Sydney, Nova Scotia

If you want to dive into the historic Celtic culture of Nova Scotia (New Scotland), Sydney provides plenty of opportunities to do so.

Princess offers several wonderful shore excursions to these Gaelic heritage sites.

If like Julie's grandpa Nick, one of your ancestors immigrated to the New World and began his American Dream in the coal mines, the Cape Breton Coal Mine Experience and Museum Tour might interest you.

Perhaps best of all is an amazing road trip through Cape Breton to Cabot Trail,  dubbed one of National Geographic's "Drives of a Lifetime: 500 of the World's Most Spectacular Trips."

We had been on some form of bus tour for three days in a row, and another was booked for the next day on Prince Edward Island with an "Anne of Green Gables" tour, so Julie scoped out possibilities in town and discovered a hiking trail through 70 acres of Acadian Forest within walking distance of the ship.

My country cousins would tell me 70 acres isn't that much.  In fact, it is less than 10% of the size of New York's Central Park.

However, four trails weave through beautiful Baille Ard Recreation Area, and on this day we had the place almost entirely to ourselves.

By the way, I've mentioned the word Acadian a few times.  Acadia refers to the French Canadian maritime region including Nova Scotia, New Brusnwick, Newfoundland and parts of Quebec and Maine.

The French settlers were known as Acadians.

When the British emerged victorious in the French and Indian War and made the region their 14th American colony, lots of Acadians headed south and settled in Louisianna, where Acadian adapted with a southern accent into "a Cajun."

The temperature was a few degrees cooler than it had been in Halifax as we debarked the ship, but bundled up, we set off through the city, soon reaching Wentworth Park, with lovely lakes amid colorful New England clapboard houses.

When according to the map we must have been close to the Baille Ard Nature Trails, we found ourselves in a suburban neighborhood.

Julie re-read the directions on her iPhone, which said it was by an education center, so we walked passed what looked like a school where we found some truant boys.

We asked if they knew where the hiking trails were.

One of the 11 year-olds gave us an ironic smile and pointed past a soccer field.

Not sure if we were the butt of a joke we didn't understand, we carried on.

We found an entrance, but a few steps in we realized it would be a very wet trudge through puddles and mud.  Was that the boy's joke on the lost old folks?

We'd come too far to give up so quickly, so we walked along the endzone of the soccer field, and sure enough we found another entrance.

While the trails still had some wet parts, it looked promising.  A local couple arrived at about the same time, and they assured us that we'd find most of the trails passable.

They apologized for the conditions, saying a few days earlier the major storm that had pushed up the coast from the Caribbean as a hurricane had pummeled the park, stripping a lot of the leaves off the trees.

Nonetheless, the Acadian forest was beautiful in its unique ways, with multi-colored leaves stubbornly clinging to thin branches.

We passed many felled trees in various stages of decomposition.

The wise caretakers leave the clean-up to the ecosystem.

Centipedes, woodlice and other detritivores begin the process by breaking down the trees into smaller pieces, and then micro-organisms take over.  Bracket fungi feed on the rotting tree, making it easy for bacteria to get inside the tree.  These "true decomposers" leave some plant residue, which then helps the soil retain moisture and nutrients to feed the surviving trees.  Saplings sometimes sprout up from these decaying logs.

Without decomposition, dead stuff would just pile up all over the world, so when you see a centipede or fungus, don't grimmace and say, "Eww!"  Be awed and say, "Aah!"  Unless it is in your kitchen or bathroom...or the restaurant where you just ordered a meal.

We really enjoyed our hike through nature, as we always do, but we also appreciate returning back to the creature comforts of the ship.

After sailing away, the weather deteriorated, and we were disappointed when the Captain announced that our port of call on Prince Edward Island the next day had been cancelled due to weather conditions.

We hadn't experienced a full sea day yet on this ten night cruise, but one more was already scheduled for the following day to allow time to reach Quebec City for an overnight stay, so the timing wasn't great.  Nonetheless, we'd much rather be enjoying our floating resort than being miserable ashore, and I have no doubt that all cruise lines far prefer to make their port calls if possible.  They don't want to put their guests in harm's way.

Had we known we would be missing Prince Edward Island, would we have taken a Princess shore excursion instead of hiking on our own?


Possibly, but I don't know that we would have enjoyed it any more than our hike in the woods.