Exploring the Northern Coast of Prince Edward Island

Saturday, May 19, 2018--Charlottetown to Summerside, PEI

Last evening after eating, we stopped at the government liquor store and bought two locally made beers that the employee recommended.  We took them back to our room and drank them while watching the only show we could find that seemed halfway interesting--information about Prince Harry and Megan Markle in advance of the royal wedding today.

This morning when we awoke at 7:30 and turned on the TV, the royal wedding was just beginning.  Our first reaction was, "Wasn't that supposed to be over by now?"  Last night, they had made a big deal about covering the wedding at 5:00 a.m. Eastern time (which would be 6:00 a.m. here in the Maritimes).  But members of the royal family were just arriving in the church at 7:30.  We would have been upset if we had set an alarm and gotten up early.  Which made us wonder, "How many people in Texas got up at 5:00 a.m. to see the wedding only to find that they could have slept for another hour and a half before it began?"

The breakfast room at the motel was full of people eating slowly while watching the ceremony.  We barely found a small two-top table where we could sit to eat.  And there were long lines waiting for the toasters to do their job--always the slowest process at an open buffet breakfast at a motel.  One woman commented to me that her eggs and bacon were going to be cold by the time her bread toasted.

We were glad to leave the motel.  Wi-Fi was essentially non-existent there.  It was poor part of the day, but by the evenings, nothing would work.  I measured the speed at one point when it was going fast enough for me to load the website to do so, and the download speed was 1.6 Mbps which means that most of the evening (when it wouldn't even load a website) it was slower than that.  We are at another branch of the same motel group tonight and tomorrow night, so we are worrying that we may be isolated from using computers/phones for another two days!!  I am writing this blog entry in the middle of the afternoon in hopes of getting it finished before Wi-Fi quits working.

Today we traveled two highways (6 and 20) across the northern side of the island.  Those two highways together are supposed to cross through the prettiest scenery here.  And it was nice.  The land had more of a roll to it--rolling hills that allowed nice views of forests and farmlands in the distance.  Unfortunately, the roads did not go through any REAL towns.  Again, we found no place where we could walk down a street while admiring downtown architecture.  Even the one place that qualified to be called a town had no downtown.  Everywhere is just a collection of buildings--churches, shops, restaurants, etc., in independent buildings scattered over a short distance.

The weather was great, however, as we made our way across the island--warm enough for wearing only a short-sleeve shirt.  The breeze near the water got a little cool, but it remained tolerable.

The best place we stopped was a town called North Rustico.  It has a collection of independent buildings and homes near a town harbor with a boardwalk from there out to a beach and smaller harbor.  We parked and walked the whole boardwalk, went over the dunes to the beach, walked along the beach to the lighthouse and smaller harbor which had gift shops and restaurants, and then went back along the boardwalk to the center of town. 

Our next stop was the unattractive town of Cavendish.  It is very famous for one particular reason--as the setting for the story in the book entitled Anne of Green Gables.  This whole northern area of PEI is a major tourist destination for families due to their daughters having read that book and wanting to see the house and the area.  It's also popular for a nice beach, but the story gets most of them here in the first place.  We saw the house from the outside and took a photo, but we had no interest in touring it or experiencing the commercial mess that has built up in the area to serve the tourists--amusement park rides, mini-golf courses, "museums," racetracks, souvenir shops, etc. 

Instead, we headed to hiking trails nearby in PEI National Park.  We took a long trail (actually parts of 3 connected trails including the Cavendish Grove Trail and the Cavendish Dune Trail) that went through the woods, around a farm, past the dunes, and back to where we started.  At one point, we sat on a bench at the edge of the woods looking across  a lake at the dunes--listening to the songs of the nearby birds and enjoying the warm sunshine.

Off Hwy 20, we headed to two more of the island's scenic heritage roads.  Both were good ones--narrow, red-dirt roads with woods lining them and no houses along the way.  They are a nice change of pace from going down highways all day and I imagine it would be fun to take a sleigh along them in the wintertime when it has snowed.  Approaching the end of the second road, we encountered a very steep hill and descending it was exciting.  At the bottom of the hill where the road intersected the highway, we were surprised to find an interesting collection of folk art in the yard of a home.  It was a collection of replica buildings constructed out of small stones called Woodleigh Replicas. 

Now I will see if the Wi-Fi will allow me to post this.  Later, we will head into Summerside which has about 15,000 residents and explore it.  We are hoping it will be a REAL town!!