On To Cape Breton

 We drove an hour south-east of Charlottetown, and lined up to board the ferry to Nova Scotia.  The bow of the ferry lifts up, and then the cars and trucks, including transport trucks, slowly make their way into the lower deck. It's a bit claustrophobic, and I was glad to get out of the car and up to the upper deck.

We passed some lighthouses on our way out of the harbour.

 The opening in the sea wall seemed pretty narrow for the large ferry, but the pilot expertly did a 90 degree turn and put us exactly through the centre of the gap.

 A smaller ferry passed us going the other way. The weather was cloudy and misty, but fortunately the sea was calm. As it was, my stomach felt a little queasy if I went inside the boat.  I was OK on the outside deck.

 The never-ending painting that has to be done to keep the rust at bay.

 The approach to Nova Scotia was marked by a narrow path of buoys.  Again I was struck by the skill of the pilot.  We had to scramble down to our cars before the ferry docked so there was no opportunity to take pictures then.

 Another hour on the road and we came to the edge of Cape Breton.  The weather was intermittently rainy; we had left sunny PEI behind.

This is on the causeway that joins mainland Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. The dark hills were dark and broody at first encounter, but, as we drove further along up the coast, the landscape began to remind me a lot of the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal.

 We stopped at this welcoming gift store in Mabou, a small village up the west coast.  The owner gave us an exhaustive (and exhausting) run down of all the opportunities to hear local music.  Something happening every day. In October, a big Celtic musicfest happens, and people come from far and wide to participate in and enjoy the music.

 The view across the road from the gift shop.  By and large, the area is not prosperous, and the farms are often on hilly ground that probably doesn't have very good soil.

Finally we arrived at Inverness Centre for the Arts to meet up with my sister who is the manager of the centre.

 View  from her office.

 In the late afternoon, we made it to the Inverness beach that has very beautiful water in shades of dark turquoise, purple, teal blue, and green.