WALK CAPE BRETON

Come join us for a nice leisurely walk along the west coast of Cape Breton, the Creignish Rail Trail a part of the trans Canada Trail system.

The leaders for this event will be Jim and Rilla McLean of Port Hawkesbury.

Sunday 26 Sep 1:00PM

Start Point: Creignish Community Hall

From Sydney take the 105 Trans Canada Highway to Port Hastings and turn right onto Highway 19 travelling for approx. 10-15 Min, the Creignish Hall is on the left.

NORTH RIVER FALLS! WOW!!!

On Sunday 12th of Sept at 10:00 am we started out on the longest walk/hike for this season.We reached the falls at about 1:15pm and after following the entire east side of the North River crossing over only small streams(the river bridges have been eliminated), walking along reasonabley good trails and along a couple of passable rock faces we suddenly came upon the North River Falls. Due to the roar of the water we were forced to holler to each other. This was our challenge walk for the year and was very wothwhile though that maybe understated.

The St Ann's Development group should be congratulated for their work on this trail and I must agree with the signs along the trail "Trail> Keep it Wild."

The walk leader stamped the books at the falls and due to the distance small groups headed out on their own for the return trip while the Trails Master and his aides stayed at the rear not allowing others to stay on the trail alone, Thank you Bill a job well done.
Please note Bill and his group were 1 1/2 hours behind the main group and no Hoppers were left on the trail and all 25 members made it back, tired, sore muscles but happy to meet the challenge. Three other walkers opted to do a return 5ks to the first small falls.

Want to do this walk/hike, again this year, then join "Hike the Highlands from 17-26 Sept, North River Falls is on their agenda for Saturday 25 Sept at 09:30 and for further details contact:

Angela Lauffer


wlauffer@ns.sympatico.ca

phone toll-free at 1-888-897-4094. Local callers can dial 902-285-2289.


Bus Trip to Fundy National Park Sept 3-6, 2005 and possible future Bus Tours

A group of bleary eyed but enthusiastic members of The Cape Breton Island Hoppers boarded the Unique Charters bus at various locations starting in Glace Bay at 0440 am and picking up the last passangers at 0550 in North Sydney.There was one stop over for breakfast at Auld's Cove and we continued on into New Brunswick, having lunch at the Moncton Mall.

The first walk for the Weekend was Friday 2pm and we were all happy that the bus had very comfortable coach seating as we soon had to stretch our legs straight up the Shepody Mtn trail. There were splendid views from the top of the mountain overlooking the Petticodiac River and its low lying valleys and we then proceeded to another lookoff with a view of the Bay of Fundy.After this walk we again boarded our bus and headed for the small community of Alma and our motel rooms and most if not all settled in for a goodnights rest.

On Saturday at 0800 we found ourselves motoring through the Fundy Park following Bill Mayo from the Moncton Outdoors Enthusiast Club, who guided us to the Lafferty Falls Trail; here the group had the choice of a 5K, 10K and 17K walk events. Most of our mbrs opted for the 10K while Lucy Nardini and Bill Hopkins ventured to take the 17K walk. The Lafferty Falls Trail is very rugged with a very nice falls and after 6kms this walker was wondering why he didn't opt for the 5K. This was a very challenging affair but we were all satisfied that we were able to complete this challenge.

In the afternoon our group headed out to the Hopewell rocks for a tour of the Fundy tides and with a change in weather we did not participate in the Volksswim!

There was a bus group dinner that night at the Tide Dining Room, an excellent dinner with great sevice, though Alma has very limited restaurants and some staff had been layed off due to the Parks Canada strike, the servers did excellent work in looking after our group.

Sunday morning at 0800am we again headed into the park for a 10k walk through a series of trails, featuring a small covered bridge, a walk to a former copper mine another short walk on the beach and a view at Pointe Wolfe and then onto Victoria Falls, a short 1K and delightfull boardwalk stroll.

The second walk of the day was completed by six of our members with the rest of us relaxing for the afternoon and preparing for the banquet that night.

An excellent hot Turkey dinner was served at the banquet; there were plenty of speeches and your club president was given a chance to speak about the 2005 combined Celtic Colours Walks Events with the Dartmouth Club and again in partnership with the International Celtic Colours Music Festival.

Monday morning we loaded up the bus and headed for Hillsborough and the Rail Road Museum where we were taken on a delightful walk to the Hillsborough Silo along the Petticodiac River and then along Grey Brook, through the Village of Hillsborough and the Preservation Park Trail.
Due to time restrictions our group continued onto Moncton for lunch not doing the afternoon walk at Riverview.

