We awoke early on our second morning in Canada, and I was excited to explore the area.  We arrived the night before in the dark, and hadn’t had a chance to see very much.  The kids were moving slow and wanted to continue the board games they had started the night before.  Le Guide had told us that there was a path behind the house that would take us to the shore, but that we should be careful of the sharp drop-off.  I think he might have thought we would blithely go walking off cliff.  Teresa and Diego volunteered to stay with the kids, so Julie and set off to find the path.

The first thing we noticed were the mosquitos and black flies.  We’d met them the night before, and they were undoubtedly our least favorite part of Cape Breton.  We also noticed quite a few moose droppings around our house.  Apparently, there were black bears, too, but we didn’t see any sign of them.  But it was not all bugs and manure.  The path wound through meadows flush with new growth and dotted with wildflowers.

After passing through some small meadows, the path ducked into the woods. We could soon hear the sound of waves and shortly thereafter saw the cliffs.

The path turned to follow the cliffs, and off to one side we spied a rope leading down.  Le Guide hadn’t mentioned a rope.  Which means he certainly hadn’t warned us not to go down.

The descent was steep, but not too bad.  Parts of the rope were buried under dirt, suggesting that part of the cliff had recently caved in.  I was a little concerned that the cliff was unstable.  But the cliff wasn’t vertical, making a cave-in on a clear day less likely.

The rope ended about two-thirds of the way down.  After a bit of searching we found a second rope that led close to the rocky beach.  The last few feet were, however, a bit of a scramble.

But the climb was well worth it.  We found ourselves in a small, isolated cove, with high rocks at either end.  The beach was accessible only by sea or via the cliff.

Amongst the rocks we saw bits of shell from lobsters.  They grow big in the clean water around Cape Breton.

We scoped out the northern end of the small beach, finding that rocks prevent us from heading further.

Turning around we headed back to check out the southern end of the beach.  Scrambling around on the rocks we discovered that many of the rocks were impregnated with geodes.

I found one larger rock that contained quite a few geodes and decided to take it back to our house to show the kids.  Of course, I would have to get it up the cliff first.

Meanwhile, Julie had been collecting driftwood on the beach, which she then had to haul back up to the path.  It took a little extra effort, but we were soon back on the path headed back through the woods.

We hadn’t even had lunch yet, and the day was already amazing.

-Will