Nova Scotia - Iona and the Heritage Village Museum

September 19 - Today we split in quite a few directions but all ended up at Englishtown, finally arriving on Cape Breton Island. the 104 highway is a good, divided well kept road that showcased long views out over the waterway between Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton.

Several TCs headed off to Fortress Louisbourg, the largest reconstructed 18th-century French fortified town in North America. There are over 35 buildings in this fort with history interpreters in period dress to tell the story. It takes a full day to walk around and visit all the sights.

Others headed on to Baddeck to shop, have a lunch and then proceed to our night's camp. Three of us chose to go to Iona to the Heritage Village Museum. It's pretty easy to travel with other TCers but especially with those who served in the military. Joe's Coast Guard, Chuck's Marine and Ron's Navy. There's never a thought about not having able hands always available.

So many times on this trip we have had a ferry crossing. Many of the ferrys are "on call" meaning that when they see vehicles on one side ready to cross over, the ferry goes to get them. They all also seem to cost $5 no matter the length of the crossing. We three all fit on a very small ferry and got to chat with a local ferryman about Cape Breton on the five minute trip.

The Highland Village Museum is a living history museum and depicts life as lived by the early Scottish Gaelic culture. The web site at http://museum.gov.ns.ca/hv/ has videos and background music which will get your toes tapping. We wandered through almost all of the buildings and climbed up and down the steep paths. This was a very worthwhile stop on our trip.

The museum has several Highland cattle, shaggy, horned cattle that were originally brought by the Scottish settlers. How'd you like to farm on this land?

For those of you who haven't seen the north Atlantic coastline it is hard to describe. Photos are the only way.

We caught up with the group and even though it is now raining, we sat around a campfire all holding umbrellas. Hard to keep truck camper folk inside. Tomorrow we'll go to Baddeck to tour the Alexander Graham Bell site and to walk around the markets. Supposed to be a rain day again but we'd like to get the weather out of the way before we head up to Meat Cove. A TC not with our group pulled in tonight just coming back from the tip of Cape Breton. He said the roads are passable into Meat Cove, they had a great camp on the side of the steep slope to the sea and watched many whales go by. Fingers crossed we can do the same.