Our Travel Blog

We set off this morning in the fog and drizzle; we were really hoping the weather would clear for a trip through the mountains. We used the interstate for a while and then handed navigation over to the GPS. Unfortunately I had left the GPS in “Shortest Route” mode, so it wasn’t too long before we found ourselves on a dirt road!

Changed GPS modes, and slowly came back to the route we had expected to follow.

The weather slowly cleared and the temperature started rising from the early morning low of 16C. The visibility was still not the greatest but we managed to see across the valleys and the distant mountains. There sure are a lot of trees in the New England States.

As the day wore on the temperature climbed to a very sticky 33C (92F). As we got closer to destination the thunder clouds started to build, and very soon we saw a few spectacular lightning bolts.

We managed to arrive at the hotel after the rain, so at least it was dry unloading the car.

Tomorrow is the final day, and I’ll try to put a final entry up tomorrow night or Friday

Our final morning was cloudy, warm and dry. After breakfast we packed up, said farewell to our hosts and headed off to the mainland. First stop was the Confederation bridge, where we paid what I would guess to be one of the more expensive bridge tolls around at $44.50. At least it was free coming onto the island.

We finished up on the Trans Canada highway until we hit the town of Woodstock NB, where we picked up the road to the US. Customs was painless, and we were back in the US.

In a few years time all the days we spend in the US will increase my pension! Under some weird archaic agreement, between the UK and Canada, my British State pension which I have contributed to over the years can be collected while I live in Canada, however it will NOT be index linked. Because such an agreement is not in place with the US (or practically any other non commonwealth country) should I be living in the US or one of the other countries, my pension becomes indexable for the number of days I was residing there. Go figure, you can be sure that each and every day will be recorded and claimed once we reach 65.

Rant over, plus there wasn’t much else to say today!

We stayed in Houlton Maine, which on first seeing the place (and the motel) left us wondering what we had done wrong. Normally I manage to pick semi reasonable night stops. In this case I was “forced” into getting into the US for this evening to give me the extra time out of Canada so I could claim my full duty free allowance. Anyway, the motel room is fine and we found a fantastic restaurant in the town centre so my record remains intact.

That it for today, next stop is Stowe in Vermont. So far only two people have confessed to reading the blog, surely there are more!

After yesterdays deluge we woke to a clear, cool, sunny and winy day. We decided to give the Church one more try to see if we could track down the record of Lyn’s parents wedding. Lyn phoned them before we set off and got hold of someone this time. They said they would try to unearth the records book for her.

We headed out to the west end of the island with only one planned place to stop. Again we followed the coast as close as we could, although we did cut across the central part of the island at one stage and climbed to the dizzy height of 130 metres (425 ft).

Once we got to the west coast, we headed into French territory, with many of the locals speaking French and a lot more French signs. We found a small fishing harbour where we stopped for lunch, then headed out to our destination.

The destination was a small property with buildings made from bottles! There was a chapel, bar and small house.

Bottle Bar

Bottle House

Bottle House

Bottle Chapel

Bottle Chapel

From the land of bottles we continued along the west coast where we “discovered” a craft store! Quelle surprise

We then slowly made our way back to Summerside to visit the church. True to their word, the 1945 records of marriage book had been found and Lyn was able to see the entry for her parents. Unfortunately the regular administrator wasn’t there, and the person showing us the book wasn’t sure whether we could take a photo of the entry or not, so no photo.

When we first saw the Church on Saturday it looked to modern to be the one where the marriage took place. That mystery was solved when we were told that the Church burned down in 1946.

The Old St. Paul’s Church

Seems the Priest’s house was way larger than the Church!

We then headed back to the apartment for dinner and a start on the packing. Tomorrow we head out for Confederation Bridge and then across to Maine for the return home through the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire. We have three stops planned, two involve sewing machine shops (Lyn is researching a new toy) and one is a parcel pickup office where I have had a number of “toys” sent to so that I could taker advantage of low mailing costs in the US plus take them over the border as part of my duty free allowance.

I am not sure if there will be internet available the next couple of nights or not, so the blog entries lie in the hands of the cyberspace gods.

Time for you guys to ‘fess up, who has been reading this, messages please!

See Title

Another beautiful morning, clear skies and warmer temperatures. Today we were on a mission as well as a sightseeing trip. About 68 years ago Lyn’s parents were married in Summerside PEI, so today’s destination was Summerside to track down where they got married. To get there we followed the Red Sands Route along the South Central Coast of the Island.

