Island Hopping

It was time to say goodbye to Cape Breton Island on Wednesday, and was already missing it by Wednesday night.

It took me a couple of hours to drive off Cape Breton Island and back onto mainland Nova Scotia and over to Caribou to catch the ferry. The ferry ride was a little over an hour, but what a cool ferry!

See any cars? Nope. That's because they are "inside" the ferry. The end on the right opens up like some kind of space capsule and cars drive on to the main deck OR down, into the belly of the ferry. I went down and it was weird. There were 5 lanes of cars, the length of the ferry on that bottom deck. I kind of got lost trying to find my car when it was time to get ready to disembark! There are three decks above the two car decks, and one deck had a very nice cafe . . . with live music. Way to go Northumberland Ferry Ltd.!

I was busy eating when the announcement came over the loudspeaker to get back to our cars, so as I stood up to get going I looked out the window and saw this -

Yep, I almost missed it. It's the Wood Islands Lighthouse. Actually, there are three lights - the main lighthouse, and the one to the right that you can see (a range or harbour light) and another one behind the main lighthouse (another range/harbour light). When I saw how close it was to the ferry terminal, I was excited. LOVE the red dirt cliffs.

It was nice to be able to climb up one of these Canadian lighthouses. It's different as they are not as tall, and most of the stairs look like this instead of the winding metal staircases I'm used to in the West coast lighthouses.

Made it!

And that is the reason why I won't be visiting all of the Prince Edward Island lighthouses. I might get to eight of them . . . maybe.

Beautiful scenery on every drive. I headed further east in search of the Cape Bear Lighthouse. The thing about lighthouse hunting is that it's not quick. Lighthouses that are out on points of land mean taking the main road for awhile, then turning off onto the road that goes to the point, which can be anywhere from 2km to 15km, and then you have to go back out that road to get to the main road. Patience is a virtue in lighthouse locating.

Cape Bear Lighthouse

Most of these Canadian lighthouses have been decommissioned, but the communities in which the lighthouse reside pull together their resources and keep the lighthouses maintained, and staff on a voluntary basis or have received a grant to stay open and run a gift shop or small tours. They are doing a great job and I've met a lot of wonderful small-town, passionate-about-preservation people.

Cape Bear Lighthouse is northeast from the ferry terminal and Point Prim Lighthouse (above) is southwest from the ferry terminal, so it was a bit of a drive from Cape Bear to Point Prim. But it was worth it because look!!  This one is ROUND! Finally! 

Love this shot with the sun in the background.

A long drive, a ferry ride, and three lighthouses in one day? Yep. I was ready to call it a day. So I checked into the Sonata Inn in Charlottetown (another hour from Point Prim Lighthouse) and headed out for a bit to eat. Fish and chips sounded good. The menu had the choice of one fillet or two and the server told me that one was plenty big. NO KIDDING! Yes, despite the fact that it looks like two cod filet, it was just one. And it was the greasiest fish and chips I've ever eaten. Great batter though and yummy tarter sauce.

The Sonata Inn looked quaint enough on their website, but it's just not the same as the fabulous place I stayed in Cape Breton. In fact, the Sonata Inn feels like a hotel. The building is 149 years old, but the rooms are very contemporary. And breakfast is just not the same, although I like the set up - you can go eat buffet style any time between 7:30 and 10:00 a.m. The people here are really nice and it's located in the historic part of Charlottetown, which is really cool.