Off on our own for a bit, touring PEI

Nice sunset at Cabot Beach park

Tuesday 

On Tuesday we left Martels for a few days, heading up the northeast shore of PEI. First we toured Summerside a bit, Cathie wanted to see the hooked rug exhibit that she and Nancy were unable to see on Sunday. It was open this time, here's a couple of samples that caught Cathie's eye:

I had a browse at a nearby Home Hardware while Cathie was at the exhibit. Once we got these vital chores dealt with, we headed for Cabot Beach provincial park for the night:

A nice unserviced site, with nearby washroom and laundry, and room for a drying line...

...until the downpour started

 

Luckily we had seen and heard the short sharp storm coming, so had all our laundry and chairs etc put away in time.

After the storm, the skies cleared and provided a gorgeous sunset, and we were able to cook our fish outside:

Tuesday's map. As you might expect, it took us a lot longer than Google's 1 1/2 hr travel estimate:

Wednesday

The next day we left Cabot Beach, heading for Alberton, for no particular reason. First it was back to Summerside for a stop at their Atlantic Canada Superstore for supplies. It's a large grocery in the Loblaws family, and had everything on our list, plus a bit. 

Then we started touring, staying as close to the shore as we could.

Large floats, used to float tethered lines in mussel farms I think 

Recreation at the edge of a large mussel farm. Notice the motor on the picnic table raft.

Not sure these are all mussel floats. Please comment if you know.

A very pretty bay for the shellfish farm

One of the back roads, this one is the Old Ferry Road. No sign of a ferry.

St Patrick Catholic Church

Somebody's special project

 

Along the way we stopped for a tour of the Shipbuilding Museum and Yeo House, with PEI history back to the 1860s. 

Here is a link to more info: <link> 

 

The Museum building and exhibit entrance

The Shipbuilding Museum was quite interesting, to me

 

The Yeo House was of more interest to Cathie than the shipbuilding was. The house was built by William Yeo in about 1865, and housed him and his wife, and their 8 children. Mrs Yeo had several domestic staff to help run the house.

There are 4 floors accessible, with the stairs getting steeper every floor level, until these to the top turret:

Steeper than they look in the picture

In the turret, tight quarters

The view out one turret window

In the kitchen a corner was worn away. The kitchen workers used to sharpen their knives here, on the stones behind the plaster that used to be there. 

 

Leaving the Yeo exhibit we noticed a small red fox at the side of the lane, chowing down on something tough. It likely wasn't a large cookie that it looked like. The fox wasn't distracted by our van at all:

 

It was starting to feel like lunchtime (after 1pm) when we finished our Yeo tour. As often happens in PEI, nearby Green Park provincial park has a free day use area, right on the shore, nice spot for a lunch break:

The picnic area is up on the right

Further along the way we noticed a large trailer backed down a launch ramp, maybe delivering or picking up the work boat used with the mussel farm, or waiting for a load of mussels:

We were getting a bit tired by now, with all the driving and tour stops. :)) When we saw Jacques Cartier provincial park described we decided that would be a good stop for the night. Only about 3:30, but we like stopping early. Lots of choice of nice sites, we took #68, unserviced again.

Nice sea view

I decided to add some charge to our camp battery via solar panel in case it wasn't fully charged today

 

 Wednesday's route (approximate)

fyi, this was about 6 hours for us today. 

 

 

 

 

A couple more PEI days

Small boat dock in Summerside

 

On Sunday Cathie and Nancy wanted to see a rug-hooking exhibit in nearby Summerside so Pat drove us over. We took Pat and Nancy's bikes (Nancy's for me) so Pat and I could bike a town trail while the ladies were touring the exhibit. 

