After crossing into Nova Scotia, we followed the coastal route (highway 6) along the Northumberland Strait, stopping in for the night at Seafoam where the kids played on the beach in some of the warmest waters north of the Carolinas.
As we crossed the Canso Causeway on to Cape Breton Island, the region's Scottish ancestry became ever more apparent, with signs for Gaelic art and heritage peppering the roadside and radio stations rocking out fiddling classics.
At a roadside pull-in off highway 19, Brendan and Nath befriended Angus, a friendly local guy whose family has a long history in the area. In response to a query on where was a good place to buy seafood, Angus took the boys for a spin in his pick-up truck down the road to where he lived and they arrived back half an hour later carrying frozen crab, beans they'd picked straight from Angus' garden and homemade rhubarb jam.
Thanks Angus!
As we started north from Margaree Forks along the western section of the Cabot Trail, the scenery seemed to ramp up another gear.
Perhaps the perfect blue skies imbued a loveliness that's absent on rainy days but everything seemed to be turning on the charm for us - the quaint fishing villages with their many-coloured weatherboard houses, the multi-hued boats bobbing on the many inlets, the rugged rock cliffs and the pebble-filled streams and beaches littering the way.
With camping for RVs limited in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, we took sites for two nights at the Cheticamp campground at the western entrance, in a location perfect for us close to a playground.
The next morning, Peta and I completed the Acadian hike which took us on a 8.4 kilometre loop up to views of the plateau and the Gulf of St Lawrence and then following a stream littered with what we later found out was moose scat - but where were the moose?
We met a park ranger who said there were 3,000 reintroduced moose on Cape Breton Island of which about 1,000 were in the National Park.
Though we've both seen moose previously, I think we were maybe a little unlucky to come across so much scat and none of the scat-makers themselves!!
Then it was time for the whole troop to hike what's lauded as the premier walk in Nova Scotia - the Skyline Trail.
Perhaps our middle-of-the-day timing was poor or maybe the one kilometre or so of dirt road leading up to what felt like a true trail was off-putting, but the 7.5 kilometre loop didn't seem to deliver the promised motherload of amazingness until at last we reached the out-and-back section which follows a ridgeline overlooking the Gulf of St Lawrence.
This ridgeline has an amazing boardwalk that allows people to fully experience the headland without tramping the delicate vegetation.
We headed back along the shorter side of the loop, with the boys now completely over it and with us having to partially carry them.
Luckily their cousins provided a bit of distracting fun and encouraged them along.
In hindsight, it would have been better to go out and back on the shorter section and to do the walk very early in the morning, both so that the kids' energies were high and also to enhance our chances of spotting a moose (although, as I've mentioned - Peta and I were out very early on a trail that moose frequent and we were still unlucky so who knows!?)
Back at the campground, the kids cooled off in the neighbouring river, rode their bikes around the site and took to the bitumen to complete some chalk art.
The adults enjoyed Angus' crabs!
The next morning, we had a quick stop at the Information Centre before we headed off to complete the Cabot Trail.
The 'Bog' (the name of the trail) was a half-kilometre boardwalk loop that included information boards about insect-eating plants in the area.
It made for a fun stop.
Then we hiked up to MacIntosh Brook (1.7 kilometre return loop) which took us along the most beautiful leaf-strewn, moss-covered forest track on either side of a babbling brook generated by a lovely set of falls at the end of the loop.
These were both perfect antidotes for the longer, hot walk of the day before and reminded our kids that hiking can be fun (hooray!)
On the eastern side of the park we found campsites together at Broad Cove beside a really interesting beach.
It had multi-coloured rocks, pink sand, a lake cut-off from the ocean where fish were beaching themselves, washed up fishing equipment and drift wood - just a really fun place to explore.
We set up a rope system to pull the river rat from one side of the pond to the other.
Later we shared another great night around the campfire.
Following the Cabot Trail around the eastern side of the Park and onwards through the Ingonish Bays we encountered more quaint fishing communities.
But we didn't hang around... the rain had set in, clouding our views with mist.
