We started Friday, June 24th only a couple hours after grading as Leaders Gerald and Ricky along with venturers Chris, Jay, John and Josh arrived near the Canso Causeway to start the hike. Our plan was to hike from Port Hastings to Port Hood. Chris, Josh and John were using this as their silver expedition in the Duke of Edinburgh Program and Jay was just along for the hike. We did the journey at that date because we wanted to get it done while we had a chance, as between all of us there would be 8+weeks of downtime because of various trips, vacations etc. Our hour and a half ride to there was broke up with a stop at Tim Hortons and a lunch at A&W. I tasted a teen burger combo in my burps and breath for the rest of the day…

When we arrived at 1:45 we quickly got our packs on and started our day. It was reasonably cool Friday even in the afternoon so we didn’t have much of a problem. Our first leg was about 5 kilometers. We ended doing that part without our leaders because we were basically doing leapfrogs with our vehicles. This leg led us by a long fence and then we went over a sandbar, and then along the highway for about a kilometer. The sandbar was difficult walking and there would be no way we could have done the whole hike like that. We had to take a small break near the end for our feet’s sake. When we were traveling along the highway we walked by some decaying parts of animals on the highway, then we went down a path which led us to the vehicles and leaders. The leaders started the hike then with us and we hiked a path close to the sea so we had a good breeze. We hiked continuously for a while and eventually after we had traveled about 10 miles in total that day we found a lookoff called Christy’s Lookoff by the highway where we could set up camp around 8:00. We set up camp, had supper, had some free time for a while and went to bed around 9:00. A problem had arisen that day as Jay was having pain with his ankle. He had recently recovered from a badly sprained ankle and thought he could take the hike, but he was proved wrong as the weight of the pack on his ankle was too much for him and decided that night he was going home in the morning

We woke up Saturday and it was already getting warm even in the early morning. That day no amount of sunscreen saved my neck. It had rained slightly during the night but I hadn’t noticed since I slept deeply that night. We had a quick breakfast, packed up our tents and set off around 9:30. Jay stayed with the leaders that morning till his drive came to drive him home. Our hike was through a path in the woods, broken up by the occasional bridge or open area. It was hot because the trees were too far away from the path to shade us much. It got even worse as the day progressed, eventually reaching 33 degrees Celsius. We managed to find a small break though, at lunchtime when we met up with the leaders and their vehicles we were hiking along the shore, and although there was no breeze we still had time to have lunch at the beach and take a quick swim afterwards. I even went so far as to dip my shirt in the water so I’d feel cooler. This did help the heat a bit, but when we continued our hike it eventually got drier and drier until it was just moist because my of my sweat. As we were preparing to start hiking again after our break from the beach, a large black dog started following us. It was probably expecting food, it did manage to get small piece of hotdog bun but that was it. Someone nicknamed it “Coal.” Throughout the steaming hot afternoon it kept following us. Even with the dogs natural endurance it was greatly tiring and it didn’t have the nearly endless supply of Gatorade that we did. Everytime we passed a stream it would go dunk itself in it. It was starting to get weak and limp as the day went on. Eventually it was picked up by a trail workers who knew who owned it. When we loaded him into the back of the truck and it started to drive away on the path the dog started yelping out of sadness. It must have really wanted to be with us for some strange reason. We reached a reasonably shaded area and had a long break for the remainder of the hot part of the afternoon (about 3-5 o’clock), as the temperature was still 33 degrees. During that time we had a well needed rest (John and Josh actually fell asleep for a bit), we ate some snacks and did even more resting. At 5:00 after it had cooled off a couple degrees we continued our hike for another couple miles. I only remember what seemed endless hiking along a path along both woods and grassy areas. Around 7:00 we had reached the end for the day. We had hiked 12 miles that day, we had done 22 miles in total with 8 left. (I keep saying miles because that’s all I remember the leaders saying as how much we had done and had left.) As tired as we were we still had to find a place to set up camp, and there was none in the area. We didn’t have much luck, we drove around and we first found an area around a fishing dock but the ground wasn’t good and the boats nearby would probably be annoying at night. There was a campground 12 kilometers down the road but the leader who checked on it didn’t like it. The next nearest campground was at least forty minutes away. There were no campgrounds in the area either. We found some cabins but the owner wouldn’t let us put up are tents even if we rented one. We eventually found a motel, where the leaders rented a room and the owners let us set up our tents on the side. Another plus side to this is we could use the shower in the motel room. There is no word that can describe how good the shower felt after that day. You could call the shower sort of cheating a bit but we still set up our tents and slept in them outside and cooked and ate all our food outside. Afterwards we drove to the store for a couple snacks and then we came back and went to bed around 10:00.

We woke up Sunday morning early around 7:30 and it was slightly cooler than Saturday and there was a slight breeze. We cooked breakfast, ate it then packed up camp and got out of there before 8:30. We arrived back where we stopped the day before and continued our hike some more. The sun was still shining on us a lot that morning but it wasn’t overly hot like Saturday and the sunscreen actually worked a bit for me. We just wanted to finish the hike so we went slightly faster then normal. We did half of it before we met up with the vehicles again where we took a quick break and had a snack, then we continued again through a path through the woods. The trees were more close to the path this time so we were able to get a little more shade. Another boring 4 miles went by and then we finally reached the cars. We were finally done. We basically collapsed into the car seats and started driving home. On the way though we stopped at a shrine and took some pictures. We took a different route home then the way we came, we basically ended up doing a sort of circle. After that the drive home was only broken up by a stop at Tim Hortons. We were tired for sure, but we had bragging rights of completing the hike and we poked fun at the leaders for walking only half the time. (It was necessary though because most of the time they were driving the vehicles around a lot to where we would stop next.)

There were a lot of animals on the trails during our hike, we saw a lot of squirrels and more rabbits then I’ve ever seen in the wild before. We did get to see a new area of Cape Breton which was very nice but if I ever go back I hope I would have more time to really enjoy it. The terrain was not extreme and walking close to the ocean was also nice. The only things I would change if I had to do the hike again is to do the hike in cooler weather and to find some shoes which don’t let annoying things into them.