Usige Ban falls

July 1, 2008

Very warm 26 degrees and humid

Canada Day Hike with the family.

We decided to do a hike for Canada Day this year. So we search around for different hikes and found this little gem. The location is about an hours drive from Sydney and the hike is fairly easy for the kids.

Joining me on this hike were Cecelia (Da Wife), Nathan (2nd oldest) and Danielle (My youngest). The hike took about 2 and 1/2 hours.

This hike begins in a NS Picnic Park the trial is well defined and nicely looked after. There is a water fall at the end of the trail and also two good size brooks. There is also a section of the forest that is over 200 years old and you can see some good size hardwood trees.

Below is several pics of the trip and I will take some time later to clean up this post.

North River Falls

June 29, 2008

Overcast, cool, mist and drizzle all day. To the right is a nice pic of the falls from the lookoff.

I wanted to do this hike since I first heard about the falls several years ago. So I decided to do it this week. On this hike I was joined by my son Tony and my friend Steve MacNeil.

We left at 6:00am for the hike, the drive took about 1 hour.

The hike is 18 kms round trip the first part of the trip consists of a short uphill climb to an old farm road then follow the farm path a couple of kms to get to the first good stop at a place called salmon pond. This stop provides a nice view of the river and we ran into two people fly fishing this location on the river.

We continued our journey and followed the narrowing trail up the river. We came to a sign indicating old growth forest. This part of the walk was very nice with some large older trees and plenty of sounds from the overhead birds. After a bit of walking the trail becomes a little more difficult and starts going up and down the side of the river embankments.

After approximately 3 hours we got to the falls and they were magnificent. Truly well worth the long hike. They are as stated the the hiking guide you can pick up at the start of the trail at least 100 feet tall and fall into a very large pool off water that would be large enough to swim in if the water was warmer. We explored around the edge of the falls and took a few pics of the falls from here.

To the left is a pic of Tony and I by the falls. To the right is a pic of Steve by the falls.

Below is a short video of the falls. You get a good apprication of the falls from the video.

We continued our hike up the last part of the trail which is a steep incline up the side of the hill for approx 1km to the look off. This part of the hike is very challenging and by the time we got to the top my leg with a strained ligament had enough and gave out on me. But the view at the top was beautiful. We rested for awhile here and had some lunch and took some more pics. Then we started back.

The trip down the hill was very difficult for me with my sore leg but we took our time and the slower hike back down the river was nice and I took my time to view the surrounding woods and views of the river all the way down.

Once back at the beginning we took the shorter hike to the small falls which I would estimate to be about 1 km each way, downhill on the way there and uphill on the way back. The small falls were very nice and we took a few more pics.

This hike was very enjoyable and I plan on doing it again in the early spring of next year to see how much different the falls look with the spring run off.

This is just a quick post and I will edit it later and add a link to more pics of the hike.

June 7, 2008

Cape Breton Trail

Length 14km approx

Trail starts and ends in Baline (easterly of Main-A-Dieu)

Cold and wet morning 7-8 degrees and light rain. Started the hike at 7:30am

Tony went with me.

Trail follows coast all the way to Main-A-Dieu. Very rugged and barren.

First part of trail follows along the shore and very edge of coast line. Beautiful view of small bay, two lobster boat in water.

Came to Mesa climbed up and took a number of photos

See some sea birds that were mostly black with with on the outer wings and bright orange/red feet. There was several of them, at least 6 in this location and many more in the surrounding area.

See coyote a bit in the distance looked very large, we tried to hurry and see if we could get a good view of it. But it seen us and took off very quickly. I would estimate it would have been 2 feet tall. It seemed big.

Keep walking stopped at cape breton the eastern most point of cape breton, took a quick break and continued on. We decided to stop for a bit around 10am . While we continued to walk till 10 we noticed an upside down picnic table on the shore. We got closer and there it was a full size picnic table just missing part of one leg. We propped it up on a large rock and had a lunch and untangle the large pieces of rope we found. Also Tony found a large orange buoy (maybe used for channel marking) and tossed it in the ocean it floated out very quickly with the outgoing tide. In about 10 mins it travel completely over to a small island about 1/2 km off shore.

After our break we picked up the pace and walked non-stop till we came to a small fresh water lake that was land locked by a sea wall of rock. In the lake was a pair of ducks (white and black ).

We continue along and looked at several ravines in the bedrock along the shore. the last part of the walk we could easily see the village of Main-A-Dieu in the distance, the path went in shore a bit and was mostly in the brush and woods along the coast. We came out at the far east end of the village behind some houses. We followed a small road up to the highway and walk the highway back to Baline and the car. We arrived back at the car around 1pm

My left knee was very sore by the end of the walk. this walk is not an easy walk and would not be recommended to take unless you were if petty good shape. Most of the walk was in either very soft and bouncy grass/wet bog like conditions, very loose gravel beach or rocks and cliff areas that could be slippery if wet.

I really enjoyed this walk see the various wildlife and scenery.