Monday, August 3, 2009

Sgurra Bhreac

Aug 2, 2009

First time I heard of this place was from my friend Steve on Aug 1. So of course I go home and start looking up "Big Rock" in Big Pond. Found some history of it on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sgurra_Bhreac_(Nova_Scotia). Seemed like a cool spot to visit being a high spot on the Island.

So I got my GPS and day pack ready for a new trip. Even got a small topo map just in case. Here is the Map.



From Sgurra Bhreac



Directions to get there from Sydney, head out the 104 towards St. Peters. When you get past Ben Eoin and are coming up to Big pond there is a road on the left call Glengarry Rd. Take it. Now this road start off as old pavement but quickly becomes dirt and the further you go in the worst it gets. If you are taking a vehicle you may want to consider a 4x4. So once you turn on to Glengarry Road go .8kms and take a right and then go over the small bridge continue up this road for 3.5 kms to the next major fork in the road head left and continue on for 6.3 kms again a fork in the road and take a left and continue on past the power lines. Now anther fork take a right. The road get really bad here if you have a car you may want to stop and walk the rest of the way. Now travel down the road for 1.5 kms. Here you will see several trees marked with orange tape.

The walk into the Big Rock is not the easiest but take your time and follow your GPS and it will be no problem. The walk is half the adventure. Once you get to the rock the view is second to none. You can see for miles in all directions. There are some survey markers on the rock three of them all together as you can see in the following pics.




Now for the view here is a panoramic view that was stitched together.



I enjoyed the hike very much. Spent some time exploring around the Rock and found the Geo cache hidden there. Looks like I was the first one to find it since 2007. Also the flies were horrible. See below..



On my way back I found an easier walk back. I would say this was a short but extremely worth it trip. After the walk I drove around some back roads and got a pic of Sgurra Bhreac from Rear Big Pond road.



Next time I come this way I am taking my Mountain Bike and exploring some more of the back roads.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Gappling Falls Hike

June , 2009

Hike starts at end of Englishtown road. Follow the road past the ferry and go down the dirt road until it forks. Find a place to park.

The hike begins here. The first bit is wide open dirt road until you come to the washed out bridge that is no longer a bridge. Then the road becomes a path and quickly narrows and gets grown in. But it is easy to follow and there is no worry of getting lost. Just keep following this path. You will come to an old bridge which looks bad but it was safe to cross. Then keep going the path gets more grown over but still easy enough to follow.