Island escapes
Read about escapes to paradise islands

Food travel
Read all about gastronomic travels

Wildlife
Destinations where wildlife is obligingly on display

Eco-tourism
Green travel exploits

City breaks

Because it lies on the eastern seaboard, Nova Scotia  is only a short flight from the UK. `Crossing the pond' takes six hours.

Halifax is Nova Scotia's capital city and is a cool, Bohemian place. Wandering the streets off Barrington, I felt chilled out by the boutiques, the pavement cafés and the friendliness of the locals. Halifax sits beautifully around a natural harbour and there's nothing like a sunset fish dinner at Sharky's restaurant, overlooking the waterfront.

For atmosphere and style, the Waverley (www.waverleyinn.com) really stands out. Dating from 1876, this Victorian hotel is festooned with ornate mirrors, old lamps, rich-red carpets, gold flock wallpaper and chaise-longues, making it feel like an English mansion.

Oscar Wilde frequented the place, where he was often found dressed outrageously in green velvet pantaloons.

Next morning, we were off on a 45-minute drive to the Shubenacadie River (known as the Shubie), which has the biggest tides in the world.

We boarded a Zodiac speedboat and sailed out, floating placidly past cliffs of gypsum and Acadian forests with bald eagles flying above. Mike, our guide, leapt out of the boat at a sandspit in the middle of the river.

One hundred billion tonnes of water flow in and out of the Bay of Fundy twice a day, creating a tidal bore. He says you can sail in water as deep as a five-storey building and six hours later, you can walk at the same spot on dry river bed. "This spot will be five feet underwater in two minutes."

Scrambling back into the boat, we see that his words are true as the dry ground disappears beneath rising waters. The river is angry as the tide rushes in. The effect is like being inside a washing machine with water coming at us from all sides. The real thrill of the trip is when the Zodiac powers up and lunges into the waters head-on, like a rollercoaster ride. "Fancy a swim?" Mike says later. Clad in my lifejacket, I jumped into the chocolate-brown, gurgling river.

Tucked down on a green cliff, above a rocky ocean and sandwiched between pine forests, Cape d'Or Lighthouse feels like it's at the end of the world - the place to visit if you want to experience the wilds of Canada.

After the exertions of the Shubie, a two-hour drive took us along a gently-unfolding coastline of white clapboard villages and lush meadows, to reach the isolated Cape d'Or lighthouse (www.capedor.ca). En route, the same massive tide had gone out, and I walked on the rust-red ocean floor for miles. The Geological Museum at Joggins exhibits a dinosaur discovered in this bay.

Cape d'Or lighthouse is a spectacularly-sited B&B, simple and without fancy trimmings, that enables you to get close to nature. Guestbooks speak volumes about a place. Pamela-Embury Murray from Vancouver had written: "I felt I could hear the earth rotate here". "The scenery is the cat's miaow," says the larger-than-life proprietor, Darcy Snell. "If you get bored by it, you can mow the lawn."

The lawn remained unmowed. Five miles off the Glooscap Trail, on a promontory, the lighthouse has no other neighbours and from the common-room, the views reach far out to the lobster pots lying in the Minas Straits.

Two days are spent exploring the butterfly-filled maple forests of Cape Chignecto, crunching along beaches of fantastically-sculpted rust-red rock, and eating freshly-caught lobster whilst watching the sun set. Huge glaciers carved out this coast, leaving 600-foot cliffs.

Cape Chignecto had a 30-mile wilderness hiking trail through old-growth forests. I see deer, moose, eagles and chipmunks. Nature being capricious, I do not see a bear, but they're about. You can spend the night at any one of 27 remote log cabins.

The next day dawns with a hot, blue sky. The Glooscap Trail becomes the Sunrise Trail, fringing the Northumberland Straits where the ocean temperature is as warm as the Mediterranean in summer and there are many beaches. At Tatamagouche, I spend a night in a delightfully-converted train www.trainstation.ns.ca.

Cape Breton has breathtaking scenery. It's the roughest and wildest part of the province, the coastline is rocky and the interior mountainous. The National Geographic named Cape Breton as the second best tourist destination in the world and justly - particularly if you love the outdoors.

An ideal first stop is the small village of Baddeck, overlooking the Bras d'Or lakes and home to the Alexander Graham Bell historic site. I walk sections of the 300-km Cabot Trail around Cape Breton Island starting from Baddeck. Remote Blackbrook beach has white sand backed by pines. I kayak at North River where a morning's trip explores an eagle's nest, a waterfall and a sea cave. Neil's Harbour has an old lighthouse and brightly painted fishing sheds.

Pleasant Bay is popular for whale watching. On a foggy morning, a mile off-shore, the skipper lowers a microphone into the water. Moments later, we hear whale song and then a school of pilot whales and humpback whales are breaching around the boat. I allowed three days for seeing the rest of Cape Breton, including the beautiful forests of the Margaree Valley, the French historic fort of Louisburg and Gaelic College of Arts and Crafts at St Ann's.

On my last night, I sit outside my log cabin under a ceiling of stars and I feel at least five years younger. Getting back in touch with nature is rejuvenating. Now that feeling is the cat's miaow!

I