October 16-17, 2015 ---- Fall is my favorite season because the world seems most beautiful around that time. When I have a chance to live in a city/country with four seasons, I always plan a trip to see the fall foliage in a nearby popular spot. This year Nathan and I live in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the best place to see the colorful leaves is in Cape Breton Island.
Since we had a pretty tight schedule, we couldn't go on a long trip. I had to cut off many things from my plan that I wanted to do. So we ended up having a 2-day-trip just driving up and around on the famous scenic route called "Cabot Trail" and stay a night in a motel along the way.
To drive straight from Halifax to Cape Breton Highlands National Park takes about 4-5 hours. Because we wanted to make stops along the scenic route for hiking and photography, we planned to spend a night in the park at the end of the day. There are many affordable motels/hotels along Cabot Trail. We just calculated how much driving we wanted to do in a day and picked one close to our last hour of driving. We ended up staying at Sea Breeze Cottages and Motel. It was a nice, little motel that had everything we needed for the night, and the view of the ocean and mountains was wonderful.
On the first day of driving, I made up my mind to stop and do a little hike to Egypt Falls. I was glad I did because it was really worth the time. The waterfall was stunning! The hike was very short and easy, just a little climb on the back. It took us about 30 minutes to go down, take photos, and climb back up.
Driving on Cabot Trail wasn't so difficult either, and there were many vista points we stopped at for a great view of the ocean and mountains. Each year the leaves start changing colors at a different time, but definitely in October. This year was a little late, so it wasn't in peak until late October. Nathan and I had a wonderful time seeing the colorful leaves and driving along the coast.
On the second day while driving back home, we made a stop in Sydney for lunch. The city seemed to be the second biggest city in Nova Scotia after Halifax, but none of the cities in Nova Scotia are really big or interesting anyway. After lunch we walked around a bit, but couldn't find anything to do, so we left and drove straight home.
Overall, fall foliage in Cape Breton is very beautiful, and I think if anyone ever visits Nova Scotia in October, they should definitely make a plan to drive along the Cabot Trail. :-)
Day 1
Hiking to Egypt Falls
Driving on Cabot Trail
Day 2
Lunch in Sydney, NS
