Taking the Ferry to Prince Edward Island

Thursday, May 17, 2018--Antigonish, NS to Charlottetown, PEI

We slept so well last night at the Coastal Inn outside Antigonish.  I was worried because there were many vehicles in the parking lot and lots of laborers were staying there cooking food on grills in front of their rooms and visiting.  But I never heard them once inside my room.  When I came out in the morning, all the vehicles were gone and I hadn't heard a single one of them start.  Plus, our room was really nice--split level with 3 queen beds, a dining area, and a large bathroom.

We arrived about an hour early this morning for the 11:15 ferry to Prince Edward Island (PEI).  But just before arriving at the terminal we had a nice experience.  A black bear ran across the road ahead of us--from the woods on one side of the road to the woods on the other.

The ferry ride took 45 minutes and was rather typical except for one interesting fact:  The food for sale was reasonably priced.  Almost everyone was eating, so I looked at the menu.  That's when I realized how inexpensive things seemed.  A bowl of chowder was only $6.  Burgers were $5, but they came with a very thick meat patty.  Unfortunately, we had just had a big breakfast at our motel, so we weren't hungry.

It had been sunny as we headed out for the day.  While on the ferry, it turned very cloudy, windy, and cold.  It remained that way as we arrived in PEI.  It sprinkled a bit as we drove away from the ferry terminal, but it never rained.  By the end of the day, it was clear and sunny again.  But we had a great time passing the day even though it was cloudy and cold.

Off the ferry, we headed to two scenic heritage routes I had marked on the map.  They are local unpaved red clay roads which are lined by trees that have branching reaching across to form a canopy.  Today, there was no canopy, because the leaves are just starting to come out on the trees here.  But one of the roads was especially nice because it was very narrow, started with a lake beside it and had parts of it with different types of trees--a section with lots of evergreens, another section with lots of white birch trees, and then a section with trees having leaves just starting to come out.

After following those roads, we headed to Point Prim to see the lighthouse.  It is a tall lighthouse--the oldest on PEI--at the end of a land finger where boats enter the bay to head to Charlottetown, the capital city.  And on the way back out from visiting it, we had another animal experience.  A fox walked across the road in front of us and then casually continued beside the car before heading away from the area.

We pulled off the road one more time on the way to Charlottetown to see the town of Orwell.  It is now a "museum" of the collection of old buildings--a church, a school, a store, and some homes and farm buildings.  It is closed at the present time, but we could see the buildings.  When it opens during the main tourist season, it operates like Williamsburg with people in costume demonstrating what like was like long ago.

Charlottetown has been a great surprise.  It is my favorite of the cities we have seen in the Maritimes so far.  It's a small city with only about 35,000 residents, but it has a very large downtown area with lots of character.  It has a major shopping street, an older "Victorian Row" street with sidewalk cafes and bars, several streets that are a couple of "bohemian" streets with independent shops appealing to students and hipsters.  There are at least 3 live performance venues, an art museum, a cinema showing foreign and independent films, etc.  And there are some beautiful old homes, too.

Tonight and tomorrow night, we are staying at Canada's Best Value Inn here.  It's a motel similar to where we stayed last night.  It's conveniently located near the university, near a cinema and shopping district, and just a short distance from downtown Charlottetown.  There was a problem when we first arrived though.  I had made two reservations for the two nights, and I had made a mistake with the first reservation being for last night instead of tonight.  I had happened because just before making a reservation for it, I had made the one for last night in Antigonish on the same website.  Apparently, I didn't change the date before starting the new search, so I accidentally reserved this motel for the same night that I had reserved the previous one.  But the hotel employee was so nice.  He contacted their office to find that they had processed the payment this morning for our missed stay last night, and they approved letting us stay tonight instead.  Apparently, they didn't have a full house last night and had were not fully booked for tonight either.  Whew!!