Road Trip - Ingonish to Porters Lake

The loop of Broad Cove campground that we stayed in last night was all but empty. Most campers at this time of year are in campervans, caravans, or huge busses, and were all staying in the fully-serviced section (where each campsite has power, water, and sewerage hook-ups).

We had gone for a walk through that part of the campground yesterday, and ventured into a closed section where they had only just begun the cleanup from Hurricane Dorian. It was amazing seeing huge trees toppled over, pulling up large chunks of earth with them.

After breakfast we drove down the road to the trailhead of the Middle Head track, which took us out to the head of a narrow peninsula that jutted out from the town of Ingonish into the North Atlantic Ocean. It took us about 2 hours to walk the 4km loop, passing through sections of deep forest and exposed clifftops. On our way back we took a not-100%-official part of the track, which took us along the northern side through what felt like a tree boneyard. I’m sure this part of the track would have been fine under normal conditions, but it was quite treacherous clambering over the post-hurricane debris.

Our next stop was Big Spruce brewery in Baddeck, where we had wanted to stop on our way up to the Cabot Trail but hadn’t because we ran out of time. We bought some fish tacos from their on-site food truck and sampled four different craft beers. I was quite tense all through lunch, as the room we were eating in was also occupied by a large family of huge wasps (maybe hornets?). They didn’t bother us though, and we eventually escaped with our lives and a few extra cans of juicy IPA.

From Big Spruce, we drove on (with a quick coffee stop) for about three and a half hours until we arrived at our stop for the night, Porter’s Lake Provincial Park. We stopped in at the firewood shed on our way in, and a very nice campground warden packed up a bundle for us for only $5, which is the best value campground firewood we’ve found so far. To our surprise, he then offered to lead us up to the firewood compound where we could load up on some kindling. When we got there, he started loading more armfuls of big logs into our car! We got out our IKEA bag to load a few bits of kindling into, and he told us to fill that all the way up too! Having thanked him profusely, we carried on to our campsite and built a roaring fire with the most beautifully dry wood we’d ever seen.