Sept 10th we drove from Springhill, NS to Sackvillle, NB for another quick visit with Keith’s cousin, Ina, who is almost 90 yrs old. She had forgotten we were coming but was happy that we called so we picked up some muffins and joined her for tea. Sackville is about 30 minutes or so from the 13 km long Confederation Bridge across to PEI. Nice we didn’t have to wait for ferries! There is a cost of $44 to leave PEI via the cool bridge. We couldn’t get a good picture of the bridge so we borrowed one from the internet
Thanks goodness we had a GPS. It took us directly to our friend’s home in Hamilton, on the west side of Green Gables Shore. Hamilton is a township with the city of Kensington being 15 minute away. Shirley and Norm graciously offered us their heritage home built in 1876 to use as our base in PEI. It was wonderful! This was the last house on the road - we could walk to the ocean!! Felt like we had our own home to return to daily.
It was very nice to meet their new neighbours Claudette and Bob and share a meal with them. We really enjoyed out time here.
On the road to our current home, there is a very cool church. It is quite old and we found it very interesting.
We decided to explore Anne of Green Gables country.
Our first stop was a visit of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s birthplace
which is now an interesting museum. She was born here in Nov. 1874. Her mother was very ill and died when Lucy was only 21 mths old
so she was raised by her maternal grandparents at the MacNeill Homestead in Cavendish.
We then went to the Anne of Green Gables Museum which was owned by Lucy’s “merry Campbell cousins” since 1776 and was the site she chose to wed Rev. Montgomery in July, 1911 in a very simple ceremony.
Another interesting museum was at the Avonlea Anne of Green Gables’ Village. The brochures said it was open until October; however, it was pretty much closed and deserted, so we just wandered around and had a look at the School, the Church, the General store and some of the other buildings. This was the village set in the book Ann of Green Gables.
Looks like it would be quite a fun place for kids.
We drove past this pretty, colourful village.
We then drove to Cavendish National Park.
What beauty!!
We had planned to rent bicycles, however one more time we were too late in the season. So we just took our sandals off and walked barefoot on top of the sand dunes. Great fun!
There is a long beach area which is so lovely.
The red rocks are gorgeous. It is really very beautiful! As we
were walking along, we noticed the very black clouds not too far in the distance. We chose to ignore them thinking we could outrun the rain when it started. WRONG!!!!
When the rain started, we started running through the loose sand on the beach. Trying to get back to where we started was heavy going and it was raining cats and dogs!
When we arrived at the Park's building ,needless to say, we were drenched!
One little girl looked at me and said loudly " You are SOAKED! When I explained to her that I had to wring out my clothes, she just exclaimed “look at your hair!” Guess it was pretty scary to a kid :-)
Eventually, we were able to get to our car where we sat in our heated seats for a while as we tried to dry out a bit. I guess we were fogging up the windows because people kept coming over to see if we were OK. Nice folks!
When we had dried out somewhat, we returned to Kensington where we decided to celebrate our little wet adventure with a beer at a funky little pub that was once the local train station.
Another day we were on our way to drive the East Coast when Keith noticed the darkness and obvious rainfall off in the distance.
This time we paid attention and decided to turn around and explore the North Coastal area of PEI instead.Turns out it was a great idea! Rain free for several hours!
This drive began in Summerside, a really pretty coastal city. There is a 6 km boardwalk that provides a lovely walk/run area. Some very nice shops along the boardwalk and in the city itself.
From Summerside, we drove up to North Cape,the most northwestern tip of the Island. North Cape is famous for its natural rock reef where the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Northumberland Strait meet with magnificent results.
At low tide you can stroll along the reef and enjoy the many seabirds and marine life.
It is also home to the Atlantic Wind Test Site which was established in 1980 as Canada’s National Wind Energy Laboratory. Located on the northwest tip of PEI this area is exposed for 300-degrees to the wind-swept Gulf of St Lawrence. The 38 acre facility houses wind turbines of all shapes and sizes. They are HUGE!!!
After a lovely seafood lunch, we walked along the red sand cliffs. Really cool!!
As we were coming back to spend more time in Summerside the rain began and was really heavy at times. We were content to return home and get into our comfy clothes for the evening.
Charlottetown is a great city! We loved it. We walked everywhere.
Peakes Wharf Historic Waterfront is where the
fathers of confederation met in 1864. There are lots of shops along the walkway & a marina. Close by there is a nice park area dedicated to the Fathers of Confederation.
Canada’s smallest province, on the country’s East Coast, wants everyone to know that’s where the idea of forming a country began.
2014 marks 150 years since the Charlottetown conference when the Fathers of Confederation met to begin planning what we would later know as Canada.
Apparently a yearlong celebration is in the works!
There are some beautiful old building throughout Charlottetown.
Beaconfield's historic house built in 1877.
St. Dunstan's Bascilica 1897-1907
St. Paul's Anglican Church 1896
St. James Presbyterian Church 1878
In the evening we met up with Shirley & Norm Ramsey’s daughter, Gina, and her boyfriend Shane. What a good time we had!
There were a couple of musicians playing songs we all knew and it was real fun! We really enjoyed our time with them.
We finally did get to the East Coast. We hung out for a bit in Montague, a very pretty town on the water.
Georgetown had a very pretty park with lots of flowers, a ship wheel
and a rock with an interesting carving.
We drove around St. Peter's Bay and ended up at
Greenwich Park. What a stunning area! Here we hiked to the Greenwich Dunes. How cool!
We walked over a long boardwalk to reach the dunes and beach and then we walked for ages!
Keith thought we might be able to walk around and then cut through the park to get back to the parking lot, rather than returning the way we entered.
We tried, but in the end decided that it was pretty late to continue, so we enjoyed our walk back along the beach….barefoot is the way to go!
Wonderful day!!
We arrived home feeling tired in a really good way!
We loved PEI. It is very beautiful and really every area was within a day’s drive.
Notice our footprints inside the heart!!
As we were on our way to the Confederation Bridge, we came across a Scarecrow competition – what was left of it after the weekend.
We thought some of the displays were pretty cool . Sorta like harvest season and Halloween rolled into one.
Had a wonderful time and highly recommend PEI!
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