Happening on his chosen miles: Exploring the Northumberland Shore

July 9, 2019

Finding a Base Camp is always challenging and sometimes it requires lots of compromising of our ideal. We traveled up the Northumberland Shore and settled for a two nights at Seafoam Campground. It is a huge place, 300+ RV’s in a large field. The first night was not bad but the second was so noisy that sleep was out of the question. On the positive side, the owners were very nice and helpful and the beach access was great. We took Bonnie down, unhooked her lease, and let her run. Never-the-less, old folks cannot subsist without sleep so we moved on.

Moving on consisted of traveling only an hour further up the coast to this absolutely super spot at Linwood Habor Campground. It is Base Camp Heaven. It is a small campground on the banks of an inlet from St. George Bay. We have a spacious and shady site, everything is immaculately clean, and the owners are great. We arrived Sunday afternoon and will leave tomorrow. There is no direct water access but it is only three miles to a wonderful and remote stretch of coast where we can beachcomb to our hearts content.

On Sunday afternoon we drove back to Antigonish and down to the beach to Arisage Provincial Park. I read in a local paper that they had fossil cliffs there. We walked a beautiful trail along the cliffs, descended to the shore beside a waterfall, and encountered a stunning beach with lots of cliffs and rocks and sea caves. We didn’t find any fossils but we had lots of fun.

Yesterday, we traveled the other direction (north) and crossed the Canso Causeway to Cape Breton Island. We opted for the shore road at Port Hastings as our destination was the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre at Judique. For the past 25 years or so the folks on Cape Breton, and especially those in Inverness County, have concentrated on reviving and restoring their traditions of Celtic music and dance. The Centre has interactive exhibits, music demos and lessons, camps, and lots of Ceilidths. The entire “Musical Coast” has hundreds of summer and fall events. The Centre also has an excellent café that features a ceilidh from 11:30 to three every day. The food and the music were outstanding!

After leaving Judique we went a little further north to Mobou and took a secondary road out to Mabou Harbor. The entire geology is different in what is called the “Mabou Highlands”. There are beautiful white gypsum cliffs and the beaches are sandy. They have just resumed coal mining in this area which is not popular with the locals.

We returned to "Base" via an inland country road that had lovely rolling hills and lots of small ponds. It is SO green here and the wildflowers are profuse. Our temperatures are in the 70's during the day, 50's at night. BUT the no-see-ums are dreadful in late afternoon-early evening when the wind calms down.

Tomorrow is moving day. We will head to North Sydney where we will catch the Ferry to NFL tomorrow night.