generally stay far, far away from. However, on this morning at 4:00, the grounds are nicely quiet and serene. No crying babies. No floodlights blasting me out of sleep. Sure, I’m surrounded by people who most likely couldn’t survive in nature for more than two days on their own, but they seem to be on their best behaviour. This park for camping is excellent—everything here is new. The site is situated on an old homestead, the foundations of the original buildings visible in the ground. The office building is a tiny, simple log structure with logs containing two floors. Three washroom and shower buildings are available on-site, with garbage cans on most inter-camp trails. My stay here was very nice. My sleep was not so good—I am not sure why, I just couldn’t sleep through the night without waking every hour or so. But I am awake at 4:00, with everything packed by 5:30, and after enjoying a relaxing hot shower, I am out walking by 6:00. Within a half hour I am soaked in sweat as the ascent up French Mountain begins directly upon exiting the campsite. I will climb for over an hour—455 metres—until reaching the top. The road will continue onto MacKenzie Mountain where I take some time to explore the “slope fen” (mountain marshlands) along wooden walkways that allow passage over fern and moss-covered terrain home to incredible species of the region. The 29-kilometre walk to the hamlet of Pleasant Bay is reached along the top of the mountain ridge, plunging down to sea level just before the town at an 8-degree angle. Along this section, I had stopped to break and cook food at 10:00 when I walked to an impressive highway lookout area. I met another family from Toronto touring the east coast at this point. They were very surprised when I told them that I had begun this walk 65 days ago. They were on the return stage of their own east coast trip, returning to the city through the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Québec, and eastern Ontario. When I reach the hamlet of Pleasant Bay I stop at the Rusty Anchor restaurant for a meal of fish and chips. As I am entering, a cyclist I had met back at the grocery store in Chéticamp stocking up on supplies continues his journey, exiting the restaurant and rejoining the flow of traffic along the roadway. This is the third time I have encountered him on the road since. Either he is a poor cyclist, or he is purposely taking his time cycling this route. I am back out by 1:00, and by 2:00 I reach the MacIntosh Brook campground. One of the staff members working at the restaurant confirmed its distance of 5 kilometres. I contemplate pushing on to the Big Intervale campground 18 kilometres down the road, but as it requires even more steep climbing than I have already experienced today, I decide to leave this section for tomorrow’s walk. Today I have completed a hard-fought 32.70 km up and down French Mountain, and I am very happy with the day’s walking. As I settle in, I write the day down and transcribe notes in the main building common area where I charge the phone and battery bank. I complete a good amount of making, working up to 6:45 as the day begins to darken. Another thirty minutes and the tent is up, and I am inside. For some reason, today feels significant.
Today’s distance walked: 36.04 km | Total distance walked: 2,389.60 km
