90 Kilometers
3751 Total Kilometers
Usually the riding itself is the main attraction of a motorcycle trip. Getting to wherever you are ultimately going is just a reason to turn around and ride back home. Today, however, we used our motorcycles only as basic transportation.
After many long days on the road we decided to have a quiet, easy day. And we did.
Our destination was Fort Louisbourg, a historic coastal fort that was the scene of several 18th century battles between the nations of France and England. The Canadian nation park system has turned the fort into a premier attraction.
We left the Martin Arms motel in Sydney at a leisurely 9:00 and programmed our GPS to take us to Fort Louisbourg. We hoped to find a good breakfast place along the way.
An older man in a pickup truck gave Bill directions to a convenience store that, he claimed, served the best breakfast in the area. We found Mullens Rite Stop about 15 kilometers down the road. The man was right. We had the usually cholesterol-free breakfast, which was excellent.
Mullens is one of those stores you find in rural areas that serves a lot of different needs. It is a hardware store, grocery store, auto parts store, restaurant, gas station, Sears store and Canadian postal store. And a liquor store.
Mullens, a one-stop shopOurside, we ran across Kathy, who has a strawberry stand set up in the parking lot. She is a real sweetheart. She offered up the best, sweetest strawberries any of us had ever tasted.
Jim and Kathy at the strawberry standWe departed Mullens and arrived at Fort Louisbourg a few minutes later.
Fort Louisbourg is one of the premier parks in the Canadian national park system. It contains some of the original structure and the remainder has been rebuilt in such a way that you would never guess any of it is a reconstruction. The old village of Louisbourg has also been rebuilt.
The fort is staffed by an incredibly knowledgeable, hospitable staff who are clad in period clothing. There are British and French soldiers, blacksmiths, restaurateurs and others representative of the 2800 people who peopled the area in the mid 1700's. Those of you who have visited colonial Williamsburg will appreciate what it was like.
The fort was built by the French to protect the cod fishing operation they established in the waters of Cape Breton. At it's peak, the operation shipped 50 million pounds of cod a year to the French mainland. The British conquered the fort in 1745, gave it back and conquered it again in the 1750's.
It's worth reading about so click on these links for a fuller, more literate history of the fort:
Canadian Park Service
Wikipedia
Nova Scotia Tourism
The fort contains several authentic period restaurants. We decided to try one out and it was a good decision. We were given a big spoon, a napkin the size of a towel, and really good food.
We have received word that some of our readers want more pictures. Your author isn't sure how to take that. His ego led him to believe that the desire for more photos was to augment good writing, not to cover up bad writing. Regardless, here are several photos from our trip to Fort Louisbourg:
The fort from inside the main yard.
Bill discussing the finer points of artillery strategy
Another shot of the fort from inside the yard
Bo explaining to a French soldier that "frog" is really a compliment
Cannon lined the walls of the fort
Jim pointing out that Bill actually knows very little about artillery
Bo and Bill with French sentryWe left Fort Louisbourg and returned to Sydney for another overnight at the Martin Arms.
Jim and Bill plot our course for tomorrowTomorrow we begin our trek back to Yarsmouth for another Cat ferry crossing, this time from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to Portland, Maine. We have a day and a half of riding in which to get there.
