THIS is Canada’s ULTIMATE FALL road trip! 🍁 (Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia)

Welcome to Cape Breton Island, an island on the northeastern end of Nova Scotia known for its dramatic coastal scenery, highlands, Celtic and French heritage, outdoor adventure and the Cabot Trail, a 298 kilometer drive that is said to be one of the most scenic in the world. Experiencing the Cabot Trail in the fall has been on our bucket list for years and for the next five days we're going on the ultimate road trip full of foliage, quaint cafes, local culture, beautiful hikes and epic views. We are kicking off our time on the Cabot Trail at Cape Breton Highlands National Park which spans about one-third of the Cabot Trail. We're going to be spending today in the Inganish area of the park and first we're at Inganish Beach. This isn't your typical white sand beach. It is super rocky. Walking down these rocks is so hard. You cross like a rock-a-lanch. And when the waves crash and fall on the rocks it makes this really neat fizzy sound. It's a pretty unique beach because on one side you have the ocean and then on the other side you have a freshwater lake so you have your choice for swimming and it also has some pretty spectacular views. On the right side of this beach you have these amazing mountain views and on the left side you have this peninsula which is where we're heading next to hike the for almost a week now and from the little that we've seen so far it's really reminding us of Acadia National Park which we visited two falls ago. It has a similar mix of lush forested mountains, rocky coastline, and the ocean plus the fall colors. And we loved Acadia so it's safe to say that we are loving it here so far. Although I will say we are here on the same day. We were at Acadia two years ago and it is way less busy so bonus points for Cape Breton Highlands. I love goats so one place that we had to check out on the Cabot Trail is Groovy Goat Farm. They're a goat farm that also has a shop that sells goat milk products. Some chickens. They sell goat milk products like goat milk soap and they also have some groovy goats that you can meet which I am so excited about. Check out these cute fluffy guys. Hi. Oh my gosh. And they also have gelato. It's not made with goat's milk but we're gonna eat it while we're looking at the goats. That counts right? We both got apple pie and pumpkin spice because it's fall y'all and I am on a pumpkin spice diet. If you sell anything flavored pumpkin spice, I'm getting it. So many chunky apples in there. Super creamy. The fall is just rushing over me. There's also an amazing place next door called Salty Roses and Periwinkle Cafe. It's a beautiful cafe in an old house that serves breakfast and lunch plus has a shop with local art. We had breakfast there this morning and love their coffee and breakfast so definitely go check them out and then come over here and meet all the cute goats and get gelato. It'll be the best day ever. While on the Cabot Trail, we're staying at a mix of paid National Park campgrounds and hopefully a free spot but tonight we're staying at the Broad Cove campground which is in the National Park near Enganish. It's a super nice and huge campground with a beautiful beach you can walk to. This morning we're hiking the Franny Trail which is in the Enganish area of Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We had planned to hike it for sunrise but it rained all day yesterday non-stop and it's still a little gloomy this morning so we're just hopeful to get some views. Normally these hikes we spend the majority of the time just hiking through the forest we aren't as excited about but man in the fall when you have all these fall colors it just makes it magical. Well it's not quite the views we were hoping for but it's not totally a bust you can see the ocean over there you can see Middlehead where we hiked the other day but you can also see lots of fog rolling in and on this side it's just a wall of fog. Oh well you win some you lose some we still have a lot of hikes ahead and thankfully the weather forecast the next few days looks to be a bit better so fingers crossed but the fogginess the fall colors just has like a moodiness to it that even though we can't see the views we wanted it just it feels like fall up here. If you're curious about the timing of our visit today is October 17th 2023 and we originally were supposed to be filming this video and doing all these hikes last week but the colors didn't seem quite ready yet so we rearranged all of our future plans so we could stay through this week as well and I am so glad that we did. Peak fall foliage is so hard to predict and it varies year to year and it also varies across Cape Breton Island but I think the general consensus is that this year this is the week to see the fall colors. For the rest of the day we're taking a bit of a detour off the Cabot Trail to check out an area called Meat Cove on the northernmost part of Cape Breton Island and we hear the road to get there is a little rough. The first part of Meat Cove Road was paved and it wasn't the smoothest ride ever but it wasn't bad at all and now we're on the gravel road part the part that everybody warns you about and talks about and it's really not bad at all it's pretty smooth so far. Yeah I don't know if the road has been recently redone or if we've just been on so many gravel roads that nothing faces us anymore but we only have about five kilometers left so it could change but so far this is nicer than most gravel roads we go on so I don't know some people say it was not worth the treacherous roads to get there don't go it was awful but I don't know I mean it's a little bumpy you can hear the van rattling a bit but I don't know we've been on way worse so maybe we're just we just have a different perspective. We have just about made it in one piece and this is epic. I think it was a thousand percent worth the drive. For sure that was nothing honestly that was nothing. So this is Meat Cove it is Nova Scotia's northernmost community and some say it got its name because the area was popular with hunters in its early days today it is just a few homes a camp ground a restaurant and a few trails so it is a much less developed area which is