The Road Goes On…

Category: Prince Edward Island

  • Stanley Bridge, PE to Alberton, PE

    We started the morning with scones and coffee/tea at the former church where we had been for last night’s music performance. The place was bustling and the all female staff was busy keeping up with freshly baked goods constantly being brought out of the kitchen to the display cases to be sold immediately. All this was done with big smiles and conversations with customers.

    We met another couple, also from Ontario, and talked about travels and solar panels. The husband works for a company manufacturing solar panels and it was good to pick his brain about systems we’re considering for our house. We’re glad he took his time to help.

    We continued on the Green Gables Shore Drive until we arrived at Kensington where a railway previously existed that is featured in the Anne of Green Gables story. The site was designated as one of the Island’s National Historic Sites in 1978 and now features restaurants and artist run shops in the former train station and associated buildings and a parked old train engine nearby.

    Next up was the Green Gables Alpacas farm (46.55717N, 63.87413W) where we visited with many of the 35 alpacas that live there. A few could even be fed bits of carrots. We learned about the shearing of their fibres, how it is processed, felt the differences in quality of fibre from different alpacas and finally learned how to spin it into yarn.

    Hungry, we drove to Backwoods Burger (46.57662N, 63.92898W) where we each had a two patty Dam burger. It was damn delicious!

    With no WIFI available, we were forced to talk to each other… 😀

    Our home for tonight is the Jacques Cartier Provincial Park and campground (46.84954N, 64.01306W). The lovely red sandy beach was too inviting to pass up so we took the opportunity to go for a swim.

  • Summerside, PE to Stanley Bridge, PE

    We woke up to bright sunshine and walked around the campground. The mosquitos were gone and the tide on the Northumberland Strait was high. The campsites directly on the water have a great view.

    One of the RVs in the campground was a really old unit from the 1970s that had been refurbished 3-4 times. The owners told us that they were here for car racing the next day at nearby Slemon Park and that visitors were welcome to watch. They would be racing a yellow 1970s Mini. The Slemon Park is on the grounds of what used to be a military base and it is still an active airport. For today, part of apron was blocked off for the races. Cars of all types were there, including Corvettes, Mustangs, BMWs and one yellow Mini as promised. These cars are mostly street cars, although there were lots of stacks of tires around, perhaps to improve racing performance. Next to one car was a stack of tires and a child seat, so perhaps that was the daily driver.

    Father and son-in-law were taking turns driving the Mini as the son-in-law’s car had a broken oil pump.

    The Mini was making some squealing sounds and at lunch that was further investigated by both father and son-in-law. The initial thought was that the alternator belt was the cause so that alternator was adjusted slightly but further investigation determined the cause to be air leaking around one of the air filters on one of the two carburetors.

    The wives were cheering during the races and looking after the three dogs.

    A static aircraft display and memorial is by the entrance to Slemon Park and we were able to walk around. Some of the aircraft had been built by Dehavilland or Canadair.

    This CP-107 Argus was used for antisubmarine warfare and was built at the Canadair factory in Montreal near where Martin grew up sometime between 1957 and 1960.

    We returned to Summerside and walked along the boardwalk and watched a Coast Guard ship come into port.

    Further along the boardwalk we discovered artist shops and the Shoreline Design PEI jewelry shop where Joe was making new creations in the workshop. He took a Canadian penny and punched a hole in it and then transformed it into a ring which he gave Ruth as a gift.

    A short distance further is the MaiYa Pearls store where we talked to Claus about politics, culture and many other subjects. The store is named after his beautiful daughter.

    We enjoyed two huge ice cream scoops to some live music before moving on to Stanley Bridge for a Ceilidh (a music performance). The Proud Islanders were playing in an old United Church to a small but interesting audience comprised largely of tourists. We learned quite a bit about Maritime life through the songs and stories told.

