Day 9 - 2013 East Coast Trip - Halifax to Whycocomagh, Cape Breton

Start: Halifax
End: Whycocomagh,Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Distance: 456 km    Total to Date: 3432 km
Weather: The weather in the morning was perfect for riding. The temperature was 72 degrees, the sky was blue and there was very little wind. As the day went on, the temperature rose into the low 80's. By about 7:00, the temperature was about 63 degrees and by the the time we called it a night, it was very, very cool. The sky was clear and there was a bright full moon.
Today, Al's wife, Lori, joined us for the ride to Cape Breton. She seems excited about the ride. We started our ride about 10:30 and rode towards Halifax. We ended up just east of Halifax and decided not to go into the city, but start our way towards Cape Breton, along the Marine Drive, Nova Scotia's scenic coastal trail.
As we got out of Dartmouth, there was beautiful scenery along the coast and we stopped by the Lawrencetown Beach area to see the surfers.

DOUBLE-CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

The coastline has many small bays with little islands and as we past the bays, you could see the waterless bottoms as the tide was out. Along the route, each small town had it's quaint white church.

Our ride that would take only a few hours by the main highway, took us nearly 8 hours, as we stopped to take photos and to figure out where we were.
We got off track a few times, but managed to follow the east coast all the way to Cape Breton.

We got to Glendale campground at about 7:30. The people were so, so accommodating. One lady offered Laurie a place to stay for the night, another called around for closing times for restaurants, another wanted to help us arrange another nights stay, etc. When we found a place, it was going to close at 8:00, but a lady called and the restaurant said they would stay open for us. We had great food (pan fried halibut and seafood platters) and excellent service at the Bayside Restaurant.

After we made it back to the campsite, a camper was playing his Celtic squeezebox and we talked with some other campers who had a campfire.
Tomorrow, we hit the Cabot Trail.