Jen's East Coast Adventures

PEI by Bike: Monday, August 14 - Saturday, August 19, 2006

So I had decided on my quick drive through PEI during my move to Nova Scotia, that I would really like to go back and look around at a little more leisurely pace. And after my idiotic initiation to bicycle touring (who in their right mind would do the Cabot Trail as a FIRST bicycle tour?!?!), I thought PEI would be a little more suitable for touring on a bike, since it is largely FLAT! Turns out I was right! It was a FABULOUS trip. Here's the blow by blow; if you don't want to read all the details, at least check out the pictures. PEI is a very beautiful place.

But first, a little bit about my trials even prior to starting. The trip started off like most of my trips do; slowly and with a few mishaps. The mishap at the beginning of this one was unfortunately to my anatomy. I had a great time the Saturday prior at a beach party; stayed up all night, drank a bit too much, and as a consequence had some hand-eye coordination trying to catch a football in the morning. Instead of landing in my palms, it landed on the tips of my fingers! Fortunately they weren't broken, but they did swell and bruise rather impressively, although I'm not sure if it comes across in the picture. Not daunted, I packed up on Sunday, running on 30 minutes of sleep (too excited about being on vacation to have an afternoon nap) and drove half way to PEI, sleeping in the parking lot of Canadian Tire so I could buy a bike lock in the AM before catching the ferry.

Bike lock in tow, I headed over to the ferry, stopping at a camp ground nearby to ditch my car and load up the bike. I, of course, arrived at the ferry about 5 minutes too late and had to wait for the next one, but it turned out into a nice social experience. A group of older men saw my loaded bike and stopped to ask what I was up to. They too were headed over to PEI, but for a fishing tournament. They were members of ROFFA: Retired Old Farts Fishing Association! Not sure if you can make out the hat, but they even had paraphenalia! They then insisted on buying me lunch, which was fine with me, because I was starving! This was a recurrent theme throughout the trip; not the people buying me food, but the starving bit.

I made it on to the ferry, got on deck (beautiful hot day, so might as well enjoy the sunshine), pulled out my journal, finished my entry about, but we still hadn't left so pulled out my Anne of Green Gables book. I've read it before but a long time ago, and I'd bought a new copy last year and hadn't gotten around to reading it yet, so I figured what better time to read it than on my trip in PEI! After an hour of reading and not going anywhere, I finally took off my head phones and caught the overhead announcement talking about mechanical problems and delays and it'd only be a few more minutes! After 2 1/2 hours of delays, we finally got underway... not that it mattered to me, cause I didn't have anywhere to be! I was happy reading my book in the sunshine!

Once off the ferry, I got on my bike and headed off to the visitors centre. During the crossing, I'd read a bit in my PEI book about where to go and how to get around, and it had mentioned the Confederation Trail, which had been the railway system that had been converted into a set of walking and biking trail; nice smooth grade, no traffic, sounded ideal! I hopped on to that and headed east.


Reaching MurrayRiver after only 20km or so, I set up camp but wasn't ready to call it quits for the day, so headed out on my unloaded bike to explore Cape Bear. Did you know that the telegraph station at this lighthouse was to first place to pick up the distress signal from the Titanic? Kinda cool; a little piece of history.


After biking down along the coast and finding this beautiful group of flowers (which someone has informed me look an awful lot like opium plants!), I stopped for my first meal in PEI. I really wanted some good seafood, but I ended up in a deep fry joint, so I compromised and got chowder and deepfried clams. Pretty decent, and not a bad start to the trip.

Today I started off, wanting to reach Panmure Island for lunch. I ended up getting there at around 11am, but it didn't seem like there would be a restaurant, so after taking some pictures of horses that conveniently posed beside the lighthouse and ate my carrots that I didn't really want to eat, I headed out to Montague. By the time I got there, I was STARVING!! Fortunately the place I stopped had steak, which is what I was craving. It was actually an all day breakfast special, which I love, and consisted of steak, eggs, hashbrowns, an a ceasar salad. Bizarre combination, but it was DELICIOUS! I topped it off with a chocolate milk shake and headed on my way.

It had started to rain while I was eatting, so I pulled out the rain gear and trudged along. I was aiming for Big Fortune, which my guide book said had a great restaurant, but I realized, as my energy levels plummeted and it continued to rain, that I wasn't going to make it, so I decided to follow some signs to a B&B. Couldn't find the B&B, but there was also an Inn that was supposed to be in the same area, so I trudged along, battling horrendous head winds, and eventually arrived as the Inn.... yeah, right, Inn. It was more like a palace mascarading as an Inn!

