Road Trip Day Seven

It's hard to believe that we've been gone for a week already. The days have gone fast and the time has been good. We have all gotten along well and have had a number of good conversations. The trip yesterday and today has been through some amazing parts of the country. Cape Breton has been truly amazing - even seeing it through the rain and drizzle. I'm wondering if I could have kept my eyes on the road if it had been clear and sunny. The rest of my pictures are on the Flickr site HERE. Of course the other photos we've already taken can be found HERE at another Flickr site.

Today we started out the day by going to Louisbourg, the French settlement and fort that was built in the early 1700's to serve as an ice-free harbour for France to export coal and protect the Grand Banks and the entrance to the Gulf of St Lawrence. It was one of the busiest ports in the new world in the 18th century. There is lots of info on the internet about this community - just type Louisbourg into Google.

Technically the fort was not yet open and although we saw the cars of a number of the workers preparing it for the summer season, we didn't see anyone at all and had the place to ourselves. We explored for a couple of hours but I could have stayed there for the rest of the day. (I don't know how many of you know that I worked as a guard at Fort Henry in Kingston.) The fort was partially reconstructed in a massive project done by the Government of Canada in 1961 and although what they have done is impressive, it is still only half done. Unlike Fort Henry (which never saw action) Louisbourg was attacked twice and defeated both times - once by the New Englanders (1758) and the second time by the British in 1765.

We left through a "secret tunnel" and cut our walk time back to the car in half. Stuff like that really gets my imagination going thinking about how life must have looked like when the fort was in operation. I especially thought about how the fort was defeated in battle.

After Louisbourg (and after taking a gravel road - something Brigitte would have deeply disliked) we drove down along the coast of the interior lake Bras D'Or which is absolutely spectacular - even in the rain. We then just headed to the Canso Causeway and then down to Halifax where the sun was shining - go figure. In the evening we headed back to downtown Halifax where the guys checked out another used CD store and John found some good cheap tunes.

Tomorrow we will sleep till we get up and then head out for home when we feel ready. With three drivers we will drive straight through to get John home for late Thursday afternoon and we should get home by 9:00 or 10:00pm. I'm ready to head home.