First stop was Rocky Point across the River from Charlottetown

Charlottetown

From there we continued along the coastal route to Port-la-Joye / Fort Amherst Historic Site. This is where the French and British fought it out a few hundred years ago. The Brits eventually won and shipped all the French off the Island (one way to quell future rebellions I guess). From this site there were some good views of the red cliffs, although the camera doesn’t do the colour justice.

The Red Sea!

Looking Down the Cliffs

Red Cliffs

Red Cliffs

The colourful sands, cliffs and water continued for a while, then we edged away from the see to Victoria, where many artsy folk had settled. It was also a good place for lunch out on the wharf.

Lighthouse – Victoria

After lunch we continued past the Confederation Bridge to Summerside via an excellent (according to Lyn) fabric store. In Summerside we tracked down the church where Lyn’s parents were married. We were hoping to be able to see the marriage register but being a week-end the office was closed.

St. Paul’s Summerside

Next we headed off to what remains of the Summerside Air Base. This is where Lyn’s father was a flying instructor during WW2. There is very little left of the base, now it is home to an industrial park and small wind farm, although it appears that one runway may still be operational.

With our mission completed, we headed back on the inland route to the apartment.

Woke up to a cool but cloudless day. Today’s plan was to visit Charlottetown and then make the obligatory pilgrimage  North to Green Gables. For those across the pond Green Gables is the setting of a famous book entitled Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Green Gables is probably one of the largest income generators on the island.

First stop was a walk along the wharf in Charlottetown, the area can now accommodate cruise ships, and is being restored to handle all the additional tourists. The city also has the usual double decker tour buses albeit with a slightly different paint scheme.

Tour Bus

A few blocks up from the wharf are some of the older streets with buildings dating back to the 1760’s.

Old Charlottetown

Old Charlottetown

Lyn’s New Business

After getting in some walking exercise it was time to play hunt the craft store, which despite roadworks and detours we managed to find. Lyn now has even more material for even more projects!

Quilt Store

Next stop was Stanley Bridge, a cross country drive to the North Side of the island. Much of the centre part of the Island looked similar to the English countryside with its gently rolling hills.

Country View

At Stanley Bridge we found a nice seafood restaurant on the waters edge where we stopped for an excellent lunch.

Next door was an aquarium featuring a selection of the local fish population, together with a display of wildlife found in the local area. Also in the same building, but totally unrelated to the area, was the worlds largest collection of taxidermed (aka stuffed) birds, all 750 of them.

Starfish

On to the highlight(!) of the days tour, Green Gables. Having never read the book or seen the movie I needed a quick briefing on what all the fuss was about. Somehow this was a book that went viral before the term viral was used in this sense! The house was in a National Park, and the displays were well done. Luckily we are outside the holiday season as I believe the place is normally jammed, with a good number of the tourists being Japanese visitors.

Green Gables

We then followed the road along the North Shore to North Rustico Harbour which features a temporary parking lot at specific times of the day.

Car on Beach Parking Lot

Traps and Floats

We then continued following the coast line before heading south back to the apartment.

The weather forecast was a little “iffy” for today, but we decided to head out and start looking around the island. Lyn had one trip planned out on the map, but when we looked a little closer it would cover 400kms! Didn’t realise the place was that big. We trimmed the route down some and off we went.

First stop was a heritage village at Orwell, about 30km east of where we are staying. Right on cue the rain started as we got closer, but it wasn’t too heavy and there was plenty of shelter in the village. The oldest building in the village was the Church which was built in 1861.

Orwell Church

Orwell Church

We moved onto the stables where we got “stuck” with a local yokel farmer who really loved to talk and talk and talk……. although despite his yokelness he pinpointed my accent pretty well! The only other gem he imparted, that I can remember, is that miniature horses are less than 36″ high to the shoulder, 38-58″ are ponies and above 58  was a “real horse”

There was a one room schoolhouse as well; it was interesting to see that kids in the 1800’s liked to carve things on their wooden desks…. where was the discipline? Actually it was on the teachers desk in the form of a leather strap, but I guess it didn’t work too well.

Orwell School House

After touring the rest of the village we headed out to the lighthouse at Point Prim, it’s claim to fame is that it is the largest brick built lighthouse on the island. When we got there, there wan’t a brick in sight it was all cedar shingles. Maybe the bricks were underneath the shingles?

Point Prim Lighthouse

Next stop lunch. We had made up rolls, which turned out to be a good idea as there weren’t too many restaurants about. We headed down to Beach Point beach and sat in the car munching away as it was still damp outside. After that we headed down to Beach Point harbour, the largest fishing harbour on the island. We were hoping to find some seals in the harbour, but it wasn’t our lucky day.

