Margaree Harbour, NS

Wednesday June 18…10:30pm

Went for a bike ride this morning from Pleasant Bay to the village of Red River. Only about 10 km’s return, but quite a few hills.

The Cabot Trail in the distance winding it's way up Mackenzie Mountain

The village of Red River

Sherman, at our parking spot in the Pleasant Bay harbour

Then we drove on south, headed for Cheticamp. We drove up Mackenzie Mountain, and down French Mountain. Georgeous views from both. They had signs warning that the 20 km’s in between the mountains were rough roads, but they had the paving crews out resurfacing, and most of it was near completion so it was in good shape for us. We wanted one last hike in the National Park, so we stopped at Corny Brook Trail. We were the only vehicle parked at the trailhead…definitely not many tourists around yet. The purpose of this trail is to follow the stream inland to a waterfall. It’s fairly flat and we did the 6.5 km’s return in about an hour and a half. The trail was a bit too “maintained” for my liking…almost like a bike path in places. I find that these National Parks people are a bit hypocritical. On one hand they say that their mandate is to maintain the natural state of things, but then they build up trails to the point where they are no longer hiking trails. And they make it wide enough that they can now drive their 4 wheel drive ATV’s in to build and maintain the 3 bridges they’ve constructed along the trail.

Looking back at Pleasant Bay Harbour from a lookout on the Cabot Trail

The often photographed Cabot Trail looking south from French Mountain

Top part of Corney Brook Falls on the Corney Brook Trail

We had been told by another RV’er that the Cheticamp Campground just before you exit the park is dead, and that you could easily empty your holding tanks and have a shower and nobody would say anything. Sure enough, that’s exactly what we did. There are something like 100 sites there, and I think 5 of them were taken. But then why would you pay $26 to $35 to camp here, when you can camp for free almost anywhere along the coast. I went in and complained about the prices, and filled out a comment card with all of my suggestions on how they could do better. But I’m sure they have some bureaucrat in Ottawa who justified his job by writing a 126 page report on why things are the way they are, so it was likely a total waste of my time.

The town of Cheticamp didn’t impress us much. There were quite a few spots we could have parked for the night, but all we’re very close to the road, and not that scenic. We drove on looking for somewhere better, and eventually came to the Margaree Harbour. Once again, the harbour itself offered a great quiet spot with beautiful scenery.

Our overnight spot at Margaree Harbour 

Total Nights Sleeping in the RV…241

June Fuel $ 321.23

June Grocery $ 389.71

June Overnight Costs $ 58.56