This motel where I found myself last night would have been really good value (apart from keeping on dropping the internet connection which annoyed me intensely when I was trying to work) but it was not at all the kind of place that I was looking for.

And I had a really bad night’s sleep too. That coffee that I had with Hannah did me no good at all.

Seeing as it was dark last night after I had left Hannah, I went off this morning for a little wander around the University campus to see what there was to see.

And it seems that apart from being at the most prestigious University in Canada, if not the entire English-speaking world, Hannah is also at probably the most beautiful one as well, because it really is nice and civilised here.

There’s a railway line here at Antigonish, which is a surprise as Canada really out-Beechinged Beeching when it came to decimating the railway network.

Judging by the rails it receives plenty of use, but the station doesn’t get any at all which is a tragedy for many people living around here. Canada really was ruthless when it came to gutting its passenger facilities. If it wasn’t for the fact that this is the main line for the oil that’s landed at Port Hawkesbury on Cape Breton Island, this line would have been long gone too.

From here I wander off along the Nova Scotia coast because it certainly is beautiful around here. I have thousands of photos that I took and it’s hard to find just one that would do justice to the view.

This one is as good as any, taken from the end of the road down to Williams Point, just a few miles outside Antigonish. If you’re a fan of the outdoor life, then the coast of Nova Scotia is certainly the place to be.

There’s a town called Monastery along the coast and it is so-called because there’s a monastery here. This is it, a couple of miles outside the town, and it’s called Our Lady of Grace.

It’s not very well-known but I once tried the monastic life, but I didn’t last too long. It was the monotonous diet that did it for me. There were only two monks who worked in the kitchen, the Chip Monk and the Fish Friar.

There’s the Canso Strait just down there at the bottom of the hill and Cape Breton Island is over there on the other side of the strait. That’s our destination for this afternoon and we’ll be there in 10 minutes with a bit of luck, God’s help and a bobby.

The south side of the island isn’t all that interesting apart from the old French fort at Louisbourg, I drove the central road in 2010 and so I’ll be going up along the north west coast.

We mentioned the decimated Canadian railway network earlier, and this is my lunch stop at the site of the old Troy railway station.

There used to be a railway line that ran from the Canso Strait to Inverness as there used to be all coal mines out around there and the railway was used to haul away the coal. It opened in 1901 but passenger traffic ceased in 1959 and goods finally ceased in late 1980s although been tottering along on the edge of closure for years. Of course, the mines have all gone too. In fact I can’t think of any coal mine still operating on Cape Breton Island.

Coming out of the back end of Port Hood on the old gravel road over the headland, you’ll see why I’ve chosen this particular way round the island. The views from up here are really stunning looking north towards Inverness

And you are lucky that I took this photo. 5 seconds later and I was shrouded in dust from a school bus that roared past me like there as no tomorrow and it was like a Sahara dust storm.

One of the “games” that we play on our travels is “101 uses for a redundant school bus”. School buses are only licensed for a certain number of years and so the countryside is littered with abandoned and redundant school buses. It’s interesting to see what people do with them.

Transforming them into pickups is certainly one of the best ideas that I’ve seen.

The biggest town on this part of the coast is Inverness and it’s quite famous for its wonderful beach. This is what I’ve come here to see, and you can tell that they aren’t wrong about that.

And although it’s not by any means late (despite how dark it looks), my bad night has finally caught up with me. I’ve not been able to find a coffee place and I’m too tired to make one, so I’m going to crash out right here.