Touring Prince Edward Island

Friday, September 14, 2007

Yesterday we left PEI over the bridge and drove into Nova Scotia. We traveled along the southern shore of Fundy Bay and stopped overnight in Pictou. Then onto what they call the Gloosecap Trail, which follows the northern edge of Nova Scotia along Minas Basin and the Bay of Fundy. The route then becomes the Evangeline Trail. We took a side road to see the Walton Lighthouse and another side road to see Scots Bay Look off (they call them look offs rather than look outs). Here's the view from the look off. You can see the Bay of Fundy at almost high tide. On the way out of Nova Scotia, I plan to stop at a place called Five Islands where you can see the tides converge. That will be interesting.
After a long day of driving on very bumpy roads, we are exhausted and have stopped at a pretty nice campground.

The roads in all three provinces are really in bad shape. The major roads are OK, but the side sightseeing routes are full of patches, dips, and potholes. It’s sometimes difficult to even stay on the road and it’s quite dangerous driving, especially when you pass a large truck or a large camper (and there are plenty of those).

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

We drove part way up the northern coast of PEI this morning after cleaning up after a very wet and windy night. If you follow the coastal highway signs, you will see all the shoreline of the entire island. The North Cape Coastal Drive is about 300 km, the central Blue Heron Coastal Drive is about 200 km, and the easternmost loop, called Points East Coastal Drive, is about 412 km (that’s where we ran out of gas). Even though it’s not a very big island, you can sure put on the miles when you’re sightseeing. I figure I’ve put on at least 1,000 miles just on PEI while driving around the loops and doing some backtracking. So far I’ve driven almost 4,000 miles since leaving home on August 20th.

We stopped for lunch today at the West Point lighthouse. The sign said the only Canadian lighthouse with an Inn in the lighthouse. It also had a restaurant, which served up a delicious bowl of seafood chowder, including a warm biscuit with butter! The wind was blowing like crazy and they said the fishermen were coming back in because the water was too choppy. Here are a couple of pictures of the lighthouse and the angry ocean. Roxie was even afraid to go too close but she was very excited about all the stuff to smell on the beach.

After all that excitement, we decided to stay inland at Mill River Provincial Park. It’s next to the river and a lovely golf course. I’ve never seen such huge campsites and we have it almost all to ourselves. Here’s the view from the window.

The park employees are winding down for the season. They get to ride golf carts around, and right now they’re cleaning the picnic tables before storing them for the winter I suppose. Everywhere I go I’m hitting the end of the season and they’re starting to close up. I hope Nova Scotia has some parks open next week and the week after. I’d better do some research on that.

The only future reservation I have is at a resort at the northern most tip of Cape Breton. I am really looking forward to a few nights in a luxury setting with a gourmet restaurant right there. After that, there’s nowhere further north or east to go, so I’ll have to settle for returning to the mainland (New Brunswick and Maine), which is not such a bad thing after all…

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Today started rainy and got worse as the day went on. I stopped at an internet café briefly but I couldn’t connect my laptop so I had no way to upload my pictures. Now I’ll put them on my memory stick so if I find another internet café I might be able to upload to the blogger site.

We spent the day driving along the southern part of the Points East Coastal Drive, stopping at lighthouses. Most of these are working lighthouses. The first is the Cape Bear lighthouse, which is way out on Cape Bear off a dirt road. It was built in 1881 and moved back from eroding cliffs in 1947.

The second is the Wood Islands lighthouse, which is situated in a small park on the Northumberland Strait. From the lighthouse you can see the Wood Islands ferry, which goes to Nova Scotia several times a day. It costs $80 for a vehicle between 30 and 40 feet. The Confederation Bridge costs $40 plus $6.75 for each extra axel, but you only pay when you leave. It’s free to come into PEI on the bridge, buts it costs to leave.

The next lighthouse was on Point Prim. It’s one of the few brick lighthouses in Canada; it’s now covered with wooden shingles and painted white.

Then we decided to head to the North Cape area so we can follow the North Cape Coastal Drive tomorrow. It promises to be a mixed day with both sun and rain. We found a campground that claimed to have internet but when I asked about it, the woman pointed to the phone outside (in the rain). They also claimed to have cable TV, which sort of worked. After spending about an hour trying different cables, I finally got a fuzzy picture of a few channels, but with the wind and pouring rain outside, we were quite pleased to have it.



Monday, September 10, 2007

We ran out of gas at East Point, PEI this morning. I took the northern route across King’s County PEI and even passed an Irving station on the way. But I thought, there are lots of little towns between here and the end of the island so I’ll stop for gas somewhere on the way. And there were lots of little towns, but none of them had gas. They just had a sign saying the name of their town but no town to speak of. Some were just a scattering of houses. And suddenly there would be a large church in the middle of nowhere, but no town center. I pressed the pedal to the metal hoping there would be gas somewhere along the way, planning my long walk to the nearest ‘town’ and wondering whether it would be better to backtrack or go forward, for who knew what lay ahead? I coasted into East Point, the real eastern point of PEI. It had a lighthouse and a gift shop, but sadly, no gas. I was surely running on fumes as my gas meter reading said ---- miles left and the gauge was well below empty. Here’s a picture of the East Point lighthouse.

I talked with the woman (Nancy) who managed the lighthouse and she called a friend who would be happy to bring a few liters of gas for 20 bucks. While we waited for her friend to arrive, we chatted about the island and how she got there. She was originally from Chicago and then moved to Toronto where she owned a high-tech marketing company, and finally moved to PEI. She said she knew she had to live there from the moment she set foot on the island. It does affect you that way, with its beauty and quiet. Her friend was a slight Frenchman who used to be a race car driver. He arrived in his rusty old Volvo station wagon with a huge dog in the back. He poured a couple of liters of gas into my tank and then jovially agreed to follow me to Wilson’s (a gas station) which he said was about 6 km away. At the gas station, he told me to always keep a full tank of gas on the island because you never know where you might find a gas station on the far extremes of the island, and I will take his advice seriously.

I had planned to go south to Brudenell Beach but Nancy pointed out that Red Point Provincial Park had a beautiful beach. So here I am, camped right on the beach. Nothing between Tabette and the ocean, except for a cliff of red earth and 33 stair steps to the beach below. We spent a wonderful afternoon walking on the beach and sitting above the beach looking for seals and whales with my binoculars. There is almost no one else here, and they close the park for the season in just a few days. We feel very fortunate to have almost run out of gas, so that we met the lady in the lighthouse who told us about this wonderful campground on the ocean.

This is the first time Roxie has been able to walk on the beach. After a few times trying to bite the waves, she gave it up and just ran into them for the pleasure of it. She thought there were lots of new and interesting smells on the beach too.














Before leaving "Anne's Land" I wanted to show you a couple of pictures of the landscape here. The farms go right to the edge of the ocean. Here's a picture from a viewpoint looking north.

And no, they're not huge white worms, but just those same rolled haybails wrapped in white plastic. Apparently they have a machine that wraps the rolled bails and it looks like they leave them in the fields for the winter. Come to think of it I haven't seen a whole lot of hay barns on the island.