Day trip around PEI

We were off for some PEI touring by 9am today, sunny and windy 16C. First stop was at an Artisan Basket Weaving Co-op west of Summerside, near Richmond; a lovely stop. We watched a woman weaving a basket, and of course she made it look so easy.

Cath finally chose a small square basket made from split ash and bark, and a handwoven dish cloth for Janine.

Then we carried on up #2 to Bloomfield for a visit to MacAusland’s Woolen Mill. It’s an old place, well-known in knitting circles. We spent some time watching the yarn process. The machinery likely dates back many decades. Really noisy in here.

The place has a large wholesale and mail-order business, but isn’t really set up for retail on-site. Our neighbor Janine had a large order in to them about the same time we visited.

On the way back down #2 we stopped in to the Potato Museum at O’Leary. It looked like it would be interesting to potato farmers, but we didn’t think it was worth $9 each for us to do the full tour.

It’s been a beautiful day today, warming up to 20C. We went out #12 to Green Park, which has Yeo House and Shipbuilding Museum. Cathie wasn't much interested in shipbuilding so I went solo, although it turned out that Cathie would have enjoyed the Yeo House part. Yeo was the name of the builder family. In the shipbuilding museum there are a number of artifacts, old photos and info about local shipbuilding in days gone by.

The house was interesting too. I had a nice guided tour from one of the ladies at the house. There were several women there, dressed in period costumes.

This old chair was upholstered with horsehair, and looked in amazing condition:

A woman had been sitting here spinning shortly before the picture was taken:

From there we worked our way down #12 along the Grand River inlet, a lovely drive on a gorgeous day. We stopped at Belmont Prov Park, a free day-use park, and made some tea, just enjoying the day and the views:

On the way back to our site we stopped at the Malpeque Oyster Bar for ½ lb of fresh haddock, and ½ lb of twisted smoked salmon, kind of a salmon jerky. We had these for supper at our site, watching the waves and the gorgeous sunset.

Note – Uncle Ben’s Express Rice is really handy for easy rice-based dishes when camping.

Today's route: