Day 4 - Cape Breton Island

Neither of us slept well so we got an early start to our trip, leaving at 8:15am, heading north to Cape Breton Isle, about a 4 hour trip.  For most of the drive, there was nothing but trees as far as you could see!  

Typical scenery

On the way, we stopped at the Highland Village Museum.  Nova Scotia has a strong Scottish background, and this museum has living reenactors telling the story of Scottish immigration to Nova Scotia.

They explained that the Scottish people were having a hard time in the late 1700s in Scotland and decided to head west.  The geography in this area reminded them of Scotland, so many settled here.  In the first house we visited,  there was a young woman "preparing to leave Scotland".  Each subsequent house traveled forward in time from the first settlers, through the early 1900s.  We saw how each house looked - getting bigger and nicer over time, getting phone service, creating a mill, etc.  They even had someone churning butter and I got to taste a sample (delicious!).  

This is the home "in Scotland" that the family was leaving to head to Nova Scotia.  Below is the inside of this home.

This is someone in their "new home in Nova Scotia".

Where they made linen from flax

A typical school room

An 1800s general store, with clothes, food, housewares and a post office

Some of the small houses in the Highland Village

An old hearse

An actual former woodworking mill.

And the views were spectacular! (this and next two pictures)

After leaving there, we stopped for lunch, and then headed to our second rental.  In our travels we had to take a small ferry.  The new rental is a cottage, called the Forest Cottage.  It truly is a cottage, and while it's pretty basic, it has everything we need, except right now the internet isn't working.  The landlord is working on it - fingers crossed.  By the time you see this, I'll either have gotten it working, or gone somewhere else to write this.  

                                                                  Our short ferry ride

                                                           Getting on the ferry

Our cottage

Inside the cottage

Our cozy backyard!

We left the cottage to visit the Alexander Graham Bell Museum.  I had no idea how accomplished Bell was!  He worked with the deaf, created a hydrofoil boat, worked on creating a "flying machine" and created a breathing apparatus to help people with breathing issues, all in addition to inventing the telephone!  Next we explored the nearby town of Baddeck, scouting restaurants for tonight and tomorrow night.

A painting of Alexander Graham and Mabel Bell

Phone display

An early flying machine

A hydrofoil boat

Our airbnb host spent a bunch of time but finally got the internet working - YAY!  We went to dinner at a pub kind of place at the Inverary Resort.  I really liked my food, David's was meh.  

So we've had two disappointments in one day!  First, a walking tour that we had booked for a few days from now was cancelled.  And then our whale watching tour for tomorrow got cancelled due to projected high winds.  Bummer!  So we played around with a few different ideas for tomorrow and we have a plan!