Back on PEI

I'm back on PEI and will soon be heading back to Nova Scotia for a quick ride up to North Sydney to get the ferry to Newfoundland. I've had several nice days riding on PEI. This place is so pretty.

This is the view from the top of the Souris lighthouse.


The Îsles de la Madeleine ferry passed when I was on the lighthouse.


This is the old Fresnel lens from the now automated light. It used to contain a kerosene lamp so one of the many tasks for the lighthouse keeper was cleaning the soot off the lens and the windows.


Before it was electrified, the rotation of the light was driven by a clockwork mechanism with a weight that slowly lowered from the top to the bottom of the tower. It had to be wound every four hours.


This is a boson chair that was used to lower someone down the side of the lighthouse to paint the sides. The paint bucket hook is on the right.


I visited Prince Edward National Park. There are tree sections to it along the north shore. I thought the Greenwich shore was by far the prettiest.








I stopped to see Dalvay 'cottage' the summer residence of one of the original owners of Standard Oil that was built at the end of the nineteenth century.





This is where Will and Kate stayed when they came to PEI.


I treated myself to lunch in the restaurant: seafood chowder with shrimp, scallops, and lobster. Yum!


Today was a thoroughly soggy day and a 'Rain Warning' was issued for several centimeters of rain. I lucked out though, since last night when I stopped in a convenience store to pick up milk, I met Doreen, a local avid bicycle tourist. She invited me to come stay with her which I gladly accepted. We spent hours discussing gear, routes, etc. I got a ride into Charlottetown to buy groceries and more camera memory. We had a nice dinner and it was just great to hang out in a warm, dry house while the rain came down. Thanks for the hospitality, Doreen!

I went up to Cavendish, the home of Green Gables, where the book, 'Anne of Green Gables' is set.


The house is decorated like it is described in the book. Here is Anne's room.


This is the Haunted Wood.


Lover's Lane.


I had a bottle of Raspberry Cordial.


A nearby farm, owned by some people with a Chinese last name showed their island allegiance thus.


If you don't understand the above photos then go read Lucy Montgomery's 'Anne of Green Gables'.

I'm now making my way back to the ferry to head back to Nova Scotia. I took the Confederation Trail, the island rails to trails, into the biggest city on the island, Charlottetown.


I hung out for a few hours.


There was a street musician playing Ragtime music.


I treated myself to a Dutch pastry called poffertjes.


They are like tiny, puffy crepes and are very tasty.


Heading out of Charlottetown, I passed a bunch more fields and some veggie stands. This one grabbed my attention.


Folks on PEI seem so nice. I'm a bit shocked that they sell Irish shoemakers along with potatoes and lettuce. It seems so out of character.

This is a freshly planted potato field. Note the pretty red soil.


More fields.





I visited the Wood Islands lighthouse.


There was some major rum running on the island since they had prohibition until the 1940s.


These serious gentlemen with the formidable mustaches were the sons of one of the lighthouse keepers.


This is how mail was delivered to the island in winter across the ice.


I bid goodbye to PE I today and took the ferry back to Nova Scotia.


I'm excited to see Newfoundland but was really sad to leave PEI and will definitely be back.
-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Prince Edward Island

Tour de Vent

I've been on les Îsles de la Madeleine for almost a week. Everything here is in French so my rusty French skills have been put to the test.


Luckily, most everyone speaks at least some English and I can still read French pretty well.

There are lots of Acadians on the islands and the Acadian Flag is the most common by far. It is a French flag with a yellow star in the blue stripe.


There are some Quebec flags to be seen too but far less than the Acadian. The Quebec flag has four French fleur de lys.


I'd say that 99% of the tourists on the island were from Quebec. I saw a handful of license plates from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and I really looked.

I rode down to the southern end of the island chain along a thin sand dune with lovely beaches.


The highway that runs the length of the islands is part of Quebec's Route Verte bicycle route system that is found all over the province.



How cool is this?


The big issue all week has been bad weather with rain and ridiculously strong winds (le vent). I can ride a headwind as well as most but there have been a few days where it's been hard to walk with sustained 30 mph winds gusting past 50. Riding that is just tremendously unpleasant so I've hung out in campground shelters waiting for things to calm down. Two days ago, I went down to the beach to watch and photograph the kite boarders. A good day for them is a really bad day for me.


A few days ago I took a boat trip to Isle d'Entreé, the only island not accessible by road. It's a lovely place with around 100 anglophone inhabitants.


