Over the long weekend we took our little car, filled it with camping gear and headed to the Confederation Bridge. From there we entered the land of red sand, magnificent beaches, crazy red cliffs and of course..Anne of Green Gables! Welcome to Prince Edward Island!!
DAY 1: Thursday July 1, 2010
We left Saint John fairly early and our first stop was in Sackville, NB--It is there we found Mount Allison Universite-- a beautiful campus surrounded by beautiful trees and foilage. It was also where we had a quick lunch and bought the groceries necessary for camping. Confederation bridge wasn't far off now. My boyfriend was more excited than myself. I guess I did not realize the magnificence and engineering feat such a structure was. Confederation Bridge is a toll bridge--a mere $42.50 upon leaving Prince Edward Island. We stopped just before the bridge on a small side road (where many others were doing the same thing) and we were able to take pictures of the bridge.
Confederation Bridge--it's quite the thing to see!
Just inside PEI there was an information centre where we stopped at to get the necessary details of what not-to-miss while on the island. We learnt that there were scenic coastal drives that we could do in order to admire much of Prince Edward Island's landscape and so off we went. It was early afternoon so we still had some time to take in the land before we had to get to our campground to set-up our tent and such for sleeping. We stayed on the Central Coastal Drive's southern most stretch taking a few off-roads to get closer to the water. This is were our car Jerusalem decided he had had enough of our nonsense. We had noticed prior to leaving that the bumper of our car was not in good shape but we hoped and prayed that it would make it to PEI and back before we had to fix it. Well, you can imagine..it didn't! While on the highway we heard an unusual clanging from our back end and figured we better stop. Upon getting out we realized the whole left side of Jerusalem's bumper was flapping in the wind. Oh crap...now what!?! It's a good thing we were camping and figured we should bring rope for those "just in case" moments cause this was one of them. My boyfriend tied Jerusalem's rear-end back on...and we were on the road again.
Broken Bumper
After the bumper was fixed we continued on our coastal drive. We were supposed to end up at Rocky Point to see Charlottetown from across the water. Somehow we missed a turn and ended up IN Charlottetown...but either way we got to see PEI's beautiful landscape. Plus, we we figured we were coming back to Charlottetown we could see that point tomorrow. From Charlottetown we cut cross country to the campgrounds we were staying at near New Glasgow, PEI. Highlands Campground and Camp Cabins were very up-market, and we got the "bikers" site which was nestled into the far side of the campgrounds. Putting up our tent and eating supper was the first of our priorities. We had been keeping track of the ever swelling clouds and realized that at somepoint in the evening it was going to rain. Luckily we managed to get our tent up and our hot dogs and s'mores eaten before it started to rain. At first we thought it was going to be just a sprinkle but that turned out wrong. We ended up relaxing in the tent for the rest of the evening before falling asleep. Our new tent was tested all night for leaks as it literally rained all night!
Camp Site
DAY 2: Friday July 2, 2010
We woke up around 8am after a night of constant rain and got a fire started. We cooked ourselves bacon and eggs and decided that we should drive into Cavendish and stop at the Information Centre to find out what to see as part of Anne of Green Gables. Our first stop was where Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud (L.M) Montgomery grew up. All of the buildings in which she lived in were no longer standing but the environment still showed the beauty and serenity that allowed her to write the Anne of Green Gables novels. L.M. Montgomery was born in New London—just a short drive west of Cavendish, which we drove through later on in the trip.
L.M Montgomery's House Site
When I was little I absolutely loved Anne of Green Gables, and so when we arrived at Green Gables I was ecstatic. The house looked just like the movies, as did the bedrooms, the fences, paths and the barns. We walked in the Haunted Woods and down Lover's Lane...as described in the book. Visiting Anne of Green Gables was a dream come true, and something I will never forget.
Green Gables House
Haunted Woods
One of The bedrooms
A Friendly Chipmunk
Avonlea Village was another site just a bit further down the road. If anyone from back home is reading this it is similar to Ukranian Village near Edmonton. Avonlea Village is an role-playing setting, where people act out what would be happening at that time. We did not go in and see it, realizing the time of day and all the stuff we had planned for the next hours.
