Tuesday July 25 – Charlottetown, Nova Scotia (The Best of Prince Edward Island)

Rock in the middle of the water on way to Charlotte town

Straight after breakfast we had to be on the dock for a day excursion. Our guide, Joan, spoke about some buildings and events as we drove through town, then off on a tour of the island. Prince Edward Island (or PEI, as you see everywhere) is named after the youngest son of George III, even though he never visited the island; Prince Edward is also the father of Queen Victoria.

PEI is a food bowl, with potatoes being the main crop, but we also saw corn, canola and mustard. We passed a park, where Joan told us that for the past eight years a mother duck (named Lucy by the locals) had crossed the road to have her babies, then when they were big enough she brought them back across the road. The police close the road and escort the family across, and in the eight years no ducklings have been lost!

Joan said that there are two seasons on PEI – winter and construction. Lots of construction (mostly roads) happens in the short summer. We have heard this before, from our guide Marie-Michelle (M’n’M) on the Island of Orleans. Joan circulated a sheet with two photos on it, of the same stretch of road, one in the winter and one in the summer. It had been a very heavy winter in 2015, with over 6 metres of snow. Children weren’t allowed to go to school because they’d have been able to touch to the powerlines. The main road was cut and no one could come on or leave the island and no supplies could come in. even though we could see the photos it was still hard to imagine that much snow! Joan also circulated some potato recipes so we took one of each!

Our first stop was the Confederation Bridge, which is the longest bridge in the world at nine miles long, and which joins the island to the mainland. [Our ship went under this bridge this morning but we didn’t get up at 4am to watch this happen at 4.30am!] The bridge is two lanes wide, and has a set speed limit.

From here we had a longer break at a large gift shop at Gateway Village, where we bought an item. The owner gave us a packet of chips each made from PEI potatoes. This has a lot of Anne of Green Gables stuff, including costumes in varying sizes with Velcro fastenings, and straw hats with red plaits, for people to dress up and have photos taken. The Japanese love the stories, having been brought up on them (many moons ago an English teacher used them to teach English in Japan, and the stories were so popular that they became part of the curriculum!). A group of Japanese young ladies had a lovely time, with lots of giggles, dressing up and having photos taken. We didn’t.

Then we went to the Anne of Green Gables Museum at Park Corner. PEI is where Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author, wrote Anne of Green Gables and had visited this property and finally lived here for a time. It contained her original wedding dress (not worn because her fiancé dumped her) and her ‘own little bedroom’. She was eventually married here to a minister of a nearby church. Her second cousins now run the museum, and the tea shop and gift shop that has been added.  We had lunch here, provided as part of the tour.

where the author used to live

her own little room

station where character Anne was waiting to be licked up by new adoptive parents

We visited Cavendish Beach – the beach of Singing Sands. This is special here, but actually could have been any beach in Australia (except the colour of the sand wasn’t as white as ours). The sand was fine-grained, certainly, and probably did squeak when you walked on it, but we didn’t try it. However, the red cliffs (colour of red soil in most of greater central Australia) was soil and not rock so they have lots of erosion each year. We also went to Red Bluff, and took photos of the beach from the red cliffs.

Parks Canada have two red chairs in every park to encourage people to sit and enjoy what the park has to offer, as part of the 150th celebration

We drove past the house with green gables that inspired the setting for the stories (was not included in our tour and was too crowded anyway, we found this out from others who had it included in their tours). We visited North Rustico Harbour, where Joan showed us how they fish for lobsters. Along the way she also talked about mussel production, explain how they do this. The lobster season is almost at an end and we saw many boats and pots in fishermen’s yards.

We saw a number of lakes and inlets with mussel line in them, and some with oyster racks as well. Here there was a pole with a platform on top for ospreys to build a nest. The nest was inhabited but the chicks didn’t show themselves.

We passed a huge set of factories, Cavendish, owned by a local family, which processes potatoes and makes potato products. The smell indicated they were cooking chips ready for freezing and bagging.

We visited the Prince Edward Island Preserve Company, which makes jams and relishes, without sugar but with various fortified wines and so on added. They tasted delicious. He exports the product widely now.

sign to warn of ski-doo crossing

week-enders for rich people

We got back to the terminal and tried some free wi-fi, but while we could check emails we couldn’t add the photos to the blog as the internet was too slow. This may have to wait until we get to the next hotel, and publish a weeks’ worth in one go. Lesley is keeping the diary up to date and is also preparing the photos, ready for the whole lot to be slotted in and published.

We joined Gary and a couple of others in a trivia session – we didn’t do very well. It was on movies – we got 9 out of 16!

last look at red cliffs of Charlottetown, with lighthouse

The ship sailed at 5pm. Dinner was at 7.45pm as usual, and was delicious.