Overall the Bus Tour proved to be a great experience, with some minor glitches that we were able to overcome. Linda McRae the coordinator decided to accompany us at the last minute and she proved to be a great assest to us and Ed her husband and our bus driver was and is the most helpful driver I have encountered and kept the group in great spirits with his one liner puns.

Another Bus trip in the future?! You Bet! Iam Already planning for and need your help especially for 2006 during our 10th Anniversary!

The following is information recieved from Steve Anderson of Aquilla Tours regarding a proposed bus tour to Quebec for the CVF Annual General Meeting in May 2005:

Please contact Rollie if you would like to do any of these two tours or if you have suggestions!

----Original Message-----From: Rollie Coombes [mailto:rajcoombes@ns.sympatico.ca]Sent: September 15, 2004 2:01 PMTo: Steve AndersonSubject: AGM Bus Tour

Hi Steve,
Our club had an 18Km walk this weekend and I have asked my members to confirm if they are interested in going to Quebec as the club had discussed earlier this year.There is some mixed reaction, out of the 23 that had been interested, 5-6 maybe reconsidering.Cost? and Time? maybe the biggest factors!How can we proceed and how many pax would your company consider as worthwhile?I had been thinking about a maritime group going to the AGM. i.e.: pick up my group in CB and meet up with others from Hlfx/Dart in Truro and continue to F'ton for others in NB who maybe interested.Would this be feasible?

Return Message from Steve:

Any group of 10 or more people is worth our time & effort, however cost is driven by participation (also days & distance). Transportation is typically 25% or more of package price, and is a lump sum... so divide it by a few people and the per person price doesn't look nice. As a rule, you want 25 people minimum to make coach travel look like it is priced right. Full coach (i.e. 50+) to make it look really enticing. Smaller coaches cost a bit less but are few and far between in Atlantic Canada, and it would take everyone the whole time in Quebec to get their legs and backs straightened out (not very comfy for long-haul). They have some fine massage parlours up there though... it could be an excuse... Having a run from Sydney/Cape Breton with pick-ups along the way is a great idea. However, a coach driver couldn't operate all the way to Quebec in a day (legislated driving hours limit). It would need to be minimum two days each way, so you would need to overnight somewhere in NB. Grand Falls would be as far as you could go, legally. It would be a long day on the coach for Sydney folks. A shuttle could be arranged from Halifax to Truro for pick-up there, or even Acadian lines public transportation (round-trip ticket). Likewise for return. It will take two days, unless we look at a second driver (and everyone stays on the bus for like 18 hours straight through). Although school groups have been known to make midnight departures to arrive next day at suppertime. The above assumes no stops for credit walks along the way. To do this, you would need to add another day's travel for whichever direction you wish to add walks to. As you know, there are listed walks in Hartland, Trois Rivieres, Fredericton, and Moncton (not my favorite). And I know folks like you know how to set up walks wherever you want to... Grand Falls might be nice with its lovely falls & gorge (so many stairs... wicked!) As you know, we just operated a tour group from Quebec to Fredericton, and the timing of their Hartland walk was right at supper time. They ate afterward, but all felt grubby, and were very late arriving in Fredericton that night. Trois Rivieres might be a better timed walk (mid- or late-morning, depending on which end of the trip), if you were thinking of adding walks at all. Please be mindful of the fact that driver time regulations may change this very fall... possibly closer to the 10 hour maximum driving time that is now in force in the US for coaches. One might be wise to plan now on 3 days each way to/from Quebec City! Gosh... I hope this isn't overload! A suggestion I have for you is to contact some of your NS club colleagues and see if they think many people would be interested in a 2-day trip each way.... or what they would want i.e. more days to let them do walks along the way. Maybe many people would be okay with straight driving using 2 drivers... although I can't imagine adults ever wanting to do this. With 4 clubs on mainland Nova Scotia, getting 20 or 24 people shouldn't be too much of a stretch, wouldn't you think, to add to your 10 or 20 of your own from Cape Breton? I know that some folks down Halifax way do their own little touring arrangements, but I like to think that there is usually room for a few people to offer different things to folks with different needs and abilities. I'll stand by to see what thoughts or questions this prompts. Hope to hear from you soon! I think that if you can consider these things and check around a bit more to see where folks are at with the trip idea, then I will be able to answer more questions for you than raise questions. All in the name of finding something that will work for you! Thanks for your patience. Steve