A Friday edition of Thursday Travels: The Ceilidh Trail

Fog and mist on the Sunrise Trail. Nova Scotia. June 2012.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Thursday Travels post.  I know.  It’s Friday, not Thursday.  But I’m off skiing this afternoon and won’t have time to post the photos from that little adventure so you’re stuck with a scheduled post and some travel photos from Nova Scotia today.  In my last Thursday Travels post (Ferries and boats and lighthouses, oh my), M and I had just landed in Nova Scotia.  We left Caribou, Nova Scotia, and went east on the Sunrise Trail, making our way towards Cape Breton.

When we started out in Nova Scotia, the weather was foggy and rainy and misty.  As we went east, it began to lighten and brighten a bit.

Crossing the rock-filled Canso Causeway to Cape Breton

It wasn’t until we left the Sunrise Trail and started making our way north on the Ceilidh Trail that we began to get a glimpse of blue sky.

Somewhere on the Ceilidh Trail

Cape Breton Island is part of the province of Nova Scotia, and is physically separated from the Nova Scotia peninsula by the Strait of Canso.  The word Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) is Gaelic for party or gathering.  The Ceilidh Trail, a little over 100 km, follows the western shore of Cape Breton where there are stunning views of a rugged coastline, bays, inlets, hills, and rolling farmlands.  I wish we could have explored this area more, and maybe stopped off at the Ceilidh Trail School of Celtic Music in Inverness.

We did stop every now and then to enjoy the scenery, but not for long, as we had a dinner destination in mind and wanted to be sure to arrive before they closed for the evening.

As it turned out, we needn’t have hurried, but we didn’t know that at the time.  Our concern was that our travels took place during the off-season, and most places either closed early in the evening or weren’t open at all.

Our dinner destination was the Glenora Inn & Distillery.

I highly recommend it for both the food and the single-malt whisky.  The Glenora Distillery is North America’s first single-malt whisky distillery.  In case you feel a need for a toast to go with your tasting of single-malt whisky, you’ll find one here.  We had dinner (and tasted the whisky) in the pub.  The food was wonderful.  The whisky even better.  (Spell Check is insisting that I’m spelling whisky incorrectly.  Spell Check obviously prefers the American version of whiskey.  Sorry Spell Check.  They don’t spell it that way in Canada.  Or in Scotland.  Even the New York Times has discussed this issue.)

Because M was driving, I had to do most of the tasting.  It was tough, but somebody had to do it.  😉

A shipwreck along the way.  (I hope this wasn’t the result of too much whisky tasting.)

After dinner we made our way to the Cabot Trail where the stunning views became even more stunning.  I’ll show and tell more about that in the next edition of Thursday Travels (which will hopefully be posted on a Thursday, but no guarantees as I never know what Mother Nature will come up with on my Thursday walks around the pond).

For those of you who want to see snow.

Thanks for dropping by today.  I’ll be back tomorrow with (I hope) photos from my skiing adventure.  There’s more snow coming tonight and tomorrow.  It’ll be a good time to get out into the woods somewhere and admire the beauty of winter.  Or maybe tour some of the neighborhoods to look at the Christmas lights.  They always look so much prettier with snow to enhance the effects.

One of the baby hemlocks.

Have a great weekend!  Be good, be kind, be loving, just Be.  🙂

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