Come Walk With Us on the Trans Canada Trail (TCT)

We had a small breakfast of milk and cereal before heading out of Mabou. At breakfast we spoke with a lovely lady about our goal of walking to encourage youth to connect with nature through birding. She strongly related to the need to help young people break out of the isolation they experience by being online and gaming so much, and echoed a sentiment we've heard from many others. Parents don't want their kids to be online all the time, but most kids have phones for safety reasons now. Parents have to work so many hours to make ends meet that it becomes hard to monitor and restrict kids' online activities, and it is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to find alternative activities that connect kids with themselves, their friends, and their communities. How to find the balance between the safety of family, communication, access to information, but still avoid the isolation of the digital world?  This conversation gave us lots go think about as we walked.

Today felt like 36°C with 69% humidity. It took us 8 hours to walk 28.5 km, but not for the reasons you might think. Today was a fantastic wildlife day! It began bright and early, when we managed to leave the campground in Inverness around 7:30 am. We stopped at Robins on the way through town for a quick breakfast of coffee and oat cakes, and then continued on to the Inverness Beach Boardwalk. The boardwalk weaves between wildflowers, blooming wild rose bushes, and dune grasses, down between the Cabot golf course and the Inverness harbour to the shores of the Atlantic. The morning light was beautiful, and we saw lots of Song Sparrows, Savannah Sparrows, American Goldfinches, and Cliff Swallows, as well as an American Crow, a couple Herring Gulls, and a Greater Black-backed Gull. When we reached the beach at the end of the road we came across a lady sitting quietly on a bench enjoying her morning coffee. She saw us with our binoculars and camera, and volu