Beach Point Harbour

We continued around the East Coast to Murray River in search of the Old General Store which according to it’s advertising people was THE place on the island for crafts and crafting supplies. The advertising people have very vivid imaginations!

General Store – Murray River

We started to head back to home via the town of Montague, which was the largest town in the county with 2000 people. Amazingly this town hosted a Burger King, MacDonalds, Wendy’s, Tim Hortons, 2 large supermarkets and a whole lot more. In reality it was the first populated area we had seen on the trip today. Despite the big name stores we managed to find a small coffee shop at the old railway station, which by the way sold the best carrot cake I have ever tasted, rumour (my rumour) has it that the cake contained zero calories!

From here we headed out across country to the coast road which we followed home.

We woke up to a dull and damp morning, with no real plans for the day other than to rest after the trip down. The owners of the apartment supplied bread, milk, jam, butter coffee etc. for breakfast so we didn’t have to starve. After breakfast we hung around for a while then went into the local village to get some supplies for lunch and dinners.

After lunch we took a walk down to the beach which is about 500 metres away; the red sand and cliffs are quite different from anywhere else we have been over here. Unfortunately the picture below doesn’t really do the colour justice.

Walking back from the beach we had a good view of the apartment, which is the upper level area behind the balcony on the left side of the building.

As the afternoon wore on the weather improved and we had clear blue skies and warm temperatures. The novelty of doing nothing wore off after a couple of hours so we headed back down to the beach. The tide was now out so it was off with shoes and into paddle mode.

On the way back we were talking to our hostess and she was asking if we had seen the cruise ship depart. Seems that this is a big event around here, 2-3 times a week Holland America and Norwegian come into Charlottetown for a day on their way up the east coast to Quebec City.

Once the excitement of the cruise ship departure was over it was time to BBQ and eat  out on the deck with a great view over the Northumberland Straight to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

We left Edmunston at a reasonable hour (for us) after spending the night  at the  Days Inn just outside the city. For a Days Inn the place was excellent; recently refurbished and a free HOT breakfast to boot!

The day started off foggy, low cloud and miserable. It didn’t improve for quite a few hours, which was a shame as the rolling hills scenery looked as though it could be very good. We opted to go the main road route rather cross country due to the weather. The one good thing was, when the weather cleared, the speed limits in New Brunswick are 110kph.

Not too much else to say about the trip, other than the weather started to improve as we got closer to PEI.

Up until 1997 it was only possible to access the island by air or ferry. In 1997 the Confederation Bridge was opened crossing the 13km / 8mile Northumberland Straight. The outer approaches are 40 metres above sea level with a centre arch of 60 metres to allow cargo and cruise ships access to Charlottetown. The bridge is the longest in the world over ice covered water, what is the longest bridge?

Press Release Photo of Bridge

The Bridge as we saw it

Once on the Island the most obvious thing we noticed was the colour of the sand and soil, very red. The red colour comes from the high content of Iron Oxide (rust). I guess this soil is ideal for growing potatoes which is one of the islands major exports.

We arrived at the apartment around 4pm, and were pleasantly surprised with how good it was. We have a 2nd floor unit with a view out to the main channel into Charlottetown. Hopefully the weather will improve and we can get to see some of the island without peering through cloud and drizzle. It doesn’t help when the locals tell you this is the first rain since May!

We really hadn’t planned this trip too far ahead, but it seemed so long since our last vacation (at least 4 months) we had to do something!

Neither of us have been to Prince Edward Island (PEI), and for me it is the only Province or Territory in Canada that I have not visited.

PEI is a 1350km (840 mile) drive from Ottawa, so a night stop was required. There are two ways to go, stay in Canada and follow the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, or go through the US. We went the Canadian route, but will return through the US for reasons that will become clear later!

We left Ottawa at the crack of dawn (British Columbia time, or 9AM Ottawa time) and stopped at Timmie’s for breakfast on the go as we had used up all our milk at home! It was a warm and humid morning, but we should have been grateful as the warmth disappeared and the humidity increased as we headed east. Today is Labour day which is a public holiday here so the roads were pretty quiet. We headed out towards Montreal where we crossed over the St Lawrence. We then followed Autoroute 20 for about 500kms to Riviere-du-Loup where we headed south into New Brunswick. On crossing the border we instantly lost an hour as we also crossed into the Atlantic Time Zone.

Once past Quebec City the clouds lowered, the temperature lowered as did the rain! We dropped from about 22C to 12C. It was pretty cool as we got out of the car wearing shorts and T shirts!

Tonight we are staying in Edmunston NB, just over halfway to destination.