Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia

This week we moved from the southern shores of Nova Scotia to the northern shores of Cape Breton Island. On the island is Cape Breton Highlands National Park, a 234,240 acre park. It is also home to about 1/3 of The Cabot Trail, The Cabot Trail in a 185 mile loop that was completed in the 1930s and named for John Cabot, who is believed to have arrived in Atlantic Canada in 1497. This road gave people access to the rugged shoreline as well has the Cape Breton Highlands, built to promote tourism and to show off it's Scottish Heritage. Many Scottish families immigrated to Nova Scotia in the mid 1700s, after the end of the Scottish Clan System in Scotland.

Inverness

Our first stop on the island of Cape Breton was at Inverness. A typical beach town, the draw is the beautiful sandy beach, where you can spend the day collecting sea glass along the shore. We spent the afternoon there combing the beach for sea glass and allowing the pups to run and play. I was just excited to visit here because of the name of the town, since we visited Inverness in Scotland in 2013.

Cape Breton Highlands National Park

With only a few days on the western side of the park, we tried to maximize our time with some of the best hikes. We took the dogs on two hikes, Benji's Lake Trail (2 miles) and Corney Brook Trail (4 miles).

Benji's Lake is supposed to be home to moose but we didn't see any this day. We enjoyed having the trail to ourselves as we walked the Boreal Forest to the lake.

Corney Brook Trail follows Corney Brook to a small waterfall at the end of the trail. Doug and I definitely enjoy hiking when we hear and see water along the hike. The brook wasn't flowing a lot right now but the sound did keep us company.

We did it! We wore Monty out. It only took 6 miles!

Skyline Trail

The next day we headed out early to hike the Skyline Trail. The only trail in the park that dogs are not allowed on because of the volume of hikers. We were told by a park ranger to arrive before 9A because after that the parking lot will be full. So we arrived around 7:30 with only a few other hiking groups to keep us company. This is a 5 mile loop hike that takes you to amazing views of cliffs and ocean.

These pictures were taken from the Cabot Trail on our way back to the campground. The ridge of the rocks is where the Skyline Trail is.

"Yes, stinky hiking sock!"

The Cabot Trail

The main road through the park is part of the Cabot Trail. There are a lot of pull outs to stop and take pictures along the way.

Veteran's Memorial Pullout

This day there were lots of schools of fish along the shore. We were able to see them from one of the pull outs. We watched for a long while in hopes of seeing whales but none came.

Pillar Rock Beach