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Tonight we went to Bingo in North Harbour (5 minutes away). Morgane thought it was interesting – mostly she liked the markers with their shiny lids. We weren’t as lucky, but Kim (who works here at the Markland) and her daughter Kaylee both won. We all had fun stamping away at our cards anyway.

We’ve been having a nice time here and will miss our laid-back, kind and generous hosts. Kim keeps cooking for us (halibut soup today) and Charlie wants to put us in the woofers hall of fame. We love our little wood cabin in the woods and today there was a moose around to keep us all company, too.

Today we took the day off. Better today while the sun shines than tomorrow when it rains! We drove to Ingonish and did a little 4km hike out to a point. Then we drove back along a scenic route passing through Neil’s Harbour.

We are so sick of MOSQUITOES! I didn’t anticipate this being a problem in September. Now I am starting to worry that we’ll never escape them. Do they ever go away in the South? I know they can be bad in Maine. Maybe we’ll get a little break in Halifax.

Once we leave here on Friday, we’ll head for Sydney and then the Fort of Louisbourg which is supposed to be spectacular. Car-free, it is made to resemble life in the 18th century at the fort.

I finished painting the front doors today and they look green and lovely. Today Morgane says she wished she were at school – she is missing other kids and her parents have been a bit busy and tired. After tomorrow we’ll be done working. I did take her to the beach where she found a wire mesh off a lobster trap. She brought it back here to show Ghis.

Tonight the resort put on a concert at their art’s centre. The show was Johnny Cash and friends. He sang the song that he said was about hemorrhoids – Ring of Fire. The impersonator was pretty funny.

Today Ghis started working at 6am. I didn’t start until 9, but tonight we are both exhausted. In the morning, we cleared some heavy bushes around a couple of cabins. Then I painted a door that Ghis had prepped. The mosquitoes are still pretty bad. When will they go away?

After lunch, we drove further north to Meat Cove. The last 8km is a dirt road that made me a bit stressed out. The landscape is so huge! Mountains and cliffs and the intensely blue ocean. There is a campsite in Meat Cove that is literally overlooking cliffs, especially one site. We had gigantic ice cream cones and then drove back home.

We’ve moved from the staff cabin where Morgane got a few spider bites at night to one of the rental cabins which smells nice, like wood.

Good night!

We did some woofing work this morning – clearing small trees and shrubs that are growing too close to the cabins. Apparently this is to keep the carpenter ants from getting too close.

After lunch at the only Dingwall restaurant (a pizza place and bakery that didn’t have any pizza), we went to visit the local organic farm since it was farm day and they were having a kind of open house.

We enjoyed seeing their raspberry and blackberry bushes and the rest of their gardens. Morgane most liked feeding the chickens and grinding apples to make apple cider. She also loved the faux-creek made out of mussel shells and broken ceramics (meant to be symbolic of the ship that went down near here a long time ago). Her job was to water it – a job that could be repeated as frequently as she wanted.

After that, we drove down Shore Road and visited another beach. It was beautiful and Morgane spent a lot of time sprinting and chasing waves. Carmanah even ran a bit, too.

Now we are all exhausted for the night. Tomorrow is supposed to be the start of great weather – sunny and up to 23 degrees C.

We’ve arrived at Markland Resort and have now unpacked. The first thing we did was throw Morgane into the bath! Then we ate and headed to the resort’s private beach.

Tomorrow we start woofing – supposedly we’ll be gardening or painting. There’s a big group here tonight – cyclists from South Dakota. There’s also a kayaking place nearby that we had wanted to woof out, so we’ll go and say hello.

We’ve been lucky to have sun and it’s given me a lot of photo opportunities. I’ll try to catch up!

It was cold and frosty last night, but we were warm in our beds. Just a quick stop now to post a few pictures. Found a TON of beach glass here and lots of nice people and stories, too. For now, here’s a few pictures. We want to start on the Cabot Trail!

If it’s so cold, why are there still mosquitoes? We are in Inverness, parked outside the tourist information centre, using their wireless. After, we are going to drive down the road towards the beach and park and sleep. So far Cape Breton is beautiful. I hope we’ll have a few warm days while we’re here.

Yesterday’s campsite was practically abandoned. Most of them seem to be closed now. I hope it won’t be like that everywhere. The only thing nice about the last campsite was the rainbow I photographed in the morning as I was walking to the bathrooms to wash the dishes. I will post pictures soon.

People here are very friendly. Looking forward to meeting more of the locals.

Despite not having a map, we finally found a beautiful campsite right on the ocean near Pugwash. It was actually the last night of the campground’s season. As soon as we got there, Morgane wanted to play in the park and then we went down to look at the beach.

At night, there were millions of stars. This must be how much presence the sky had before all this artificial light came to be. It was impossible to ignore.

We awoke to some sunshine. Morgane couldn’t wait to start school. She did some math and French reading and then, during recess at the park, she made a friend. We went down to the beach and the girls made a huge hermit crab house and we watched the hermit crabs. One even came out of his shell and tried on some other shells. Very cool!

Now we are driving a bit more. Just stopped in River John at a little library.