World Canada Prince Edward Island Borden-Carleton

Jan and Fred's Travel Homepage Fred and Jan's 2009 Summer Adventure

Prince Edward Island Aug 20, 2009

We've been quite busy the past few days. Our RV park here in Prince Edward Island is very nice. It has both sunny and shaded sites, hence its name, Sun and Shade Campground. The campground has a good laundry, game room, plus many gaming areas such as bocce ball etc., and it located right on the Confederation Trail, a walking and biking trail that goes from one end of the island to the other. The park is conveniently located only two miles over the Confederation Bridge. This very long bridge spans 12.9 kilometers (that’s nearly 8 miles) and connects Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick across the Northumberland Strait to Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island, the smallest and least populated province in Canada. Confederation Bridge is the world’s longest bridge over ice-covered waters and was quite the architectural feat when completed in 1997. PEI is known for its beautiful beaches, its red soil, its delicious seafood, and for its large crops of potatoes. We plan to stay busy investigating all these over the next few days.

Tuesday we rode the motorcycle all day and traveled around all of the middle section of PEI. We tried first to visit the seaside town of Summerside, but the Canada Games are going on this week, and the entire downtown and harbor streets were blocked off for the triathlon. Maybe we can get back there later in the week. On we rode, as close to the beautiful marshes and water as we could get on whichever roadways went the closest. Our next stop was at Indian River at a lovely old church with an unusual bell tower. The wooden church was built from 1900 – 1902, and has a 128 foot tall tower with twelve full sized statues of the Apostles carved around near the top of the tower. Inside the church was gorgeous – much like some of the churches we visited in the Acadian area of Nova Scotia. In every little village, we can see at least two churches and sometimes more –some of the Anglican churches have steeples that look like a king’s crown, while others have the more traditional style steeple. It is sort of like traveling through New England villages and towns, although the villages up here are usually smaller in size and have fewer homes. In fact, less than 40% of PEI residents live in towns; the province is predominantly rural, the farms and farm homes are beautiful. The yards all are well kept and almost all have flower gardens; the rolling hills of crop lands of barley and other grain crops, soybeans, potatoes, canola, and corn have very few weeds and are so pretty to look at as we ride by. On many farms, the fields go right to the sea. The potatoes have fragrant white or lavender flowers, depending on the variety, and their shade of green contrasts with the green of the soybeans and the beige color of the grain crops which are almost ready to harvest. There are also lots and lots and lots and lots of hay fields, with literally thousands of the large round bales of hay all around – of course, with the cold winters up here, the farmers need all that hay for the many dairy farms we have passed.

There are several cultural groups still evident in PEI – the Acadians, Scottish, Irish, British, and Native Mi’kmaw are the largest groups. PEI is noted for the iron rich red soils and cliffs along its southern coastlines and its sandy beaches on the northern side of the island. We saw evidence of both while riding today. We stopped at Cabot Beach Provincial Park near Malpeque and also stopped at the very picturesque Malpeque harbor. We rode past several beautiful sandy beaches and saw that on the north side of the island, in the PEI National Park, sand dunes are being preserved as best as possible – they look a lot like the sand dunes on Cape Cod. The north central coastal area is called the Green Gables region for the famous book, Anne of Green Gables, written by Canada’s favorite historic author Lucy Maud Montgomery. The area has many gorgeous golf courses and is famous for its lobster suppers. We had been told that was a “must do,” but when we investigated we found out that each supper costs close to $40 a person counting tax and tip, and Fred does not even eat seafood. In North Rustico, we rode past one of the famous lobster supper restaurants where they advertise a 60 foot long buffet! Later in the afternoon, for only $17, I bought a large fresh lobster and a huge bag of local PEI mussels from the seafood market across the road from our RV park, and I will now eat very well at the RV for two evening meals! It is not difficult at all to steam mussels and the market steamed the lobster for me. All I need to add is a tasty freshly made salad!