They had one room left, and it was quite expensive, and although I was quite exhausted, it was still just a bit too much for me... and then they came up with the clincher: whirlpool bathtub! That was it, I was sold. The lady was even nice enough to give me the off season rate! The room was absolutely beautiful, as was the whole inn itself, and the meal! My GOD!! It might as well have been God himself cooking that food, or at least one of the minor deities, because I honestly thought I'd died and gone to heaven. It was some fabulous creation of chicken breast in a philo pastry with a gingery flavouring, and smothered in a spinach sauce.... wow. Very VERY good food. The wine I had complemented it very nicely too, and the appetizers and desserts were... almost as good as the main course. They were delicious as well, but not much I've ever eatten could compare to that main course.

Ok, enough about food. I hit the whirlpool tub, made the mistake of putting some nice smelling shampoo in the water, and had to turn off the jets when the bubbles reached about 4 feet! I luxuriated in the terry towel bath robes provided, and slept like a princess on my King sized bed. Oh, and since I've done such a fabulous job of promoting this Inn, here's the link if you wanted to check it out:
http://www.innatsprypoint.com/index.cfm

What I really wanted to title this day was "Heartless Hills, Horrific Heat, Horrendous Bugs and a Heavenly Hammock", but that seemed a bit too long for a title; maybe a sub title!

So I started this day off quite slowly... well, slowly as far as pedaling goes, busy in other aspects. I woke at 7am, so I filled up my whirlpool bath tub, then headed down to the beach. Private beach, absolutely beautiful, and I was the only one there. I went for a swim, walked down the beach, walked back, swam again, then went to warm up in my pre-prepped tub. I don't think I will even find a more luxurious way to clean up after a swim in the ocean!

I then went for my "included with the room" breakfast, and saw some continental stuff on the side counter. Helped myself to some granola and yogourt, muffin and juice and sat down to enjoy the view. The server then came up and asked me if I'd decided on a hot entree, and I sheepishly admitted I was going to stick to my "included with the room" breakfast, and they said the hot meal WAS included with the room! So I then had some mexican style eggs, hashbrowns, bacon and toast. And coffee, of course.

Finally got underway around 11am. I ended up playing cat and mouse with this other guy touring on a bike. I managed to catch him in a pic as he passed me when I stopped to take some pictures of a church. I passed him when he'd stopped for something, then he passed me when I stopped at a craft store, and then I stopped for lunch, and he was in the same restaurant! Bizarre! But he was just finishing, so I didn't bother him.

Heading out, I stuck to the highway because I hate backtracking, and wanted to come back on the CT (I'm not going to write out Confederation Trail each time, so from now on, it's the CT), and that's when I really began to appreciate the CT; the hills were non-stop!! Not major, but anything on a bike with about 100lbs of gear on it is an undertaking. It decided to get quite hot out too, so by the time I reached a beach, I was ready for a break. The sand was lovely and white. They call it the "singing sand" because it makes a musical noise due to the high amount of silica in it. I don't know about singing, but it made a neat squeeking noise when I walked down the beach! The water was heavenly though, and by the time I'd gotten dresses and was ready to start again, clouds had come out, so it was perfect!

I reached East Point just after the lighthouse shop closed, but it still made for some pretty pictures. I headed down the west side of the point, and I guess with the dropping temperatures, the bugs decided to come out. There were some HUGE bugs; I was literally dodging them with my head as I pedaled along! So I was looking for a camp ground, but the one the map said existed... didn't. The B&B in the area was booked (this was where those ROFFA guys were doing their fishing tournament, so all accomodations were full), so I ended up heading down the CT for a bit, then just camping in the woods beside the trail. It was pretty rough, and hard to find a spot level and open enough for a tent, so I ended up stringing up the cheap hammock I'd bought and fixing it so my single man tent was set up on top of the hammock (the bugs were too bad to sleep without some sort of bug netting). It was pretty cool! Oh, forgot to tell about food; I had brought only a few meals with me, and decided to cook up the lentil chile; always delicious, although it would have been better with some cheese.

Today was a day of fellow bikers... that ditched me!! I got up in the morning and went back to the beginning of the CT for breakfast and to check out the railroad museum in Elmira. They had a really neat model train, and they even had a miniature train that you could take a ride on... which, of course, I did!

I then headed out down the trail, and as I stopped to take a picture (the one beside actually), I was passed by a guy biking the same direction as me. I late caught up to him as he had stopped for something, and we ended up biking together to St. Peter's. He was going a bit faster than I was used to, but I gamely tried to keep up, and they he says he'd let me go ahead, cause he was gonna slow down and save his legs! So we both slowed down and continued at a more leisurely pace.

