Views from the Murphys Point Look-Off

The look-off at Murphys Point at the end of the Murphys Pond Road is another Port Hood vantage point that offers exceptional views of the entire area. I took far more than the six photos seen on this page, but many were of things already seen from other vantage points, so here I have mostly confined myself to the views close at hand. In years past, the road past the marina was not car driveable; in the most recent years, it has been driveable with care; it offers no turn-around spots on the way up, so you had best be certain it is suitable for your vehicle before starting up. In any case, it is not a long walk up from the marina and the views on the way back down make walking a better deal than driving up.

The wide-angled view in photo #1 looks to the north to Black Point, where the coast line turns to the northeast towards Colindale, West Mabou, Mabou Harbour Mouth, and Cape Mabou. The houses at the right are at Marble Hill. The rope fence in the foreground is intended to keep visitors off the edges of the cliffs, which, like the one in the foreground, are often eroded underneath and could easily give way if any serious weight were placed on on it: notice the large piece of sod on the beach below that seems out of place and likely came from above. To the right of the fence (and outside the scope of the photo) the road forms a circle that allows you to turn your vehicle around and head back as you came, with parking off at the edges of the road.

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Photo #2 looks down at the strand below Murphys Point Look-Off. This is not the sand beach seen at several locations all around Port Hood Island, but a stony gravel beach. I have no idea why it is not, as sand beaches are to be found at Sutherlands Cove, West Mabou, and Mabou Mines, all exposed to the full fury of storms off the Gulf of St Lawrence as this strand is as well; one would have thought it would have been ground down to as fine sand as the other beaches in the area seen previously in this essay. Perhaps it is something to do with the geology, though what specifically I cannot surmise. I have not tried to venture down to the water level to see how far it is possible to walk out towards Black Point; my guess is that one wouldn’t get much further than the little point at the middle of the photo before running into cliffs; it’s on my to-do list to explore some day.

Photo #3 is a telephoto view of Black Point, so named, I suspect, because its vegetation makes it look black from out on the Gulf. In older sources (and a few contemporary ones), this headland is labelled Cape Linzee, but the topographical map and at least some local folks refer to it as Black Point. The flat meadow above the cliffs is reminiscent of other locations along the western Inverness County coast further north, though there the cliffs are higher than here. I cannot identify the object right of centre in the grass gleaming white from the sun: it appears to be mounted on a post and is is near a wire fence with wooden posts (many lying on or just above the grass) of a type often used to confine cattle.

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Photo #4 looks at the houses on Marble Hill, a prominence above Black Point with gorgeous views of the Port Hood area; unfortunately, at least from those places where I’ve stopped along the Marble Hill Road, it is very hard to prevent utility wires from getting in the way of what one wants to photograph. Still, the added height offers a perspective not available elsewhere. Marble Hill Road, as the continuation of Port Hood’s Main Street past the Colindale Road junction is known, is right of centre in this photo; the pavement ends just on the other side of the hill and the road itself ends soon thereafter, though Google Maps shows a trace of a road continuing on down to a quarry on the shore, almost certainly now on private property.

Photo #5 looks across to Shag Rock and the northern end of Port Hood Island. This is very similar to the view on the previous page of this essay, though from higher up and somewhat closer. It is also further enough north that the opening between the two rock pillars beneath the natural bridge is now concealed. The shoals breaking the surface of the water extending to the right of Shag Rock suggest that the island once extended at least that far out.

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For the final photo from the Port Hood area in this essay, I have chosen photo #6, a view to the south from the Murphys Point Look-Off. Previous views to the south in this essay were from sea level and from further south and east, enough so as to completely conceal the Creignish Hills east of Long Point rising in the distance (closer, however, than the mountains at the far right across St Georges Bay on the mainland near Havre Boucher).¹ Boardwalk Beach runs across the left two thirds of this photo, ending at Shipping Point. From this perspective, MacNeil Point (in front of the white building) is clearly detached from Seonalds Point (about half way between MacNeil Point and Domhnull Ruadhs Head at the far right of the photo) and enough so that one can see the entrance into Little Judique Harbour.

¹ These identifications were confirmed using the “visibility cloak” data for the panorama generated from this photo’s coördinates by the extremely helpful Hey What’s That web site and displayed in Google Earth. I had initially thought I was looking at Creignish Mountain, but it looked to be too close—indeed, it is yet further south and concealed by the hills seen here.↩