Like so many of our now precious cars, at one time or another they end up on a flatbed truck in pieces waiting for someone who would like a project car. Such was the case in the life of my car when it ended up in the shop of Sean Johnson in Okanogan, WA. Sean was aware that Stephen Juntila of Everett, WA was looking for such a car and the result is a very well restored 1966 Austin Healey 3000 Mk III. I subsequently purchased the car from Stephen in 2007 as a retirement gift to myself and had it shipped to New Brunswick, Canada. The car’s performance and reliability makes it a great touring car and one which we do not hesitate to head out on road.

Our MGB friends John and Shirley Anne Bowles and ourselves planned a tour last winter through Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia including the very well known Cabot Trail. This is a trip that I have completed in three long days, but we completed this leg of our trip in six days, enjoying the scenery while making our way ultimately to an all British Motoring Festival in Windsor, NS.
I should note here that my wife suffers with MS and is in a wheelchair and of course to allow some room for clothes, something has to be left home – the spare tire. (of course there is more about this later).

We departed home on at 8:30 am Sunday July 4th, met our friends in Fredericton, and continued on highway 2 direct to the Nova Scotia border. The weather was extremely hot and my wife asked me twice if I was certain the heat was turned off in the cockpit of the Healey. We have had this discussion before, but I finally made it clear that yes the heat control was off – end of story. Healey owners can relate to this.

We passed through the NB/NS border and took exit 6 at Oxford, NS (blueberry capital of NS) and followed the Northhumberland Strait shore road, No. 6 through Pugwash, Tatamagouche for our first nights stay at the Pictou Lodge in Pictou. Pictou is renown as the “Birth place of New Scotland” as the first of the Scottish immigrants landed here in 1773. Pictou Lodge is situated directly on the Strait with beautiful vistas for sunrise and weather moving in from offshore. The Lodge is well known for the dining qualities, but just days before our visit the Lodge experienced a kitchen fire. The Lodge scrambled and served a continental breakfast under a tent. Perhaps next time.

Sunday evening we visited with our British Automobile Touring Association of Nova Scotia (BATANS) friends Don and Eleanor Robertson for dinner at their home. What a great way to start our tour and end the day.

Monday July 5th we departed Pictou at 9:00 am and drove east on highway 104 to Canso, Cape Breton Island. We took highway 19 along the coast with a lunch stop in Mabou. Musical talent thrives throughout Cape Breton and Mabou has produced such famous entertainers as The Rankin Family and John Allan Cameron (from Mabou area). While working in Scotland in 1994, I had the pleasure of attending a Rankin Family performance which was great, but never had the opportunity to see them locally.

John Allan Cameron was known as “The Godfather of Celtic Music” in Canada and had a very successful career in music.

10 minutes along highway 19 at Glenora Falls is the Glenora Inn and Distillery which produces North America’s first single malt whiskey. Their whiskey is achieving good success in the market place with Glen Breton Rare 10 year old whiskey winning gold recognition in international competitions. Note, since this spirit is distilled outside of Scotland, they cannot call their product Scotch. The distillery is an interesting stop.

The road signs along this area are bilingual with both English and Gaelic languages. Gaelic is studied and spoken throughout Cape Breton.

We continued our way along highway 19 to Cheticamp for our second nights stop. Cheticamp is a great coastal Acadian fishing community and as I learned famous for hooked rugs and associated Acadian patterns. We sampled Acadian cooking at it’s best in the Restaurant Acadien which really is “home cooked” food.

Cheticamp is basically the start of the Cabot Trail and the driving experience clockwise around the Trail is absolutely wonderful.

Tuesday July 6th was another perfect day for top down travelling and we were on our way by 9:00 am. About 1/3 of the Cabot Trail passes through the Cape Breton Highlands National Park of Canada. The park entrance is just outside Cheticamp. The Park has spectacular ocean scenery and mountainous vistas. Within minutes of entering the park we spotted a moose standing by the highway guard rail but jumped back into the woods by the time we got near. Not a good animal to have a collision with any kind of vehicle let alone a low OTS roadster. A few miles further and a huge coyote raced across the road a head of us. Coyotes are abundant in the park and have been responsible for the death of a lone hiker recently. Typical of any spectacular drive like this are many scenic viewing stops which my small digital camera just cannot do the view justice.

We travelled to Indian Brook where we had reservations at the English Country Garden B&B located in a remote stretch of highway. A huge Bald Eagle perched on a tree top scanning the adjacent pond for food while a moose foraged lazily on the far side of the pond. What a great day to travel and the highway was perfect for the LBCs.

Wednesday July 7th concluded the balance of the Cabot Trail highway, but not before crossing over Cape Smokey and the switch back drive down the eastern side. We took a side trip at the end of the trail to Baddeck to visit the Alexander Graham Bell museum. We all must be familiar with the inventor’s contributions to communications and heavier than air flight, but you may not be aware of his lifetime work with and for the deaf. This work was started by his grandfather and continued by his father in England. Mr. Bell came to the US to work at a school for the deaf and continued this work into his later life. He met and worked with a deaf lady who later became his wife and whom was very instrumental in his endeavours throughout the course of his career.

