Getting to PEI, and a week on the Island

Sunset at Stanhope Beach PEI

Leaving Kouchibouguac (pronounced Kooshboogwak) Park on a Sunday morning we made our way south and east to Prince Edward Island. Along the way we hugged the shoreline as best we could down the eastern shore of New Brunswick, as the road followed along some of Northumberland Strait.

One of the highlights along that route is the Irving Eco-Centre, near Bouchtouche NB (pronounced Buktoosh. It's a very French-Canadian area). We first visited here a number of years ago, when the boardwalk was about 2 km long (about 1 1/4 miles). 

Since then, several storms have damaged or destroyed sections of the boardwalk. Currently it is down to 800 meters long (about 1/2 mile), which is the original length. No admission fee, as it's funded by Irving Oil. If you'd like to see more info or history of the dunes, just do a Google search for Irving Eco-Centre.

Nice wide boardwalk

The boardwalk runs out on the sand dune

That interesting-looking building is a private residence on the nearby mainland

Nice spot to paddle-board, between the dunes and the mainland

No pictures for the rest of the day's drive, but it's a very pretty drive along there, and not busy along the back roads until you reach Shediac.

Sunday's drive:

When we arrived in Stratford, we parked in Nancy and Pat's driveway as usual. They have a covered front porch where the nicest people visit. The site also offers water and electric hookups, and WiFi. Pretty nice!

A large cruise ship was docked across the bay at Charlottetown. The Norwegian Pearl was the largest ship to visit PEI since the cruise ship restrictions were lifted earlier this year. An acquaintance of Pat's took and posted an aerial photograph, so you can clearly see how this ship dwarfs downtown Charlottetown, even the seemingly large hotels:

Some stats for the Norwegian Pearl: 

- 965 ft long x 106 wide. Draft is about 27 feet.

- it can carry up to 2,399 passengers and 1,099 crew

As usual Nancy and Pat have some flowers displaying:

Wildflowers (planted) liven up their front drainage ditch

Nancy and Cathie continue their ongoing Cribbage tournament (1-1 this time)

On Tuesday we moved to a campsite in Stanhope campground, one of the campgrounds in the PEI North Shore National Park. It's a short drive, as shown on the map. Much less driving this time than our recent Yukon trip! Of course, we rarely take the straight route:

Before we settled in to our site on Tuesday, we visited The Dunes Studio. They sell some really ni$e items in the Studio that we only browse, but they also maintain a large garden out back, well worth a browse too. The gardens have always been worth visiting, have recently been expanded, and are free to tour:

In the left rear is the main (and he claims to be the only) gardener

Our uphill campsite for the first 2 nights at Stanhope (we moved to a different site for the next 2 nights):

Stanhope is a very nice campground, with a number of not-so-level sites (but we got camped by reserving a site the day before we arrived there, so not complaining). The main attraction is the nearby sand beach, where the weather mood is always changing.

Not the main beach, but a pond trapped in the dunes is popular with waterfowl

A silly panorama shot, I never get these right

Fewer people on the beach when the waves look like this

We actually got in the water here the day before. Not today though. 

Thursday morning we were just about to set out for a drive in the area when Pat and Tim (Tim is the youngest of Pat and Nancy's 3 sons, the 6ft 5 inch baby) dropped by on their bicycles to see if we would like to join them for lunch (Pat wasn't treating though, darn it). 

We tried for lunch at the Dalvay By The Sea restaurant, but they stopped doing lunches once Sept 1 arrived. So we moved on to the FiN Folk Food restaurant near Tracadie harbour. The restaurant is part of a new development called "Blackbush at Old Tracadie Harbour", where they are also developing residences and rental units. Good reviews for the seafood at the FiN, which we seconded.

Views from the upper floor at the restaurant

Watch out for that last step!

Here's a little map showing the places I've mentioned:

On Wednesday we had visited the Cows ice-cream parlour in Cavendish to sample a couple of their cones. Excellent ice cream, and they make their own waffle cones on site. The waffle cones were much sturdier than some we've had, a delicious package.

Friday we had some free time (hey it's all free time right) and we ended up visiting Holman's parlour in Summerside, where they also make their own waffle cones, and serve ADL ice cream, a locally-made product. Also excellent and slightly cheaper than Cows. Although Holman's waffle cones were not as robust as the Cows version, they were very tasty and did the job.  

Yummy Holman's cones (Small size, really!) 

Today Saturday we've relocated back to Nancy and Pat's driveway for a couple of days, before we start heading towards home. On our way to their place we noticed (hard not to notice) not one but two large cruise ships docked in Charlottetown.

The larger of the two is the MS Nieuw Statendam, one of Holland America's cruise liners. It now has the "biggest cruise ship this year for PEI" title, being some 18 feet longer than the Norwegian Pearl mentioned earlier in this post. It's about 983 ft long and can carry up to 2,666 passengers and 1,053 crew.

The ships were docked the same place the Norwegian Pearl was, the newly-enlarged docks now capable of handling 2 large liners at the same time: