A Maritimes AdvEVenture Part 4

From Ingonish we headed on to Chéticamp on the Cabot Trail, hoping to do the world famous Skyline Trail that day, but if not, then the following morning. The parking lot fills up fast, and when it does, they close the trail, and the fines are very substantial if you park on the road and walk in. Once 30 or so vehicles depart, then they will reopen the lot. However, this first window for us happened to be a pretty cool day (high of 13-15) within a cluster of gorgeous warm (low 20s) days, so when we arrived at around 11:30, there was plenty of parking to be had! Before we arrived we made a few stops.

Green Cove

Colour and texture, bracing wind and powerful pulsing surf, a mesmerizing cocktail.

Did I mention the seals we saw cavorting in the waves at Green Cove? My heart was exploding with all this humbling majesty and wonder.

Green Cove

Lighthouse at Neils Harbour (Neils is not possessive apparently but a name, like Stevens)

This is a pretty little fishing town with some colourful buildings.

The Aspy fault

This was fascinating, but then I've always been fascinated by rocks and what scientists can glean from them. This was created at the same time as the Appalachian Mountains when two plates collided, pushing up the sea floor. Glaciers eroded the rocks, some types of rocks more than others. It's still moving at about the rate that your fingernails grow in a year.

The road on this eastern side of the trail has inclines not for the faint of heart!

But, for an EV, it’s terrific: slower speeds and lovely steep grades downhill to coast and regenerate power into your battery!

View of the roadfrom the Skyline Trail

We also stopped at Bog, a boardwalk trail that goes through a ... bog, which, in actuality is more of a fen, and a slope fen at that due to the slight incline upon which it sits. Lots of interesting plants and vegetation, some still flowering, bravely grow in a pretty harsh environment.

And at last, we were there, and off we went. It's 8.2 km to do the full loop, heading off to the right, and going anti-clockwise all the way around to the trail to the final look-off, and then coming back, still going anti-clockwise on the trail through moose-proofed by tall sturdy fencing and gates back to the parking lot.

You know my love of butterflies, so reading about the short-tailed swallowtail butterfly way up there on the righthand side of the loop made my heart sing. 

If you want to go a little shorter, only around 7 km, go to the left, at the entrance to the loop, up and back through the moose-proofed section. This is an ongoing study, a huge fenced-off area that has been ravaged by moose. They are trying to let it regenerate to the native habitat with deciduous trees (which moose chomp up like a stick of celery). Two other cool creatures we saw were woolly bear caterpillars and this girl:

A grouse

 

A fairly steep incline up and then this long narrow fairly steep incline goes down to the platform at the final look-off

The view from that platform that takes your breath away:

Skyline Trail final look-off

Today's final destination: Chéticamp. This is the Chéticamp River which marks the border of Cape Breton Highlands National Park on this west side. Our hotel room overlooked this river, not hard to take at all! I have to give a big nod to Cathy in Port Perry who shared the itinerary of their Maritimes Extravaganza from 2022, with lots of good recommendations, this hotel one of them, The Cornerstone Motel. Wonderful from hosts, to service to location to view, so quiet and peaceful. We first stopped in at the park gates and Visitor Centre to stroll around a bit (we were pretty much toast after the almost 21 000 steps that day) and went into the centre, while we plugged in at one of the six (I think) free chargers. Again, slow ones, only 8 kW but in the 45 minutes we strolled around and hit the bathrooms, we boosted our percent by a whole six! Still, it was free, and we were happy to get out and stretch our legs.

When we learned that the park was open 24/7 and patrolled at night, we drove back there after supper, plugging in again, and walking back to the hotel which was just 600 metres. It was a little nerve-wracking going back to get the car in the inky blackness a few hours later walking along the highway with just my phone flashlight to light the way, and hoping no bears were choosing to badump-badump across the road as had happened a few days back! This second charging brought us up to a comfortable 83% ready to head off Cape Breton and on to Halifax the next day. Once we hopped into the car, we tootled back into town to The Doryman where we enjoyed a drink and some local musicians singing (well me more than MacGyver) en français and in English. It mollified me somewhat as we'd missed a ceilidh the previous day.

This side is different, not the crazy inclines, more French, make that Acadien, than Scottish. This is Belle Côte.

We had enough to get to the next charging point, but PlugShare had these fast chargers, 180 kW, rated very good, so we pulled in for a quick top-up.

Sadly, this charger would only put out 57 kW so the quick too-up was not so quick. We aren't sure why some are dialled back like this. Maybe it's time-of-use, as in Ontario where it costs more for power during the day when everyone's at school and work? We sat for 20 minutes and got to 81%, so off we went, stopping one last time to charge before our Halifax abode. Again that last charge of the day, a Charge Hub 180 kW was a disappointment: it wouldn't accept our card, and was not set up for credit cards, so we ended up at a 50 kW flo.

As MacGyver said, we are still in the infancy of EV infrastructure. The cars are ready and raring to go, but the charging points, though getting more abundant, especially in Quebec and New Brunswick, though Nova Scotia was also pretty good, are not reliable, and they need to accept a universal charge card you can preload, like flo, which actually is accepted at quite a few chargers, or take our damn credit cards! And then, put out what you advertise!!

Back in a couple of days with the Halifax segment!