After Green Gables we entered Prince Edward Island National Park and investigated the shoreline of much of the region. This area is still within Central PEI, but is now on the Northern point. We took our time driving from beach to beach; sometimes it was a quick stop and other times it was a bit longer. My boyfriend and I had been discussing how well the day was going as we returned to our car. Of course, Jerusalem had another plan up his sleeves. This time he decided he wouldn't start at all. Another, oh crap! We didn't even get a clicking noise when we turned the ignition... Jerusalem was seriously "dead." It would have been okay if we were in a busier area, but we had just meandered to one of the less-visited locations within the park. Hmm...think, think, think..."what are we going to do!?" Just then this elderly couple and their friend pulled up and asked if we needed any help. "Hmm...i think we do, sir. Our car won't start at all." This man pulled a u-turn, grabbed his jumper cables and came to our rescue. We figured we better not press our luck and so we kept Jerusalem running, and didn't stop until we found a garage. It was in North Rustico, not far outside of the park that we found a garage with just enough time to squeeze us in so we could have a car that wouldn't "quit" and so we would be back on our way to Charlottetown for the evenings events. The mechanic changed a part on the battery and Jerusalem started up with no problem at all. Thank-you extremely kind people, we really do appreciate it!!! (On a side note: If you would like to see a picture of the mechanic garage we stopped at check out my boyfriends blog Steps of Foreign Soil later on in the week and it will be there.) From North Rustico we, once again cut "cross country" to Charlottetown. We were off to the annual Charlottetown Summerfest. We walked the historic Charlottetown boardwalk before entering the actual Summerfest. We took our time wandering around. We enjoyed seeing some very different animals at the petting zoo and eating some interesting grub such as mini Dutsch "pancakes" and we also got a good laugh at the LumberJack show prior to the highlight of the night--an outdoor performance of Cirque de Soliel.
Ostrich
Mmm...food!
Great fun!
Another dream come true!
Day 2 was, for me, filled with many dreams coming true. I have always wanted to see Green Gables and have always wanted to see Cirque de Soliel. I couldn't have asked for a more enjoyable time, or any other person to have been there with me to enjoy such things.
DAY 3: Saturday July 3, 2010
Saturday we decided to do more coastal driving--this time on the "Points East" section. First off we finished the PEI National Park, which we didn't get to the day before due in part to our car breaking down. But we finished that off and continued on Highway 2 up past Mount Stewart and St. Peter's and then we cut across the Souris, PEI, which is on the North Easternish part of PEI.
A typical photo of PEI...
After some investigating of the countryside and having a small picnic on the beach we made our way back to Charlottetown for the third time in three days. On this day we had planned to investigate Charlottetown before taking part in the Lobster Catching Experience. We walked through the touristy parts of Charlottetown, mostly interested in the beauty and history of the many churches and cathedrals that lined the Charlottetown blocks. They were beautiful.
Church
At around 5:15pm we met outside the Summerfest gates and took part in a lobster experience with Top Notch Charters. We learnt many things from the lobster seasons, to lobster life cycles, to what and how they catch lobster. Fishermen are allowed 300 lobster catchers and can only fish within the lobster season. A fishing license cost anywhere from $500,000 up, generally speaking and a fishing license can only be acquired from a fishermen who is retiring. We got to hold crabs and lobsters--including an orange lobster who is rare. Something like 1 in every 100,000. The highlight of the trip was seeing a 13llb lobster---his claw alone was 5llb. He was acquired from a friend of the fishermen doing these tours and was allowed to keep him for free as long as he called him Willy. There are rules and regulations for all fishermen. Female lobsters with eggs have to be returned to the water, lobsters too small have to be returned to the water, and no lobster catching is allowed out of season. Catching a lobster as big as Willy is fair game--fishermen can do as they like with it. The meat is tougher if they want to sell it. But a lot of the fishermen marvel the lobster and return it to the waters. Lobsters grow with age so this lobster could be very, very old. The fishermen who took us on this tour said he will keep Willy while he does the tours in the off season and will then let him go when the tours are finished. Yay!!! Free Willy!!! After the learning experience we ate lobster aboard the boat--nestled on the water inside a small cove. In PEI it is common to eat lobster cold, so that is what we did. It was surprisingly good!
I held crabs!
Orange Lobster..he looks cooked already but he is not!
That's one big lobster...
Our Lobster Meal
DAY 4: Sunday July 4, 2010
Sunday was our final day in PEI...what a shame, because we would have loved to investigate much, much more of the shoreline. Before leaving Cavendish area I wanted to pick up some of Anne's Raspberry Cordial, so that is what we did. I plan to keep the bottles as a keepsake!
Anne's Raspberry Cordial
From Cavendish we decided to take in some of the North Cape Coastal Drive, on the western side of PEI. We kind of zig-zagged to make the route shorter cutting across on highway 132 to Northam and down to Cap Egmont, PEI where we admired this fellows bottle houses. He had collected bottles in the late 1800s and decided to built a house and chapel out of the glass bottles he had collected. The setting is very calm--with lots of trees and flowers, ponds and the Northumbrerland Strait in the backdrop. On a clear day you can see the Confederation Bridge and we were able to see it peaking through at a distance.
Crazy bottle house..
We stopped at Union Corner, PEI to get a last view of the Confederation Bridge before we went back over it. It was at that beach that we found the warmest water in all of PEI--The Northumberland Strait. Warmer, most likely because it is much, much shallower. My boyfriend and I wanted to stop and swim because it was getting toasty warm outside, but we resisted the urge. We soaked in the water and returned to the car on our way back to Saint John. We were late afternoon and unpacked our camping gear and started engrossing ourselves back into the reality of...ah, life.
My boyfriend and I decided that we put something like 1000 km on our little car driving around PEI. It was well worth it, Now we can check off another province off on our list of places that we have been to!
