Cape Breton

I hired myself a car, picked up supplies and got on the highway this morning, which all went very smoothly. The car has a crappy automatic gearbox but I've been enjoying the cruise control.

The further I came, the more snow there was lying around. To get to Cape Breton Island, I had to come over a small section of raised highway over the water. Whole swathes of the sea are still frozen here in the bays and inlets! And it's been foggy all day, so the drive was pretty boring and the weather is putting a bit of a downer on the idea of doing one of the walking trails on the island.

I'm finding the 'towns' in Canada strange so far. You'll see a welcome sign for a town, then nothing for miles except the odd house! Everything is so spread out, you have to drive between neighbouring shops. There are no pubs as far as I can tell and I haven't seen any restaurants that aren't diners.

There are trees everywhere though, which is awesome. I really want to go hiking, I just don't know where to start! With all the information centres shut, I don't know how to get a map... and I haven't seen any outdoors shops. I will have to enquire at the motel in the morning.

So, here is a picture of the bleak frozen lake near the Aberdeen Motel where I'm staying. Lots of places in Nova Scotia are named after Scottish places. So far, I've been through New Glasgow and Iona, and ended up in Aberdeen. From what I've seen today, the original Aberdeen seems more exciting.