Mike and I got a lift up to Baddeck, Cape Breton with a girl named Beth (from Halifax HI Hostel) and a couple of her friends, to the start of the Cabot Trail. Arrived at the Cabot Trail Motel and met up with the Sydney bike hire people who we had arranged to rent bikes off to cycle the 300km Cabot Trail.
Set off 6am Saturday morning and cycled clockwise along the Cabot Trail as far as Pleasant Bay (approx 130km). The weather was perfect for cycling warm and dry and not too windy. Stopped along the route at various points of interest, notably the bizarre scarecrow display (100+ scarecrows dressed as various characters ranging from Margaret Thatcher to Freddie Krueger - perhaps not such a difference there). Cheticamp, a Micmaq reservation and one of the bigger towns on the Cabot Trail. The last section of the day's ride took us through the Highland`s National Park and both the first really beautiful part of the trail and also the toughest section so far, French Mountain, which was a long steepish climb for 2km or so. I`ll let our French brethren off though as the views from the top were worth the climb. At the top of the mountain is the start of one of the park`s most popular trails, the `Skyline Trail`. I got there a bit ahead of Mike, so decided to do a section of the trail, inspired by revelations that many hikers had seen moose on the trail. Every time I saw a hiker coming from the opposite direction I enquired after moose and was met with the standard response, ``I saw one 5 minutes back, it was a bull or it was a mother with calf``. 5 minutes later no moose, so conscious of Mike not having a bike lock I headed back to meet him when I was confronted by the mother of all moose (well a mother moose anyway) just about 10 ft in front of me - I would like to say it pawed the ground and snorted menacingly at me, like in the cartoons, but it actually just sat there and munched leaves without even giving me the time of day. I walked a little closer and it gave me a slightly quizzical look before ambling away into the bushes. I had experienced my first moose encounter (and survived).
