Camping in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park After a Two-year Absence...Some Peace at Last!

Covid-19 certainly did a number on everyone's life, including mine. The summer of 2020 was a hard one for me.  Covid hit my finances and mental health pretty hard and I was looking forward to an escape from it all.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen the way I would have liked.   

My ultimate escape when I want to get away from it all is to pack up the car with my camping gear and head to Broad Cove in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park.  I've been going there since I was a kid and I always set up my tent at the exact same spot every year, lot 87.  

When Covid hit here in March, there were lockdowns for months. Even the provincial park beach where I take my daily walk was closed down to the public so I had to find another place to walk.  When it reopened in the late spring, things looked like they might be improving so I started to make plans for my annual camping trip.  However, later in the summer when closures were still in effect and many restrictions were still in place, I decided to cancel those plans on the advice of authorities to stick around my community unless it was necessary to leave. It was the first summer in 30 years that I didn't make it to Broad Cove. 

The arrival of summer 2021 was looking much better since many restrictions were lifted and most things were opened up again.  When I heard that campgrounds were expected to be booked solid all summer because everyone was wanting to get away for the first time in almost two years, I started monitoring the booking site for an opening.  Because I was working Monday to Friday in the evening, I had to book for a Saturday morning to get the most out of a camping trip. I found an opening on a weekend mid-summer.  Unfortunately, my usual site, which is almost like a second home to me, was not available so I had to settle for another one.  Luckily, it was a nice one not too far away from my original site.

The campground was just as I had left it two years before and I felt all the weight of the world fall from my shoulders as I drove along the gravel road to my familiar home-away-from-home.  A day and night in the woods surrounded by nature was exactly what I needed to unwind and get my head on straight again before heading back to the real world that's still dealing with this dreadful pandemic.

I set up camp, I dined outdoors on a picnic table with a friendly squirrel, I sat in my beach chair under a clear, starry night. I read in my tent by candlelight and I fell asleep to the sound of waves rolling ashore and leaves rustling in a gentle breeze. I awoke early in the morning and ate breakfast surrounded by 5 AM morning dew, ordered a fresh coffee from my favourite coffee shop, The Bean Barn Cafe, and savoured it on the banks of Freshwater Lake near Ingonish Beach. 

After I took down my tent and checked out, I spent the day swimming, hiking and visiting my favourite spots around Ingonish.  Maryanne Falls, Warren Lake, Black Brook, North Bay Beach, The Point.  It was dark when I headed back over Cape Smokey and made the long drive home along the North Shore.  About a dozen cars whizzed past me (some passing on double lines going well over the speed limit) in the race to get to the Englishtown Ferry.  Some things never change!

 

The Point in Ingonish - One of the Best Views on Cape Breton Island

It's one of my favourite places to go in the evening when I'm not ready to head back to my campsite at Broad Cove near Ingonish.  The Point has one of the best views on the island - mountains surrounding the beautiful bay and just before dark, the mountains become silhouettes against the reds and purples leftover of a sun long gone down into the horizon. 

The breakwater at The Point near Ingonish.  I love this spot right before darkness falls.  I make a point to stop here on my way back to my campsite so I can watch the colorful sky turn black with millions of stars.  It truly is a magical place.  Sometimes I go to the end of the breakwater and sit on the rocks.  Sometimes I lie down in the sand on the little beach.

Ingonish is paradise!  I love this place!

The Ocean is Never Far Away in Cape Breton

No matter where you go in Cape Breton, you are always less than an hour's drive from the ocean!  It is, after all, a small island.  Whether it be a rocky shore, a sandy beach or high cliffs looking out over the Atlantic, the ocean is very much a part of the scenery here.

One of my favourite ocean views on Cape Breton Island located at Broad Cove Beach near Ingonish.

Broad Cove Camping Memories

Last year I didn't get to do a whole lot of camping because I was working all summer. Things worked out a little differently this summer and for the first time in over two years, my dusty camping gear came out of storage and I was finally able to indulge in one of my favourite pastimes. In fact, it seems like I spent the better portion of my summer in a tent. First it was those two freezing nights in Engishtown, followed by four nights at Broad Cove Campground in Ingonish, four more days in Cheticamp while attending a family reunion and two more nights at Broad Cove. But it's always my camping trips at Broad Cove that I treasure most. I know that campground like the back of my hand. And I should know it well because I've been going there every summer since I was kid. When I sit at the picnic table at lot 87 and stare up at the night sky, it feels like I am twenty years in the past and a teenager again. I feel so alive and so free. Nothing ever changes in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park and that is what I love about it. Broad Cove Campground stays the same too...well for the most part. I noticed this year that some of the bathrooms were recently painted, the benches on top of the hill by the beach have been moved and a new path created to get to the beach due to some erosion happening there but other than that, it hasn't changed since the first time I camped there more than two decades ago.

