Cape Breton & The Bay of Fundy

I flew in Halifax and headed towards Cape Breton. For reasons, I don't understand, the name Cape Breton conjures the feeling of an almost magical place. While I was on the trip, friends and family would ask me how I liked the place and half-jokingly, I would say 6 out of 10. Cape Breton is scenic but I didn't find it spectacular. As I looked out over the landscape, I kept saying to myself that it must be spectacular in the fall. The never-ending forests are a mix of evergreens and deciduous trees. As I looked at the pictures in my guidebooks, I realized they are all, indeed, from the fall and show the landscape with fall colors. The part I liked best about Cape Breton Highlands National Park was the coastal road on the west side of the park which has a rugged but pretty landscape.

The other thing to know about Nova Scotia in general is that there are lot of little inlets with fishing villages and quite a few lighthouses. If that's the kind of quaint you enjoy, you will probably like the area better than I did.

After Cape Breton, I headed to the Bay of Fundy and into New Brunswick. I visited both Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park and Fundy National Park. Hopewell Rocks shows the extreme change in tides in the Bay of Fundy. High tide covers 20 to 30 feet of the rock formations, while at low tide, one can walk around the beach. Admission is good for two days so you can see both high and low tide, which I did. The contrast between high and low tide is quite stark. The Bay of Fundy area is less remote than Cape Breton but I was still at 6 out of 10.