Today was a beautiful sunny day and we started our morning with a swim at the Bell Aliant Centre aquatics pool. This facility features a 25m eight lane recreation and competitive pool, a leisure pool with water slide, a toddler pool and a hot tub.

The Skmaqn–Port-la-Joye–Fort Amherst National Historic Site was the site of the first permanent European settlement on Île Saint-Jean (now Prince Edward Island). The interpretive centre talked about the history of this land going back to the Mi’kmaq people who inhabited it for 15,000 years prior the arrival of the first European people. The Mi’kmaq and Acadians worked well together but their defeat by the British led to conflict and deportation of the Acadians, many of whom died. The site was also was the homestead of Michael Haché Dit (also known as) Gallant and Anne Cormier who many Acadians today can trace their lineage to.

We made a brief stop at the Argyle Shore Provincial Park where a number of people were swimming in the red water from the red coloured sand.

Victoria is a small artist town with pottery, weaving, candle and chocolate making shops. There is also a Richard’s Seafood location here and we indulged in a Lobster Roll and Fish and Chips on the patio outside.

The race was on to get back to Stanley Bridge for the Proud Islander’s Ceilidh, this time featuring Louise Arsenault and her son Jonny Ray whom we had previously seen in the Abram-Village show. Again it was a lively and spectacular performance!

We couldn’t wait to have scones and coffee/tea for breakfast at the Willow Bakery and Café again. This bakery is run out of what was previously a United Church and is also where the Ceilidh was last night.

It was now time to start finishing the east side of Prince Edward Island and we stopped in St. Peters Bay where we visited several craft shops and bought some chocolate. Ruth ventured behind the shops to capture the beauty of the St. Peters River.

Prince Edward Island had a train network for a number of years and one of the end stations was in Elmira where there is now a train museum with information about the construction and history of operations of this network. The tracks were originally narrow 42 inch gauge whereas the rest of Canada used a standard gauge of 56.5 inches. The railway construction costs nearly bankrupted Prince Edward Island and an offer from Canada to settle these debts was the reason the island became a Canadian province in 1873. Trains were ferried over from the mainland in ferry ships. The last train on Prince Edward Island ran in 1989.

The museum offers a 15 minute “train” ride through the forest for children and their families. We’re big kids, so why not?

At East Point we visited the lighthouse and were greeted by a fox, scratching and sunning himself despite all the tourists snapping pictures of him.

Now tired of lighthouses and craft shops, we drove to Panmure Island Provincial Park where we will be camping tonight after going for a splendid swim.

Martin’s watch band was disintegrating and he needed some crazy glue to fix it. A Pro Hardware store in Murray Harbour had just the right stuff.

With that problem solved we were off to Cape Bear lighthouse and former Marconi wireless radio station. One of its claims to fame is that it was the first station in Canada to receive the distress call from the Titanic at 12:15AM on April 15th, 1912 which it passed onto Charlottetown and from there to Halifax. (Newfoundland wasn’t part of Canada in 1912, having not joined Canada until 1949).

The weather looked a little bit like rain or thunderstorm so it was time to move.

Northumberland Provincial Park has a campground and day-use beach area and we walked along the beach deciding whether to stay in the campground, take the ferry to Nova Scotia or stay for another night in Charlottetown. A thunderstorm did move in and the life guards closed the swimming area and hid out in their little cabin.

Charlottetown won out and we enjoyed another pretzel, beer and pickle at the Pretzel, Pint and Pickle bar where Rachel warmly welcomed us back.