  • Moncton, NB to Summerside, PE

    Today is Saturday and the Moncton Farmer’s Market is open and worth a trip to. We recognized some of the stands from our 2019 visit and found some new ones as well. There are a number of craft stands with jewelry, leather goods, toys, minerals and fossils, and wooden creations. Other stands had freshly made pastries, bread and meals while another hall had fruits, vegetables, meats and, of course, seafood. We bought some pastries and ate them outside where a musician played guitar and sang. A refreshing cold raspberry lemonade helped cool us off on this hot and humid day.

    On our way out we found a stand that was selling cooling “scarves” that you wet and hang around your neck. Very effective today!

    We found the Pumphouse brewery a couple of hundred metres from the market and purchased a six pack of the blueberry beer we had had yesterday to take home.

    We haven’t been to Prince Edward Island for a while so we crossed the Confederation Bridge and stopped at the information centre to see what we should see and do while on the island. Kevin was a great help and probably gave us suggestions for several weeks of activities and sightseeing. We may not make it to Nova Scotia at this rate.

    While we had a large stack of brochures and a map, we found the roadside signage great as it gave ample warning of upcoming attractions, the first of which was the Thompson’s Woodcraft workshop (46.37375N, 63.72876W). Wilfred Thompson is an accomplished woodworker with over 50 years of experience. He turns beautiful wood bowls, and when we told him we’d just started turning wood ourselves, he gave us a tour of his workshop and a couple of tips on bowl making. What a delightful experience.

    We’re staying at the Linkletter Provincial Park, which is right on the water and features mosquitos. Nonetheless we had a great walk along the beach.

  • Saint Peters Bay to New Richmond

    The visitor center opened at 8AM and I enquired where we could get our flat tire plugged. The local repair shop was just down the street and for $10 Johnny plugged the tire.  He didn’t have the tire pressure monitoring system tool either, so we’re still driving with the warning light on.

    After the repair job we headed to the second Prince Edward Island National Park and went for a swim.  A bit cold and Ruth had a crab climb onto her foot.

    After the swim was a trip to Green Gables, the location on which Anne of Green Gables is based. We watched two short movies about the site and L. M. Montgomery’s life and then toured barn, house and gift shop in the rain. Once safely back in our RV we had lunch and then departed on the long drive towards Gaspe.

    We crossed the Confederation Bridge into New Brunswick. The view from the highway is mostly uninteresting and we stopped only to switch drivers, coffee and ice cream and again later for gas. Once into Quebec the scenery is spectacular and we found a nice campground by the river for the night.

  • Halifax to Saint Peters Bay

    The morning started emptying and filling the RV followed by a trip to the grocery store to buy some food for the coming days.

    We decided to visit Prince Edward Island instead of heading straight back as we still had one unallocated day in our schedule. There are two major paths into Prince Edward Island – the Confederation Bridge and the Ferry from Nova Scotia. We decided to take the ferry in and then drive out on the bridge. The ferry runs every 1.5 hours or so and we arrived at the terminal just as the 2:45 ferry was leaving so we ended up taking the 4:30 one.

    Once on the island we drove up to the Prince Edward Island National Park and did a hike to the dunes just as the sun was setting. Just as we were leaving the parking lot for the hike I noticed a hissing sound coming from one of the rear tires.  Upon inspection I found that there was a nail stuck in it. We decided to leave it until we returned from the hike so as not to miss the sunset.

    When we returned from the hike we changed the tire.  Our $29 4-ton hydraulic bottle jack had no problem lifting the RV and we were done with the tire swap in about 30 minutes. The van has tire pressure sensors in each wheel and it now had a new wheel. I read the manual for the procedure to reset the sensors but ended up getting stuck once it said to use the tire pressure tool to walk about the vehicle to identify each wheel to the onboard computer. Unfortunately we didn’t have this tool so we just had to leave it in “SERVICE TIRE PRESSURE SENSOR SYSTEM” mode.

    Since it was already dark we looked for a campground nearby and found one in Saint Peters Bay. When I asked the guy that the office if he had space he fumbled around in his papers mumbling about there being a festival on and that one needed to book well in advance and that he didn’t know if he had space and that you shouldn’t just park anywhere overnight and so on.  It appeared that there was a lot of space in the park but we ended up driving to the visitor’s center and parked there for the night.