Those four nights I spent by myself at Broad Cove were pure bliss.  While the idea of sleeping in a tent sounds awful to most of my friends, I would sleep in a tent 365 days a year if the weather on the East Coast would allow it.  I love the sound of leaves rustling in the trees, waves rolling ashore,  coyotes howling at the edge of the woods, crickets chirping near the lake, and birds singing at first light. I even love the sound of rain landing on the top of the tent and sometimes I am lucky enough to hear the footsteps of an animal creeping around my tent.  More times than I can count, those eerie footsteps have led to impromptu snapshots of moose, coyotes and foxes coming in for a closer inspection of my tent.  I also love the very early mornings before everyone else is awake and when the dew still covers the tent and grass. There is just something so pure and natural about waking up and walking out into the fresh, pristine wilderness. Even being creative with trying to prepare a decent breakfast in the great outdoors is something I embrace. Knowing I can be self-sufficient and resourceful is like challenging myself to see how well I can do without all those fancy, artificial comforts of home.

Broad Cove 

The summer of '94 was when I first discovered Broad Cove. I stayed with friends who rented a lot there all summer.  I liked it so much, I told the rest of my family about it and we continued going there year after year from that point on. My parents liked it so much, they bought a second-hand RV and starting parking it at lot 63 all summer. Years later, I had my own car and I had become very independent. Not a good mix for a restless teenager looking for adventure. It didn't take long before I started making that two-hour drive to my "summer home" on my own. Many times, I had it all to myself. At 17 or 18 years old, staying in the RV was likened to staying in my very own house. It had everything I needed to allow me to spend every moment I could up there.

I moved away in the fall of 2000 and spent almost every day of that last summer in Cape Breton taking in those long, lazy summer days in Ingonish. It's what I missed most when I moved to another province far away from that beautiful strip of heaven deep in the Highlands National Park. That first year away went by fast and before I knew it, I homeward bound. A few years after I moved away, my parents sold that old RV and I was forced to reunite with an old love; camping. I did a lot of camping as a kid but forgot a lot of things like how to set up a tent and how to start a fire.  I bought my first tent at a local Canadian Tire store for 29.99 and a few other things to get me started and packed up the car and headed to Broad Cove.

The tenting section of Broad Cove Campground is quite different from the RV section. It has more trees, it's less crowded and there are more chances to have encounters with wild animals. I drove around the tenting section for quite a while searching for the perfect campsite - one that was close to the facilities and not too remote but far enough away to be quiet and not drenched in light pollution. I found the perfect site that fit all my criteria; lot 87.  And I survived my first solo camping trip and rekindled my love for roughing it in the great outdoors.

For the next dozen years or so, lot 87 was my second home. My escape. My sanctuary. My little slice of paradise in the Highlands. Every chance I got, I took off and headed for that little grassy spot and set up my temporary home complete with clothesline and dining area. Sometimes I received visitors, both two-legged ones and four-legged ones. Moose, coyote, rabbits and squirrels mostly. The nights at lot 87 were my favorite; laying on the picnic table watching the stars and listening to the distant of the waves crashing onshore. There was nowhere else I would rather be.

Lot 87 at Broad Cove Campground

When I learned I would have the summer off work this year, I immediately decided that much of it would be spent camping at Broad Cove. As soon as I'd see a forecast that promised sun and warm temperatures for a few days straight, I loaded the car and off I went into the wild Highlands of Cape Breton. Although lot 87 will always be my favorite campsite at Broad Cove, I decided to try something different this year. I wanted to be able to have a campfire on my lot. Since lot 87 has no fire pit and is far from the beach, I decided to try out one of the sites at the other end of the campground. As I drove around looking at the sites, lot 171 jumped out at me; spacious, enough trees for a clothesline, close to the bathrooms, close to the beach and equipped with a fire pit. I spent four amazing nights in Broad Cove during that first trip. It didn't rain the whole time and the temperatures stayed warm overnight so I didn't near freeze to death like in Englishtown the week before.  I spent four days all by myself and it was awesome. Nights spent by the fire looking up at the night sky, roasting marshmallows. No television, internet or phone to disturb me. It was heaven on earth.

My set-up at lot 171 at Broad Cove Campground

Whenever I find myself at Broad Cove, I also find myself doing a lot of reminiscing. I hear the children laughing and playing like children do when they are suddenly immersed in the great wild wilderness and when I close my eyes, I can recall a time when that was me and it feels like only yesterday. Nothing ever changes up there. It's easy to go back to that time in my life and I always try to relive those happy days spent on that campground as a kid. I walk along the dark gravel roads at late at night with only the moon and stars to guide me.  I revisit my old "neighborhoods" at lot 63 and lot 87 to see how things are doing. Nothing has changed. I stand and close my eyes and hear the sound of children playing and smell the smoke from their campfire and imagine it is my old summer friends coming to greet me (summer friends are the friends from all over the world who I only saw when I came to Broad Cove every summer). When I open my eyes and come back to reality and see those children sitting around their fire, I wonder if they are the children of any of my old friends. Facebook wasn't a thing back than so as we got older and moved away, I lost track of my old summer friends. I love being brought back to those incredible summers of my childhood and remind myself how lucky I am to have had such an amazing place to spend part of it.

My last stop is always the beach. This is pretty much the only thing that has changed at the campground. The two benches that stood just past the parking lot overlooking the ocean are now gone. Now, you might think that's not a big deal and that the loss of a couple of benches is a minor thing but to me, those benches played a huge role in my time at Broad Cove. I've read entire books on those benches, I drank my first (yes underage) beer on one of those benches. I saw my first unidentified flying object from the bench that was closest to the woods and how could I forget something like that! I've witnessed countless meteor showers, sun rises, sunsets and moon rises from those benches. I slept under the stars on those benches and hid in the wood's whenever I heard the park warden's truck coming after hours. And I stood at alert on top of one of those benches with a giant stick in my hand after being chased by some sort of wild animal late one night. so, as you can see, it was a huge disappointment to see that those benches are no longer there.

The beach is pretty much the same except now you have to go through the woods to get to it. This is no easy feat in the pitch black. I used my cell phone as a flashlight and tried to find my way down the stairs, all the while waiting for a rustle or a growl in the bushes to scare me senseless and send me tumbling. Just like old times. We used to walk the nearby beach path in the middle of the night as kids just to scare ourselves. That night, as a thirty-something adult, I laid down in the cold sand and watched the night sky feeling like I was 16 again. In the back of my mind, I knew I had to pack up my gear and head home the next morning but for those few moments, I imagined I had nothing else to do but lay there without a care in the world. The sound of the waves lulled me into a semi-conscious state while the sound of a lone loon could be heard in the lake behind me. This is my "tropical" paradise.  No palm trees and turquoise water.  Just the rough Atlantic coast, the crisp, clean air and beautiful beaches that stretch for miles.

Some more of my Favorite Places

A couple of weeks ago, I began writing a post about some of my favorite places on earth and realized that they would not all fit into that one blog post that I posted...so here the continuation of that list!

Mary Anne Falls – Two fairly large waterfalls, one on top of the other, located high up in the mountains of the Cape Breton Highlands National Park and surrounded by trees, a crystal clear brook and pure, pristine nature. What is there not to like? During week days in the summer, when everyone is still at work and I know there will not be a lot of people around, I make that slow, steep drive up to the falls and spend the entire afternoon there. I relax on some rocks with the sound of the falls lulling me to semi-unconsciousness. I swim in the cold, deep waters of the pool below the falls. I hike to the look-off that overlooks the falls. I walk along the brook, deep into the forest and just enjoy the quiet and peaceful surroundings of this almost untouched area of the park…and it really is like heaven on earth!

Blacketts Lake – I don’t actually hang out at Blacketts Lake, I drive around it. It’s one of my favorite coffee routes when I am in the Sydney area and, although it is a fairly short drive, there is hardly ever any traffic, the area is scenic and, at night, there are hardly any lights which makes it a great little drive on a clear night when the stars are out or there is a full moon.