There is a 174 meter Big Hill to climb on the island with fantastic views towards the rest of the islands as well as back towards Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.

This is looking up towards the summit of The Big Hill.


Views towards the other islands.





Summit benchmark.


The towns on the islands are quite lovely with houses painted in vivid colors. There are tons of nice beaches that are surprisingly uncrowded. This is a great place to hang out and relax.


I met Natalie and Marian on the ferry coming to the islands.


They stayed at the same campground as me for a few days and were kind enough to invite me over for dinner and a board game about the islands. Thanks for your hospitality, girls!

The winds calmed down enough
(15-20 mph) that I rode up to Îsle de Grande Entree and back yesterday. What a gorgeous ride!


Along the way, I stopped at the salt museum that is sponsored by the local salt mine. It turns out that the entire island chain sits on top of salt domes that are maybe 100 feet below the surface at the shallowest and go down thousand of feet or more. The salt was deposited from shallow seas and then covered by sediment millions of years ago when this area was down by the equator. Because the salt is less dense than the surrounding material, it slowly pushed upward forming huge domes with sediment on top. The domes that rose above the surface of the sea became the string of islands now known as Les Îsles de la Madeleine. I've read about islands formed by coral reefs and hot spots in the mantle but never salt domes.

I got up early this morning to ride down to Cap a Meules to catch the ferry back to Prince Edward Island.

This is the fishing harbor.


Loading the ferry. I got to get on before all the cars.





This was the view of Îsle d'Entreé from the ferry on the way back to PEI. The Big Hill is on the left.


Goodbye Les Îsles. This has definitely been one of the highlights of my trip!

Location:Îsles de la Madeleine

Onwards to Prince Edward Island

I rode north across Nova Scotia to the Northumberland Shore to take the ferry to Prince Edward Island (PEI). Along the way, I passed by a big, cool but stinky colony of cormorants.


The scenery became more pastoral.


This area is definitely 'New Scotland'. Town names are written in both English and Gaelic. This is the cenotaph statue in New Glasgow.


Going to PEI entailed another ferry.


PEI has extensive bike paths including one that runs from one end of the island to the other along the old railway routes called the Confederation Trail.


I'm now on the east shore where there are nice sandy beaches and lighthouses. The ocean is nice and warm. I spent some time looking for beach glass and found a nice handful.


I climbed the lovely lighthouse tower you see above. Here is the view from the top.


PEI has lots of iron oxide in the soil giving it a unique dark rust color that is quite pretty especially above the ocean on the exposed cliffs. The island is just gorgeous with a quiet beauty that is different from more rugged Nova Scotia and Maine. The nickname 'The Gentle Island' really fits. There are lots of potato fields and wheat that is still green. The fields go down all the way to the ocean creating a very nice contrast between the land and ocean. The potatoes are in bloom and have quite a nice sweet smell.


I've had great weather all trip except for a few hours of rain here and there. Two days ago, however, it rained like it meant business. I got soaked on the bike and camped in the pouring rain, also. It's tricky making camp and keeping everything dry when I'm all wet too. I managed all right, though, and slept well despite torrential rain all night. I did wake up before dawn when I started getting dripped on. The tent wasn't leaking, however, the condensation on the inside of the tent was getting knocked off by the force of the rain outside. I use a single walled tent to reduce gear weight and this is the main drawback of this type of tent compared to a usual tent body plus rainfly two layer tent.


With a rainfly, there is an air gap between the tent and fly so even if the inside of the tent gets condensation, it won't get knocked free as easily, though, it still can get you wet through the mosquito netting.

There are lots of slugs around here. Being from the land of the giant banana slug and having gone slug licking at Outdoor School (the slug slime makes your tongue go numb), I really don't mind them much unless they are eating my flowers. Until now. I woke up to this. Slugs all over the tent.


I put my bare foot in my soggy bike shoe and, squish, there was a slug in it. Ewwww!!!!

I rode up to Souris (pronounced Surry) yesterday and treated myself to a bed in a nice little inn.


Riding into town, the bike engaged the automatic brakes as it always does when a sign such as this is seen.


The view inside was quite terrific!


I saw this curious sign in town.


Darth Vader has moved to PEI and has an Erf while his housemate Moeder has a Hoeve? Hmmm!

I took the five hour ferry to Îles de la Madeleine, a string of narrow islands that belong to Quebec.


See ya later PEI!


Approaching the dock.


Bonjour Quebec!


The sunset from my campsite.


-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Eastern Shore