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HTML MakerWe are in Nova Scotia for 11 days but are limiting ourselves to an area called Cape Breton Island, which is supposedly very beautiful, and the capital Halifax. The route is shown in green on the map above, the red line just happens to be on the drawing I copied from the web.
Alexander Graham Bell retired to Cape Breton and there is a museum dedicated to him which I am keen to visit. We are spending two nights in Antigonish, one night in Cheticamp whilst driving round the Cabot Trail which is one of the must do attractions, and then five nights in Baddeck. We will then return to the capital Halifax for three nights before moving on.
For the past month or so the papers have been full of horror stories from UK airports of thousands of passengers missing flights due to problems in security and bags being lost. The worst airport in the world, if the newspapers are to be believed, is Heathrow.
Now covid is less of an issue getting through the airport has risen to the top of my worries causing the loss of sleep leading up to this adventure. We took the precaution of staying in a hotel next to the terminal building and as we never put bags in the hold did not run the risk of losing them but as requested, three hours before departure, we reported to security. Twenty minutes later we were through and then worried about what to do for the next two and a half hours!
A very large breakfast was the answer then of course we were force fed on the plane.
Later in the evening we explored the town and stopped for a snack but it was a substantial meal, it looks like we might be putting on on weight this holiday.
We arranged to hire a "compact" car, as you can see in the picture we have been given a huge truck, so snack means a big meal, compact is a huge car, we are staying in a "Microtel" motel whose rooms are very large, it seems everything is bigger here.
I did avoid one potential pitfall, the place we had our "snack" had a list of craft beers and was about to order one recommended by the waiter when I spotted it's alcohol strength of 6%. That is stronger than Old Peculiar and there were some beers listed at 7.4%, almost a wine, not something to drink in pints even though their pints are a little smaller than ours. Another customer suggested the strong beer was because Antigonish, where we are staying, is a university town!
We selected Antigonish because it was too far to drive all the way to Cape Breton after a long flight. The towns claim to fame comes from a poem written in 1899 by a chap called William Hughes Mearns which is called the Antigonish poem.
What drugs he was on when he wrote it I don't know, as you can see below it is short and perhaps popular with teachers who can set it as task for pupils to explain what it is all about. You also may have noticed that the name Antigonish does not appear in the poem at all although it was supposedly written about a haunted house in the town.
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again today,
Oh how I wish he'd go away!
When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away....
Tomorrow we will explore the area around the town keeping an eye out for ghosts and trying to avoid eating too much, a full report will be issued in due course.
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