Lot 87 at Broad Cove Campground – My family has been camping at Broad Cove campground in Ingonish for many years. I discovered Lot 87 one of the first times I started camping on my own and it has become my home-away-from-home. The lot is close to everything I need at the campground in an area where there are usually other campers nearby so I am not completely alone. The lot has a picnic table and two trees spaced perfectly apart to allow me to rig a clothes line and the public fire pits are only a few yards away which means I can hear the happy sounds of people singing campfire songs and smell marshmallows roasting through the evening.

Playa Santa Fe – I love to get lost and this beach is one example why I love getting lost. Some of the best places I have found while traveling were found after I had lost my way, including Playa Santa Fe. I found this beach quite by accident when I took a wrong turn while walking around the Mayan Ruins in Tulum, Mexico. Giant sand dunes, palm trees, turquoise water and a long, stretch of soft, white sand that went on for what looked like miles. What else could I ask for? Seclusion? Yup, it had that too…I was the only person on the beach! And, oh yeah, there was a small hut hidden in between a couple of giant dunes with a friendly local serving chilled Cerveza.

Signal Hill – I didn’t know anyone when I first moved to St. John’s, Newfoundland. Fortunately, I had a car and was able to provide myself with some entertainment during those first lonely days in the city. I drove for hours, trying to learn my way around the city and, in the process, found a great place not far from my apartment to just hang out and get out of the house. Signal Hill is known as a popular meeting place for locals but for me, it was an escape. I went there to admire the spectacular view of the city from high atop that hill or to gaze out into the vast ocean on the other side. I could park there for hours just people-watching and listening to the distant sounds of the city below.

The Lone Sheiling – I first experienced The Lone Sheiling when I was a child but it was after I started exploring Cape Breton on my own that I really felt a connection to the place. The Lone Sheiling is more than just a little hut on the side of the highway. There is a short walking trail that winds down into a little valley where some of the tallest and most beautiful trees create an almost fairy-tale-like atmosphere. The very green and lush forest is alive with plant life and little critters scurrying around and a brook runs through the area and makes for the perfect place to relax with my feet in the water and not a soul around to bother me.

Death Valley National Park – Desolate, quiet, vast, sunny and insanely hot. Most people would probably think I’m crazy to have fallen in love with such an unforgiving landscape but there was just something about Death Valley that had me awestruck. Perhaps it is because it’s so vastly different from the landscape that I am used to back home in Canada or maybe it was that surreal feeling I got while driving along those lonely roads through an area of North America made famous in so many movies and so many real life events…some of them quite notorious.

The corner of Lingan Rd. and Lingan Beach Rd – My old house. I lived there from the time I was 5 until I was 20. I moved out and returned when I was 32 and lived there for another year and a half. I still drive passed it everyday but another family lives there now so I can’t actually go on the property and wander around like I once did. Now, I can only admire it from the road as I drive by or visit it in my dreams. I spent the best childhood any kid could ask for in that house and the surrounding property. There were woods, gardens, tree houses, a huge front and back yard and a hill in front that we used to sleigh down. The house itself is large but cozy and, although the new owners have no doubt changed the interior, I will always remember it the way it was.

Quidi Vidi Village – This tiny little village tucked away in a little corner of the city of St. John’s, Newfoundland was one of my favorite places to spend an afternoon when I lived there…and is still one of my favorite places to visit when I happen to be in town. Colorful little houses along the water, boats lining the small harbour and coming and going throughout the day, a walking trail that runs along the scenic coast and a little rocky beach that no one seems to know about where I can lay in the sun with a book and the sounds of the ocean. The best thing about Quidi Vidi Village is it seems like you are in the middle of nowhere when you are there. It looks like a typical outport town in rural Newfoundland except it is in the middle of a capital city!

Kidston Island – Or the “island within an island” as I like to call it, is located just a little ways offshore from the village of Baddeck in central Cape Breton. I liken this place to being shipwrecked on a deserted island. After the little shuttle ferry drops me off at the island, I am quite literally stranded (well, until the boat comes back a few hours later but it’s nice to pretend!) and I usually have the island to myself except for a few people on the little stretch of beach. I hike the trail that winds all around the island and relax on the benches that overlook Baddeck Bay where Bald Eagles are often spotted and beautiful yachts float around the harbour. I like to wonder who is in those yachts as, rumor has it, quite a few Hollywood celebrities travel to Baddeck to get away from their hectic lives in the spotlight.