His girlfriend (yeah, I know, ugh) was waiting for him at St. Peter's so I took off to go get some food, being starving once again, as per usual. And low and behold, it's the other dude I was playing cat and mouse with yesterday!! He has just finished eatting, so although he was heading in the same direction and was also travelling alone, and sounded vaguely interesting in camping in the same vicinity, he took off and said he'd likely hook up with me a little further down the line!! He seemed to be under the impression that I was a much faster pedaler than him and would no doubt catch up to him in the next 30km, even though he'd be getting an hour head start on me!! Needless to say, I never saw him again. This was partly my fault as I didn't quite get as far as I said I had planned to get because me knee was starting to give me trouble (these bizarre sudden sharp stabbing pains while pedalling, but no problem walking! Weird!), but still! Oh well, I ended up finding a nice campsite and eatting a supper of a mix of things (pasta, nachos, tuna, blueberries, and hot chocolate!) AND having a camp fire! Love camp fires.

I ended up waking up at the crack of dawn today, and it was a beautiful, fog-filled wonderland, so I had to get up and take some pictures. I then packed a lunch and hopped on my unloaded bike and proceeded down to the National Park, which was where I had wanted to get the night before. It was much more fun exploring on a virtually weightless bike! I found a few trails that were begging to be ridden, so I detoured on to them, and had tones of fun ripping through them. There was this really neat semetary along one of the trails that apparently houses the remains of some of the first Scottish settlers in the area.

I finally got down to the beaches, and Wow, what beaches! Miles of beautiful sand and lovely waves that would have been kick ass for surfing if they'd been a bit bigger; there was a sand bar about 30m from shore, so if there was bit more swell, the waves would have totally been breaking nicely off shore.

After a few swims, I was ready to head out, having not made any forward progress yet today! Instead of pushing by bike back up the beach (I hate backtracking and I HATE pusing!), I discovered the wet sand was firm enough to ride on. I then had a lovely ride along the shore for a good 3kms or so. It was fabulous, but I definitely got several double takes!

I headed back to camp, and when I was almost there, I saw a sign for a steak house and pub, 2 kms out of the way. Well, I'd been craving steak since the night before when I had to settle for tuna, so I figured 2 km was no big deal. Unfortunately, I must have read to sign wrong, because I got to the end of the road, and no steak house. I headed back and realized there was a different side road I should have taken. So I head down it, and at the end of that road... you guessed it: no steak house! I was absolutely famished by then and quite disgusted both with myself and with ambiguous signs, so I ate a few granola bars and headed back to camp. I packed up and got to Mount Stewart, and this neat cafe called the Trail Side Cafe, which is conveniently right beside the CT! Their menu was posted on the window, and unfortunately, no steak, but my granola bars had warn off, so I figured I'd go into the empty restaurant and have an early supper (around 4pm by this time). No such luck; it was booked solid for a function!

So I asked a shop keeper near by where I could get a good steak, and they said Charlottetown! A good 60kms away, and out of the way to boot! So I asked where the nearest restaurant of any sort was (besides the Trail Side Cafe, obviously). They directed me to a golf course, which was relatively close, but still a few hours away. So off I go, bothering some guy in a truck when I was getting close to make sure I didn't go the wrong way (wasn't gonna do that 3 times in a day!), and I finally reached my destination, and my steak!! Ah, bliss! Some fried clams and a few beers, and I was much happier.

Now, to find a place to stay. My book said there was a B&B about 30kms away, but of course my cell phone doesn't get coverage at the golf course, so I pedal onward into to falling night, stopping to pull on an extra layer and put my lights on my bike. It was pretty creepy pedaling down the CT at night. I think I scared a raccoon at one point; I thought it was a skunk, but there was no stench, and I scared it enough that it definitely would have sprayed! I got to the town where the B&B was supposed to be, and low and behold, my cell phone has coverage, AND the B&B has a room! Turns out they were still about a 30 minute pedal away, but I was already rigged up for night riding, so no problems there. I even stopped to start gaze for a bit! The B&B was a welcome site, as was the shower and the chokecherry wine the owners shared with me when I came down to chat before going to bed.

Waking up early, once again, I enjoyed catching up on my journal entries while lounging in a lawn chair, sipping fresh coffee, squishing my toes in the morning dew on the grass, and having someone else make me breakfast!! The B&B was fabulous, both in appearance and atmosphere. The couple running it had lived over seas and had many authentic artifacts from the Middle East, Indonesia, and I'm not sure where else. There were other guests (3 couples, and little old me, of course), all from different walks of life, but all very friendly, which made for very interesting converation around the breakfast table. I highly recommend staying there if you're passing through. Their website is: http://www.rosebb.ca/