Cliffs North of Waddens Cove

Before this trip, I had never been north of Mira Gut along this coast, so my trip to the Cape Morien “peninsula” was my first time there. The South Head Road, which I followed, has the rough shape of a giant letter P drawn with square strokes, where the left stem represents its course from Highway 255 on Cape Breton Island over the bridge across the Homeville River and up the northern side of the island to South Port Morien, after which it makes a 90° turn (the top bar of the P) and crosses the island, only to then turn 90° back towards Waddens Cove (the right bar of the P), where it ends at the Waddens Cove Road (which completes the bottom bar of the P, returning to South Head Road roughly half way between the bridge over the Homeville River and South Port Morien).

On the northern side of the island near Campbells Pond at South Port Morien, there are fine views across Morien Bay to Northern Head (on Destination Cape Breton’s Cape Breton Travel Map referenced in the introduction, Morien Bay is shown as Cow Bay and Northern Head as Cape Perce (also spelt Cape Percy in old sources)—like Cape Morien for South Head, these are older names that are no longer present on most current maps). Except for the area around the bridge, these views were the first scenic views on the island—the rest of the road is tree-lined and lines of sight are accordingly limited. North of South Port Morien where it is most directly exposed to the fury of the Atlantic, the landscape opens up somewhat and, once one reaches the southern side of the island, the views become very fine. Photo #1 shows the cliffs along the shore north of Waddens Cove, looking southwest towards Waddens Cove and up Mira Bay towards Mira Gut and Catalone Gut. Though well outside the scope of this photo, across Mira Bay, one can see Scatarie Island, Main-à-Dieu Passage, and the northern side of the peninsula sheltering Main-à-Dieu on its south side. I even convinced myself I could see Cape Breton (the cape) through the Main-à-Dieu Passage, something the maps indicated was possible, but, if so, my camera captured nothing that I could say for sure was Cape Breton, surely, if ironically, the most elusive cape on Cape Breton Island!

The view in photo #2 is from the end of the Waddens Cove Road in Waddens Cove, looking northeast along the coast. There are perhaps a half dozen houses in Waddens Cove, the largest settlement I saw anywhere on the island; they were mostly behind me and to my left as I took this photo. As I was squinting my eyes in hopes of seeing Cape Breton, I saw a few lobster boats out on Mira Bay (two are visible here as specks of white on the water to the right of and beyond the point in the photo at the right), though I suspect that those boats spend the nights in Port Morien, Mira Gut, or Main-à-Dieu, as I saw no pier here where they could moor. The height of the cliffs along this shore can be gauged by the size of a telephone pole; they run all the way out to South Head. There are several reports of coal deposits on this island, though so far as I am aware, none has ever been mined here; the dark colour of the rocks below the gravel at the right, especially in the original where the dark colour is clearly not due to a lack of light, makes me wonder if they might not be an exposed seam of coal.

I have so far refrained from commenting on it, but the photos taken this day have, like this one, a significant amount of cloud cover, though the sun was nevertheless often shining quite brightly; yet at other spots not far away, the clouds were hardly to be seen. This phenomenon can be observed in the Main-à-Dieu photo (mainly clear), the next three photos (significant cloud cover), and the following one (clear). I had already had such fine weather I was not about to complain, but I was disappointed that so many of those of Mira Bay turned out less well than I had hoped at the time.