Days 32-35 Prince Edward Island, Canada

[Kalon] After leaving Liscombe we drove to Pictou to catch the ferry across the Northumberland Strait to Prince Edward Island.   This was a relatively short 1 hour and 15 minute trip.



Ferry to Prince Edward Island

After arriving at PEI we drove through Charlottetown to Cavendish where we are staying for four days.  This will be the first time we have a kitchen to cook for ourselves.



Our cabin with Karen enjoying the terrace.

On our second day we awoke early and drove to North Cape (the most northwestern point on the Island.)  There they have a wind generation facility and a museum that describes their operation.

North Cape information center

Lighthouse at North Cape

Nothing special: in Southern California we see wind generators all the time.

We then drove to Tignish, the start of the Confederation Trail, a bicycling/walking trail that extends from the west end of the island to the east, a distance of about 270 km!  I was going to ride the first section of this trail to see what it was like.

It was a dirt/gravel trail that is pretty easy to ride, although as an inexperienced cyclist on dirt/gravel I was a little apprehensive about possible flats.  But it was a beautiful section of the trail, and I could scarcely imagine following this for almost two hundred miles. 

Karen met me in Alberton and we drove back to our lodging.

[Karen] Well, we could all wish it was as easy as that. Unfortunately as I traveled down the road toward Alberton the road was suddenly barricaded and signs indicated the bridge on the road to Alberton had been destroyed this past winter! aiee! what do I do now? A quick look at the map showed a possible fix if I moved to the main highway and then turned to Alberton again. Yess! It worked and as I was busy nattering to the information lady at Alberton, here came Kalon cycling down the sentier-bicycle path with a somewhat disgruntled look on his face. He had had a somewhat uncomfortable trip on a bicycle path which was mostly gravel/dirt which is ok for mountain bicycles which have fat tires but for a road bike is uncomfortable and unpleasant. He was as ready to toss his bicycle in the car as I was to have him take the wheel back to Cavendish and our cottage. I had spent a miserable night trying to sleep on a new but too soft mattress so I had him stop at a 'has everything store' near our cottages. I hoped I could find some boxes at the store which I could tear up and stuff under the mattress pad as stiffening., I explained to a young stock lady why I wanted to find some boxes. She brought out a gleeful manager who said he had the perfect item! Unfortunately he brought out some extra thick boxes which he had been trying to figure out what to do with - about 4 times the stiffness of an ordinary cardboard box and had probably been unable to recycle without paying a fee. I am talking about cardboard which I could have jumped up and down on for several hours without making a dent in! Kalon and I dutifully tried to fit this unwieldy cardboard into the car - I can only think it must have been used to package riding lawnmowers for a store like Home Depot - and finally succeeded after Kalon possibly dulled his pocket knife forever by using it to cut down a couple of the seams of the box. We got it into the car and brought it to our cottage but after placing a sheet under my mattress pad - yipes! I would toss and turn forever on that and never make a dent in it. So, we are back to square one with me trying to sleep on the pull-out couch tonight and Kalon trying to deal with the soft mattress! Now we have the job of trying to get a recycle center someplace to accept the cardboard from hell. Today, July 1, is Canada Day so we searched without luck for cooked lobster to bring back to our cottage with cooking facilities, Instead, we had linguetti a form of spaghetti trying to pass itself off as linguine and bottled pasta sauce. Not bad - with salad and a red wine from the local Canadian official liquor dealer... Pinot Noir from the Dolomites in Italy.



Lobstah

and buttah!!!!!

[Kalon 3rd day]  Up early to try some more class 1 bike paths in Prince Edward Island National Park.  We drove to Dalvay on the north coast and I unloaded my bike.  There are two sections of the park, each with their own paved bike path, but separated by 15-20 miles of highway.  I started off on the most easterly section.

 

This was somewhat of a disappointment in that there were no ocean views and it was windy.  At the end of this section Karen had kindly chosen to wait for me and I was glad to hitch a ride to the next section and avoid the moderately busy 2 lane road with no shoulders.

 

The next section was prettier with pleasant views of ocean coves to my right.   But still pretty windy.

 

Paved bicycle path

 



 [Karen] It seemed like the riding would be a disappointment for Kalon as the first 13 km had no views and their were quite a few people riding cruiser type bikes. Not Kalon's kind of ride. We had checked out the road between the two sections of bikeway and it was highway without any decent kind of shoulder and with trucks as well as automobiles going between Brackley Beach and North Rustico at a good clip. I convinced him to put his bike in the car and drive on to the start of the second part of the bikeway. As I drove along the road accompanying this portion of bikeway I could see good views of the ocean so I felt this would be a happy ride for him, though short and left him to ride the rest of the way to the motel.





 

 

 

[Kalon] 4th day - Decided to go hiking on our last day here.  Drove to Prince Edward Island National Park (only a few miles from where we are staying) and hiked on some of the trails.  Quite lovely hiking on good trails with grand views. 

 

 

 

The trail would pass by some beach coves that typically had sand dunes.

 

 

As the trails were somewhat lengthy I decided to return home and see if Karen would like to do a bit of hiking, and if not I'd ride my bike on them.  She deferred and so I rode my bike back after lunch, passing another "amusement park" which disappointed me: why would parents bring their kids to PEI to play in an amusement park rather than enjoy the hiking and beaches? (Judgmental remark by an old codger.)

 

A nearby amusement park.

The trails I biked on were delightful, and it helps to be gaining confidence in riding on gravel.  Can you imagine bicycling (rather slowly) through lovely shaded composite surface trails for mile after mile?

 

 

There were trail maps at each trail junction so one could scarcely get lost.

 

 

 

And here's a picture from our cabin deck of the area-in-common.  It has been a very relaxing four days and I am ready to head out west!  Tomorrow back to the US and Maine.

 



Lots of play area for kids and adults

[Karen] Another wash day... but it is so much easier to use a Laundromat when one is handy than try to do three or four loads with only one washer and dryer. So I caught up on dirty clothes while it was easier to do. Then sat in the sun. I seem to be fighting off a cold from sitting in the cold wind the other day. Will be happy to move on from the beds in this cabin - too soft in one case and uncomfortable sofa bed on the other hand. But the three ladies who show up every day to pick up our used towels and leave us fresh ones are chatty and nice. Had lobster for dinner again tonight but should have known better than to order it in a run of the mill restaurant - they had cut it up in parts supposedly to make it easier for me and the tail section sure was a lot smaller than the claws were. Way to con the tourists who you probably will never see again anyway!



Lobster pig at work! The knowledgeable will recognize that the piece I am holding up to my mouth is the inedible part of a lobster... well not totally - some people eat the green gush inside this part  which is more or less the stomach of the lobster which I personally cannot stomach!