Bette & Wallet

Lee and I went with some friends to a benefit concert with Bette & Wallet at the St. George Catholic Church on Cape George (north of Antigonish). Cape George is the "little Cape Breton" of the mainland - high mountains, dizzying coastal roads, and huge ocean expanses - and worth the trip all by itself.


MaryBeth (center) and Gabriel (left) did French, Acadian, Gaelic, Irish and Scottish songs - and sometimes blended them with rock music! Very talented musicians! They can play anything - accordian, fiddle, guitar, lute, banjo, mandolin.....



and the saw (see the man behind with the bent saw and the violin bow).....


and the suitcase!
What talent!

Tor Bay Provincial Park

One of our favorite places is Tor Bay, the provincial park on the Marine Drive along the Atlantic Coast near Larry's River, where the ocean stretches east to Europe. As you can see, there are wide beaches curving around beautiful inlets. The water is so clear and blue, you'd swear you were on a tropical island. Very inviting.

The inlets are separated by rocky outcroppings, where tide pools abound.

And the marshy spruce woods behind the beach is filled with lichens and these pink flowers (some kind of heath or heather?). The park features a long, meandering board walk through the woods, parallel to the beaches. There are picnic tables and little kiosks, so we sat in the sun and ate lunch.

You can also see how crowded this was on Saturday May 29! We only saw three couples there the entire time and - true to Nova Scotia hospitality - one of them struck up a conversation and soon took our phone number to invite us to dinner in the future.

Shaw Point Park, Isle Madame

Our first post!
Monday was Victoria Day in Canada, a national holiday and the unofficial start of the summer beach/cottage season. So, we traveled to Isle Madame with 3 friends and had a beach picnic.

What we imagined would be an obscure, out-of-the-way shore park turned out to be a highly popular beach retreat for locals.

Homemade pizza with salmon, goat cheese, dill and capers, plus fresh fruit, Gorgonzola cheese, ice tea and coffee. Then, a long walk on the beach, wading in water still in the 50s.

Best of all (for all the kids) was the swimming hole behind the beach, where the river wound its way to the ocean and the water was warm.