A day in PEI - North Rustico Beach, The Dunes gardens

An overview of part of the Dunes gardens

More touring today. We (Cathie) wanted to get to a specialty yarn shop in Belfast PEI, so we took the long way round from our Summerside camp.  Mostly pictures today.

Along the way we stopped at a beach in North Rustico and got our feet wet:

A freshwater pond drains into the sea via the beach

The pond drain splits the beach up, but it's wadeable

A great day for a wade

Cathie admiring the neat wavelet patterns

 

With almost every visit to PEI we take the time to visit The Dunes Gallery. The articles they have for sale are high end and often quite artistic. Maybe it goes without saying, but we have never bought much here, much as we'd like to sometimes.
 

Their gardens are the main attraction though. Always beautiful, and amazingly free. Free admission, and free to wander around. Very few "don't touch" signs. You can even walk on the grass! This place should be on every PEI visitor's must-see list:

 

I think this is a crocodile, or a really large mean-looking dachshund

Goldfish can be seen in some of the water features

Kindly and Grumpy, 2-for-1

 

We don't usually take pictures inside the gift shop, but these may give you a flavour of some of the things you'll find there:

 

Here's a link to the Dunes web site: <link>

 

After the Dunes visit we needed some lunch, so off to the Misty Blue Waters Take-Out (Covehead) for an order of fish and chips to split:

The full order came with 2 large pieces of fish, this was my half. Excellent!

 

This modest takeout place is right next door to the more famous Richards. Richards gets much busier, has inside seating and a liquor license. We prefer Misty Blue.

And finally, yes we did get to Belfast 'Fleece and Harmony' yarn shop, where Cathie felt she had to buy something after all the "work" getting here:

A very full day. Tonight we're back in Pat and Nancy's driveway where we'll be for the weekend, likely not blogging.

 

 

  

Leaving camp, heading north along the coast

Morning at Jacques Cartier park

Some evening pictures along the shore:

 

We reluctantly decided to leave Jacques Cartier park this morning. We had a nice site near the water, and a gorgeous day shaping up. So it was a leisurely start today. We took several morning pictures along the shore before departing about 10:30:

Lots of sandy feet around here I guess. I don't think I could get my feet that high.

Near Tignish we stopped in at Judes Point, a commercial fishing operation, for a look. Very busy place, we stayed away from the work traffic:

Lots of gulls on the roof, resting and likely waiting for handouts

 

 I'm not sure this was a commercial fishing boat, but pretty cute:

"Seas The Day"

Some interesting balconies in the housing around Judes Point:

No building codes here? There's a house under there.

 

Just up the road and across the way from Judes Point we stopped in to a seafood store at the Anglo Tignish harbour:

It seems like Tignish and Judes Point are the French Quarter, and Anglo Tignish is the English counterpart. We managed to escape with just some lobster and a couple of souvenirs from here. Nice little store.

 

A strange rock that didn't look like a rock, near an Irish Moss harvesting operation:

It looked like something large, browsing on the beach

 

We had headed up this way to see North Cape. It has a history since 1971 of being a test bed for wind turbine development. When we visited it many years ago, they had a mix of all kinds of experimental wind turbines, several vertical-axle type ("egg-beaters") and others.

Now they are all what has become the traditional design we see all over Ontario. They have 3 different models running, really 3 generations of similar design. There is likely different technology in the generations, but they look like windmills that have become common in Ontario.

The Interpretive Centre offers a self-guided tour of information about wind turbine development in the area. Not much we didn't already know really, kind of disappointing. 

But the turbines are still grand, especially close up:

A sample nacelle and a wing displayed by the parking lot

Cathie looks small next to a nacelle housing 

and even smaller beside a turbine vane. They are HUGE

The nacelle houses the generator that is turned by the (usually 3) turbine vanes. Lots of mechanism in there. 

 

At Skinners Pond Harbour we found a nice spot for lunch. The way in was quite sandy, but we made it in and out: 

The ATV could squeeze by our parking spot

 

Lots of gulls resting, ever hopeful for a handout

After a lot of discussion of where to spend the night, we ended up heading for Summerside. Cathie really wanted a lobster roll, and we found one at the Jolly Roger at the Summerside wharf area:

That's a lobster roll in the foreground, and my fish&chips in back. All was very good.

 

We ate outside on the rear deck, close to where pleasure boats were coming in to tie up

So tonight we're camped at yet another Walmart, this one in Summerside. Not the nicest spot, especially compared to the previous nights, but it positions us for tomorrow, and it's free. We do like having a Walmart option.