The town provides a multi-use trail (walking and biking) right out of a town parking area, along the shore for a couple of kilometres. A nice mix of open-to-the-water and more sheltered woodsy sections. The walking part is mostly boardwalk, while bikes should use the adjoining paved trail:

Short side trail for shore viewing

Several shelters and benches along the way

A windy day with some saltwater spray at times

Some fancy birdhouses along the trail

A view back to Summerside from the end of the trail

A huge deluxe development adjoining the trail has been under construction for almost 20 years, supposed to be completed within 2 years now. It will be a convention-type facility apparently, possibly funded by Oriental investors (?):

Solar-powered outdoor lighting

Back in town after the trail ride, we found that the ladies' plans didn't work out so well. The exhibit they wanted to see was not in the location they thought. That location was open today for other purposes but not their exhibit. They had a bit of a hike to the real exhibit location, where they found that the exhibit was closed today!

However the nearby tourist strip/dock area was interesting to browse, where a young singer was serenading the area with vocals featuring songs from Shania Twain (we thought it was Shania singing at first), Dolly Parton and others.

Not a large audience, but appreciative

Some nice-looking boats tethered nearby

No tours planned for Monday, just a rest and relax time. A lot of PEI businesses are closed Mondays, as quite a lot are open on Sunday.

We did get out for a hike right from the house on Monday though, along the shore across from Charlottetown:

A closer look at the bridge between Stratford (where we are) and Charlottetown

Nice boardwalk trail with some decks out towards the water 

An apartment building overlooking the trail and the water. All rental units apparently.

Nancy and Michael (Michael is one of Pat and Nancy's sons, so our nephew) were a bit behind us today on the boardwalk

Now we can prove we've been to Stratford PEI :))

 

Cathy and Nancy have been playing their traditional Cribbage tournament. I think Nancy is ahead this time. Pat joined in this time to make it a 3-hander:

A uniquely PEI cribbage board

 

Cathie did redeem herself with a big cribbage win today! 

The forecast is for rain tonight (Monday) and it feels like something is rolling in. PEI is very dry too, but not yet in crisis like Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.   

 

 

An entertaining day in PEI

 

A PEI church made with PEI sandstone

This morning was pretty leisurely. Cathie and Nancy went for a neighborhood walk, and came across these gals that were being pretty active:

Strange footwear, I guess helps them bounce

Bopping to the beat of the leader's music

In the afternoon we 4 went to a matinee concert in Charlottetown, The Million Dollar Quartet. This is a fictional recreation of an apparently true jam session at Sun Records, with Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and a newcomer, Jerry Lee Lewis. Not the original people of course, but amazing performers. It was the early days of Rock and Roll, this apparently helped the movement.

Here's a Wiki link: <link>    

If you get a chance to see this group and enjoy rockin, we'd recommend it. 

Luckily we left early to get into town. One lane (out of 4) was closed over the bridge to Charlottetown for some bicycle race, and this caused major backups, both for us "locals" and for heavy tourist traffic trying to get to town. It took over 25 minutes for what is usually a 5 minute drive:

Traffic backed up on the highway into town

 

We got there in time though, and thoroughly enjoyed the show.

Afterwards we hiked around the area a bit. The historic Province House is still under construction, has been for about 10 years now. Lots of issues, like any renovation of an old house:

 

We were on our way to a restaurant for an early dinner. Lots of restaurant choices in this area, right in the heart of Charlottetown:

Lots of outdoor dining, and another beautiful day. Street is closed to car traffic.

All Yummy!

A live jazz combo serenaded the diners

On the way back to the car we passed this huge church, St Dunston's Basilica. An old structure, it had significant restoration prior to 2017, especially the wooden louvres in the bell towers. We couldn't get inside today, but it's amazing:

  

 

 

 

 

 

Businesses can sponsor a street corner in the Adopt-a-Corner program. A number of street corners are in bloom:

  

In a blog of our previous PEI visit I had included a picture of this grand old tree in the Lieutenant-Governor's residence grounds, but with nobody beside it for scale. Here's some scale, thanks Cathie and Nancy.

It's a grand tree, and that large almost-horizontal branch would make a great swing support, with a great view out over Charlottetown harbour:

 Here we are approaching and standing in front of our new PEI summer residence (well as long as the LieutGov doesn't need it):