exactly why we wanted to come out here. We just did a quick hike up to this overlook of Meat Cove and man we have not seen that much of Cape Breton Island yet but this is easily the most dramatic and just wow spot that we have seen so far and honestly it's probably one of our favorite views that we have seen in all of Atlantic Canada. It's just a mix of the ocean and the mountains and the fall colors. I'm so happy after this morning and the kind of fail of a hike we're feeling a little down but I am jazzed now. When we drove into Meat Cove we saw this red food truck called the Lawless Lobster and they are actually still open which is really surprising because most things either closed for the season last week or are closing right now and we saw they had chowder and we had to get some because it is chowder weather and look at this oh my gosh look at that giant claw on there oh yummy all these little other bits of seafood bunch of potatoes in there you know it's good when your eyes go cross-eyed we've had a lot of chowders across the U.S. this one's up there honestly it might be one of the either one of the best or the best we've had that is ridiculously good this is perfect also the people running the stand were some of the nicest people we have met in Nova Scotia so just made the experience even better all right now that we're powered by seafood chowder we're gonna climb Meat Cove mountain it's not that long of a hike but it's steep and we're just like I don't know 10 seconds in and it's already bam we're gonna be powered by meat in Meat Cove I'm not gonna lie that was a very steep hike up but man was it worth it just look at this view right here we get this mountain valley and the mountainsides are just draped in these orange and yellow trees and there's a river running through it wow hiking down from Meat Cove mountain is downright treacherous with all the leaves on the ground especially it being so steep you just almost can't help from just sliding down we have spent a lot of money on campsites last week waiting on the fall colors but tonight we are boondocking and we have this pretty epic spot overlooking the ocean and right when we pulled up a majestic bald eagle just flew right by so we knew this was the spot after taking a little detour we are officially back on the Cabot Trail and we're heading back into Cape Redden Highlands National Park for the rest of the day and we're currently on our way to a waterfall we have no idea how to pronounce it you basically just go down an unpaved side road for a few minutes walk a few steps and then bam there's the waterfall there are quite a few different viewpoints to check out along the Cabot Trail so we're going to stop at a few before heading to our spot for sunset this road is pretty incredible we are just winding through the mountains and along these cliffs we just have these golden trees lining them we're going up and down it's windy it's steep it's so beautiful i feel like i have yellow tinted glasses on everything is just so yellow and golden little pops of red just so gorgeous out here and since the weather has been pretty gloomy since we've been here just the colorful trees just add this brightness and just make you feel just warm and happy inside and kind of replace the sun since the sun is hiding it's hiding from us big time if you would have blindfolded me and dropped me here i would have thought we were in big sur california with this highway skirting along the mountainside here in these sharp drop-offs going straight into the ocean it looks so much like it for sunset we are hiking the skyline trail which is not only the most popular hike in the park but probably all of cape redmond island so they have a couple different moose exclosures on this trail which basically is a fenced area that keeps moose out that way all the vegetation can flourish and live and not be eaten by all the moose and we do hear that it is kind of common to see moose on this trail i've seen some pretty recent photos but so far no luck for us our luck has changed we haven't seen any moose but we see three bears a mom and two cubs down on the hillside down there oh so cool heck yes i love moose but bears top of the list even better we just spent about 30 minutes watching the bears we could not stop staring at them they're just munching on grass on the hillside just doing all the bear things but besides the bears the view out here is incredible i can totally see why this is the most popular hike in the park and one thing i really love about the view which normally i wouldn't love on a nature experience is that you can see the road this road is crazy and since we can't fly our drone in the park it's just really cool to get a different perspective of it and since we are actually going to be heading down this stretch of the road tonight to get to our campground in the dark we actually drove it earlier just so we could experience it and it is very cool from the car and it is very cool from up here too we thought we were barely gonna get a sunset but we got bears and an epic sunset it doesn't get much better than that but now we're gonna run back because holy cow it's freaking cold last night we moved over to the sheddy camp campground in the national park and this morning we're hiking the akkadian trail which starts right near the oh we're all sitting on daddy's lap this trail takes you up a mountain which was a little bit steeper than we expected to a bunch of different overlooks of the area you can see the gulf of st lawrence you can see these mountain sides that are just speckled with all of these colorful trees it almost looks like a bag of skittles exploded on them and you can see quite possibly the coolest part of the cabot trail the section where the road just winds along this rocky cliffside and all the way down there is the town of sheddy camp which is where we're headed next similar to the other atlantic canada provinces nova scotia has a lot of french heritage and sheddy camp is a french akkadian fishing village that dates back to the late 1700s and is still loaded with akkadian culture they even have an akkadian flag slide i'm scared you get going pretty fast in that since this area has such strong french roots we couldn't pass up the opportunity to grab some coffee