We stopped for our picnic lunch at Cape Turner and made additional stops to view the marshes and seascapes at New London Bay and at Stanhope Beach. So beautiful! Near the end of our ride through the coastal PEI National Park, we stopped at the large Queen Anne mansion built in 1896 by an industrialist from Cleveland who was one of the wealthiest men of his day – he even belonged to a group called the “carriage cult” because he collected many types of luxury carriages to use while on the Island. Unfortunately, as we’ve learned happened in many cases, his descendants lost the fortune after they inherited it. Now known as Dalvay-by-the Sea National Historic Site, the former summer home is an elegant inn and restaurant. The inn and its serene natural setting are both breathtaking, and if we weren’t on a tight budget, this would be a place I’d love to eat dinner and spend the night. I checked out their menu and it looked wonderful but of course, super pricey as well. I can just imagine wandering about the grounds, sitting and relaxing in one of the chairs on the lawn, and maybe even playing a round of croquet on their croquet court! We skirted the capital of Charlottetown on our way back to the RV and then stopped at Rocky Point where the red rocks were eroding yet very pretty. We also checked out the tiny scenic village of Victoria-by-the sea as well. It is a small picturesque community with several B&Bs, a tea room, and some neat looking restaurants.

Wednesday we left the RV park for another full day of riding and sightseeing – this time we rode to the most eastern point of PEI, where the Northumberland Strait, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence all meet. We rode past lots more farms and were surprised that all were so neat and tidy –tractors and farm equipment all lined up in orderly rows and not scattered haphazardly around. There are over thirty sandy beaches on the eastern half of PEI, and we wanted to stop at all, but of course, did not have time to do that. We could see most as we rode by though! We stopped at the PEI National Park Interpretation Center at Greenwich and viewed a very interesting video about the Greenwich area and how the different cultures (Mi’kmaw, Scottish, Acadian, etc.) influenced the region and all about how the ocean and wind created and move the sand dunes over the ages. We ate our picnic lunch at a serene setting near the marshes at Cable Head Beach, which is within the national park.

Another stop was at the St. Peter’s Bay Interpretation Center where we learned how the blue mussel industry operates – Fred said he had no idea that PEI mussels were so popular and were exported all over the world. He said what I was eating at night was just a bucket of rocks – well, to me the mussels are delicious! We also stopped at a vodka distillery – with all the potatoes grown in PEI, finding a vodka distillery was not surprising, but we decided not to take their tour because they wanted $10 a person to tour – and we’d taken lots of free distillery tours in Frankford! So on we rode, past more picturesque sandy beaches to the East Point Lighthouse, which was built in 1867 and now open to the public to learn more about how lighthouses operate. Along the way we rode past ten gigantic windmills stretching for several miles; we were unsuccessful in finding out how much electricity they generated though. No signage around to help us out there. Whenever I see large windmills, I think they look like they are going a graceful dance in the air, and I do not know why some people dislike them so much.

After the lighthouse visit, we headed toward home, but not before stopping at another sandy beach – a very busy one too. It appears that Basin Head Beach is a very popular spot for both residents and visitors to the island. I liked that the beaches, except for those within the national part, are free to visit – not like the ones on Cape Cod! We also stopped at the only Harley dealer in PEI at Charlottetown, but they did not have the helmet cable in stock that I needed. While there however, we did enjoy a visit with a local HOG officer, who suggested an alternate countryside route to get back to Borden-Carleton. We took his advice and it was indeed a charming ride – more rolling hills, good pavement, very little traffic, a few tiny communities with pretty churches, and lots of crops and farms to enjoy as we rode.

We are now watching the weather reports very carefully because we do not want to get caught in Hurricane Bill. We’ve ridden home from Memphis through a hurricane before (Hurricane Rita) and also had to head home early last year from Arkansas due to Hurricane Ike, and have no interest in going through anything like that again if we can avoid it!