Western Atlantic - Part Six: Way Down East

Day Two in Sydney started with a hike quite near our AirBnB, starting at a church and moving relentlessly upward, so steeply that ropes were strung between trees to assist especially on the slippery way down:

 Having ascended, we got a reward of a pretty large view of the northern stretch of Sydney - but it being a somewhat surly day at that point, the results aren't particulary post-worthy.












But on the other hand, on the way back, there was this twisted tree with significant personality:

And then it was time to reconnoiter the city to investigate the next venue at the Big Fiddle, a thousand-plus hall with an iconic sculpture in front:

And, hey, how handy, there's a pub right across the street, so why not...

Later, we went to one of the major events of the Celtic Colors, the Big Ceilidh at the Big Fiddle, featuring among others the energetic homegrown trad group Coig and the headlining Scots clan Blazing Fiddles. The crowd needed less prodding as these took the stage, check out Coig from last year for instance:

And hey, they have a pretty nice cover of Peter G.'s Solsbury Hill to boot. And the fiddles did blaze for the headliners. These groups have a nice way of balancing the otherwise high frequency-heavy mix with a keyboard with the bottom end up, so they can drive the songs nicely without drums.

Then the next morning back on the road north to Ingonish, where a cabin awaited. The Mainers call the upper coast of the state "Down East", apparently because "downwind", where the boats were pushed, went there. And Ingonish is nearly as far east as you can get and be in North America. And we figured we'd get a look from the North, at Cape Smokey overlook, with plenty of mischievous clouds messing up the light:

up












And then, what do you know, we were able to drag our increasing proliferation of effects into the cramped-but-cozy cabin, how about that view:

 No, no, I meant that view:

(that would be the one off our deck...)


 We have continued to hear the locals lament the "Celtic Colors Effect" - meaning a little too much success with the tourism outreach front, increasing traffic, property values, general crowding, this would sound familiar. We have felt Nova Scotia especially to be quite sedate, though, since the great preponderance of these love/hate visitors come to light in midsummer.

With rain upcoming in the next days, we hustled again up the coast to capitalize on another bright day, taking our host's recommendation of the hike around Warren Lake, inside the Cape Breton National Park, a flat three miles or so, with plenty of color:

A lot of the evergreen trees around this lake look like the stuff up very high in the Sierras and elsewhere, somewhat stubby pines of boreal forests.

I decided to put up with my shadow in the name of catching this fascinating, sun-bleached tree root that decorated the gravelly beach.

Then back to the cabin. The water is cold and refreshing, and made me remember that when we got to Alma in New Brunswick earlier in the trip, there was a boil order in effect, so we had to keep glasses of bottled water handy for teeth brushing and whatever. You could tell that it was sketchy just from the smell of running it. That said, I have to acknowledge that an inconvenience like that was about the worst I could relate in our trip so far.

Fingers crossed, touch wood.