Another intensive project of Mr. Bell’s was an interest in further development of the hydrofoil as it may apply to airplane take off from water. This interest later changed to hydrofoil watercraft and he travelled extensively to discuss with earlier inventors of this type of craft. Bell’s work ultimately led to the construction of a 60’ cigar shaped hull hydrofoil watercraft that incorporated improvements developed from his past failures and set a marine record speed of 70 mph in July 1919, a record which stood for 10 years.

As for the town of Baddeck, it is a beautiful setting on the shore of the Bras D’or Lake. Baddeck is a must stop for those visiting Cape Breton Island.

We continued on our journey to Louisburg for a two night stay. Again, another beautiful top down day.
Wednesday evening we went out to a Caleigh (kitchen party style entertainment) at the local playhouse. Music was typical Celtic style which is a favourite of mine. The talent was superb. An interesting side note regarding the theatre is the fact that it was built by Walt Disney as a studio prop for the movie SQUANTO: A Warrier’s Tale filmed at the Louisburg Fortress in 1993. Disney gave the theatre structure to the town with the stipulation that the town relocate it from the fortress proper. The structure needed a roof which was left open for filming purposes, money was raised by the town and turned the theatre into the town playhouse. The playhouse operates through the summer and during the Christmas season.

Thursday July 8th was a visiting day in the Louisburg area. Louisburg is on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean which was more than evident as we walked out in the morning into a cool and very thick damp fog. Our plan was to spend the day at the Louisburg Fortress. The historic site is a Fortress town developed (1720 – 1740) by the French as a very important point for commercial trade with the Cod fishery. Louisburg at that time became the 4th largest commercial seaport in North America. We drove to the visitors building and purchased tickets. A bus drives visitors onto the fortress property. Thinking that it would be simpler for us (with my wife in a wheelchair) to be able to drive directly to the site, we were given permission and paper work to take our car on site. I was asked if I minded driving my Healey on a gravel road to get there and I replied that I didn’t necessarily make it a habit, but will do when necessary. I was assured the road was graded and smooth – but there lies the problem. The grader sheers off rock creating sharp chards and you can guess the rest. A flat tire is not the end of the world, but does get more complicated when there is no spare. Now I have driven 43 years and had perhaps 1 flat tire, but take the spare out of the Healey and I seem to have a flat on every significant trip. The commissionaire gave me the keys to his vehicle (the Cape Breton way to help) and I took the tire into town to get plugged. The garage owner smiled at me and said he does 3 to 4 repairs a week as a result of visitors travelling that particular stretch of road. Thursday evening we visited an old university friend of mine, Bill and Joan Delaney and enjoyed a lovely boat cruise, dinner and visit at their cottage on the magnificent Mira River.

Friday July 8th was a travel day with our final destination to be Windsor, NS. We left Louisburg and headed to Highway No. 4 on the east side of the Bras D’or Lakes. Again, the drive was very scenic and we enjoyed every mile of this highway which seemed to suit the Healey perfectly. We made a stop in Big Pond which is the home of Rita MacNeil and her Tea Room. Ms. MacNeil is another very talented Cape Bretoner who like all aspiring performers worked so long and hard to become a very well known singer/song writer in the folk music circuit.

Once we crossed the Canso causeway back to the Nova Scotia mainland we backed tracked down Highway 104 to Truro and made our way cross country through Old Barns and Noel Shore direct to Windsor.

The venue for the British Motoring Festival was at the Kings-Edge Hill coeducational school which is Canada’s first independent university preparatory boarding/day school for grades 6 through 12. The school was founded in 1788 and is the oldest independent school in the Commonwealth outside the United Kingdom. It is interesting to note that “it is asserted locally as the birth place of hockey, invented by the students of the day circa 1800”.

The Friday evening show reception gave all the registrants a chance to meet and mingle and enjoy finger food and wine and beer tasting from local vineyards and brew-house under a warm starlit evening.

The forecast for show day, Saturday July 9th was overcast with showers, but in fact it rained hard all day clearing only minutes after the show ended and cars left the site. There were 115 cars on the show site with an excellent variety of all British cars. Even the wet weather could not spoil the days event. The evening banquet of seafood chowder, lobster, beef/chicken entré with fresh strawberry shortcake delighted participants and the wet weather became only a past memory.

Sunday July 10 was a another perfect top down day to make our way back to Fredericton and the conclusion of our road adventure. It is worth noting that in the Saturday’s edition of the Halifax Chronicle Herald travel section, the Travel and Leisure Magazine named Cape Breton as the No.1 island destination in Canada and the continental United States. Cape Breton was also voted No. 3 on the list of the Top 10 islands in the world. I would have to agree that the statement that “there are no wrong turns in Cape Breton” is not far from the truth as the island’s natural attractions, sights and people are what this island is all about.