Coastal Views at Meat Cove

Meat Cove is renowned for its scenic beauty, due as much to its coastal location above the waters as to the Highlands which encircle it. While few bright fall colours have made it into the photos on this web page, I would be remiss not to include photos of the magnificent coast in this essay along with the foliage photos on the previous page, so herewith are a few to illustrate. Some were taken in Meat Cove, but the majority were taken from below the rock quarry at Black Point, a wonderful vantage point for viewing the coast out to Cape St Lawrence.

Photo #1 looks eastwards down the coast from near the Meat Cove Campground. Cape North, the end of the Cape North Massif, is in the far distance; Black Point, with its distinctive arch-shaped exposed rock strata, is in the middle ground. The Meat Cove Road can be seen below the hill descending to Black Point at the upper right of the photo. The location from which many of the photos on this page were taken is along the road at the upper centre of the photo, where one can see the bare rocks which have been mined to rebuild sections of the road and to stabilize the banks of the Meat Cove Brook, which were badly eroded in the flash flood of 2010. Although grey clouds this day diminish the blueness of the waters, there is enough light reaching the waters to recall how it sparkles on a sunny day.

Photo #2 is a telephoto view of Jumping Brook Falls, the spectacular mouth of the Jumping Brook which descends over a sheer cliff. A memorable very sharp turn on the Meat Cove Road below Black Point on the way to Meat Cove marks the point where Jumping Brook, descending from the Highlands, crosses under the Meat Cove Road and forms the valley below the Meat Cove Road; the force of the waters resulting from the 2010 deluge was so great that it overwhelmed the old culverts there and washed out the road—it is worth a stop there to see the new and larger culverts, along with a good quantity of huge stone blocks from the Black Point quarry. The birds along the rocks in the foreground are cormorants; notice the leftmost drying his wings in the air, a characteristic pose.

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Photo #3, taken in Meat Cove from somewhat closer to the road leading down to the Meat Cove Beach, is another view of the beautiful coast to Black Point. This view is just enough further south that it hides both Cape North and Jumping Brook Falls. The hill in the left foreground hides about half of the beach area. The photo shows how circumscribed by the descending cliffs the beach is. The cave seen right of centre is echoed elsewhere along the beach, which takes a terrible pounding from ferocious waves from the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Photos #4, #5, and #6 form a connected panorama taken from Black Point using Big Bertha; they are far more detailed than any previous photos of Cape St Lawrence, the most northerly point of Cape Breton Island, that I have from Black Point. The amazing features along this coast have been covered in great detail in my previous essay, The Spectacular Northwestern Inverness County Coast, so I will refer you to its initial pages for a detailed depiction of this beautiful headland.

Photo #4 looks out at the tip of the Cape, telescoping numerous features into a short span that in actuality is much longer and larger. The terrain conceals the automated light around the point where the Lighthouse Trail comes out on Cape St Lawrence; I hiked there again this spring and, while there, tried, without success, to find a way through the thick evergreen trees to the area at the upper middle of the photo—from the waters below, it looked more feasible than it proved to be in fact.

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Photo #5 looks to the left of photo #4, with which it overlaps, at the middle section of Cape St Lawrence and its sheer cliffs, sculpted by the erosive forces of ice, wind, and driven water. Big Bertha brings out very well the contrasting colours of the rocks, which from a distance on a bright day, as here, are far lighter and less noticeably red. Notice in the upper left corner a small stand of deciduous trees bearing fall colours.

Photo #6 looks again to the left of photo #4, as far left as one can see from Black Point without interference from adjacent terrain. The great rock face descending diagonally from the upper left is on Bear Hill; before it is part of Rhu Pillinn (Look-Off Point); and, in the foreground, is the slope of L’il Grassy, whose normal green colour has morphed into a fall brown.

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Photos #7, #8, and #9 are a second connected panorama, this time looking at the area at the Meat Cove Beach and that below the Meat Cove Campground, again using Big Bertha’s telephoto capabilities.

Photo #7 looks directly at the Meat Cove Beach and the mouth of the Meat Cove Brook, which is at the far right of the photo just behind the boulders at the right end of the beach; a strip of it can be seen flowing at the far right of the beach on the far side of the bank of sand, gravel, and cobblestones thrown up by the waves. The Chowder Hut is the red building right of centre; the campground is at the right of the photo outside its scope. The cabins above the beach give a fairly good gauge of the height of the cliffs here. You will likely remember the house and the boat in the upper mid left from one of the foliage photos on the previous page.

Photo #8 looks to the right of photo #7, with which there is some overlap, at the still green fields of the Meat Cove Campground; all of the red picnic tables, save the one at the far right, have been put inside for winter storage—even the pole right of centre has had its flags stowed. A valley carved by an unnamed brook can be seen behind the truck; it comes down from the Highlands above parallel to the lower portion of the Lowland Cove Trail, which begins at the end of the Meat Cove Road to the left and outside the scope of this photo. Notice also the cavelike structures at the far left and centre right of the photo, again carved by the waves. The mouth of the Meat Cove Brook is beside the boulders on the beach and can just be barely made out here with some squinting.

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Photo #9 looks to the right at the far edge of the campground. Here, the unnamed brook makes two distinct, if narrow, waterfalls, spilling over the high cliffs at the northernmost edge of the Meat Cove Campground. The fairly short and rewarding trail up to L’il Grassy begins just up the Meat Cove Road from the truck, at a point where it is very easy to cross the brook, and continues across the fields seen above and into the forest. Ah, what wonderful memories of a very lovely place!