from a cafe called marguerite boutique and provision the building it's in has been home to different general stores throughout its hundred years and now it's this cool mix of a coffee shop and cafe plus a boutique with tons of local art and products and some food items it is such a beautiful spot we also got this honey lemon cruller looks tasty holy smokes oh that's so good wow like a little doughy yeah airy wow yeah lemon i'm not really sure what a cruller is but i'm a big fan now i love lemon i'm gonna go for the cruller every time now yeah the lemon nice and tart like a lemon should be and then the honey just kind of soothes it a little bit oh that is perfection in heaven so good besides the island's french heritage it also has a strong celtic heritage with the scottish gales arriving in the 1770s in fact nova scotia's gaelic name directly translates into new scotland there's a large initiative here to maintain the culture and one thing that we think is super cool is that as you're driving around you'll notice that the signs are in both english and in gaelic and every october there's an event called celtic colors international festival which takes place all across the island with 49 concerts and over 200 community events the festival finished up last week and we didn't go to any of the official events but we did go to something that you can go to outside the festival a kaylee which is basically a community party with cape breton fiddle music we went to the bidet gathering kaylee to experience one and the music was incredible about halfway through there's an intermission where they serve you tea and oat cakes which are shortbread cookies with rolled oats that have scottish origins buttery crispy i like it and then the music continues it was such a fun and upbeat way to get to experience the culture here it was just impossible to not smile the entire time and just tap your feet and i think i learned that the fiddle may be my new favorite instrument i could watch her playing the fiddle forever oh it's just so beautiful afterwards we were like we should break out katherine's old guitar and learn how to play it then we can make music together i guess that's what we're doing when we get home we're starting a band oh gosh it's gonna be called the coffee spillers that's actually kind of a cool name mining has long been an important industry here in nova scotia and one of the most important minerals mined was and still is gypsum at one point the province provided six percent of the world's gypsum production and just outside shetty camp is an old gypsum mine that's filled with water and is now a popular swimming spot and viewpoint to walk to the lake has this beautiful turquoise teal color and is surrounded by the gypsum rock as well as colorful fall trees and while you can view the lake just from the base of it the iconic view requires you to climb up some rocks back there it's our last day on cape retin island and this morning we are headed to marguerite which is a handful of villages along the marguerite river and man this drive has been beautiful the rest of the cabin trail was more along the coast you have like coast and dramatic views with all the big mountains this one is more kind of pastoral i guess you'd say with like more sloping mountains going along the river just wide grassy meadows and all the beautiful fall foliage of course and then the sun is out too and making it just more even golden and just just magical it's gorgeous for breakfast we came to one of the most popular places to eat on the cabin trail the dancing goat unfortunately they do not have actual dancing goats but they have these huge heavenly homemade pumpkin spice lattes and some delicious looking food so i got the breakfast sandwich has eggs cheese mayo bacon on a delicious cheddar bun uh biscuit there actually whoa that biscuit is so fluffy and cheesy and there's little herbs in there it is the perfect vessel for the delicious bacon egg and cheese and i got one of their lunch sandwiches the bungee sandwich which has roasted chicken a satay sauce a sriracha mayo and then just tons of veggies it looks so good and it also looks like it's going to be so hard to eat oh my gosh that is so delicious the sauces are nice and creamy and are packed with flavor the chicken is nice and tender but i think my favorite part are all the veggies they are just so crispy and fresh we also got an autumn bisque i have no idea what's in it but it just sounded perfect for a nice fall day like today whoa it's nice and thick and creamy i'm sure it has some kind of squash or something in there that was an 11 out of 10 spot for our final stop on our cape breton island road trip we're at egypt falls which is a very short hike but we hear it is very steep we have just about made it to the base of the falls and before coming here we had read so many reviews about how dangerous and scary and treacherous the hike down here was and it definitely was steep and it could get really muddy if it was raining but overall we did not find it to be too bad i think some other groups were struggling more than we were but we've done so many difficult hikes that i think our just perception of what's challenging is a little different than others but man this waterfall is so beautiful after all the rain we've had this waterfall is raging i love that it has two decks to it and they're so wide and just uh it's so impressive fall is our favorite season and road tripping the cabot trail was our one big fall adventure for this year and it did not disappoint the fall colors quaint towns cute cafes and delicious treats and just beautiful nature around every corner makes this easily one of the best fall road trips in canada if not all of north america our time in nova scotia isn't quite over yet though we still have about a week and a half left here and we're heading southwest in the province to check out its largest city small charming coastal towns beaches and so much more do a little dance almost give me a heart attack the ambulance almost had to come for me because i almost just had a heart attack that was so scary i don't i don't think i can do it i can't i'm scared i don't know do i just like jump just run and jump oh my gosh i did it i know that wasn't a leap frog but i did it