Our Excellent Eastern Canada Adventure – Part 3

It’s interesting how the weather can play such an important part of how much you will enjoy a vacation. For example I have always felt that our trip down to New Zealand never rated too highly – most likely because we experienced rain on about 60% of the time that we were there. Of course we know that as we usually travel in late September and early October that we are taking our chances as compared to going in July or August. But we’ve just gotten used to having less crowds to fight and actually preferring the typically cooler temperatures.
The four of us have been talking about the weather since we got here and have been commenting on a day by day basis that we have been pretty lucky so far in all of the sun and reasonable temperatures that we’ve seen in Nova Scotia. While we’ve been seeing on average 20-25 degrees we had some real concern when we started out on our trip around Cape Breton Island yesterday and were getting hammered with 11 degrees with a a strong, cold wind that was cutting right to the bone.

Going around the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island involves stopping and getting out of the car every 10-15 minutes in several sections of the trail as there are so many lookout points which are worthy of stopping and having a look. Unfortunately, every time that we got out of the car we were blasted with this cold wind that had us getting our pictures and then running back into the car to get warm again.

Without a doubt, Cape Breton Island has an incredible beauty that has something new around each corner. We all just wished that we could have experienced this in a bit better weather.

Coming to the Island

Last night we had drive all the way to Margaree Harbour and when we woke up this morning (now Day 6) and went for breakfast we were pleasantly surprised to not only see the sun shining again but that it was already 15 degrees by 8AM. By noon it would be 28 degrees.

We drove from Margaree Harbour to the town of Pictou where we were to pickup the ferry to cross the Northumberland Straight to Prince Edward Island. We got to our bed a breakfast about 90 minutes later after a long day of driving. We had a casual (delicious) dinner at our B&B and planned out our itinerary in PEI in the days ahead.

Our first full day in PEI started out with us travelling to the north side of the island to red sand beaches of the Cavendish area. Virtually all of the postcard pictures of PEI that we had seen in the planning stages of our trip had the grassy beach scenes kind of similar to the one above that I took.

Cavendish is also known for one other thing that is Anne of Green Gables.

I’ve made no secret about my somewhat frosty feelings towards Anne of Green Gables and our intent to never see any of the AGGI sites while we were on PEI. This position turned out to be sound advice as we actually passed by the “Green Gables” house on our way to Cavendish beach. This turned out to be a huge grounds with space for dozens of tour buses. The only thing that outdid the AGG house was the Avonlea complex right next door. Avonlea can only be described as Anne of Green Gables meets Disneyland.

Searching for Oysters

For many months during the several planning meetings that we had for this trip Peter had talked about how he was looking forward to going to PEI to visit the area of the island called Malpeque Bay which happens to be famous for its oysters. On the day that we drove across the island to Malpeque (which, by the way only takes a couple of hours) we found a sign on the oyster restaurant to the effect of “we closed on August 30th”. Needless to say Peter was a bit disappointed.

Lucky enough, we went out for dinner that night at a restaurant in Charlottetown called Claddagh Oyster House and were about to have a great selection of PEI raw oysters including those from Malpeque. We all shared the plate of oysters and as this was my first time eating raw oysters I wasn’t completely sure what to expect. The raw oysters that we had at Claddagh (eaten with a splash of fresh lemon juice) had a slightly salty taste but they were very tasty. Once you’ve ensured that the oyster has been separated from the shell you basically let it all slide in. I know, it sounds a lot worse that it actually is but I really recommend that you try this at least once if you have a taste for any kind of seafood.

A Little Rain Must Fall

When we woke up at our B&B on day 8, we were painfully aware that our streak of having sunny days was at an end as it was raining pretty hard when we started out for our 2nd day of touring the island. We went drove to the 2nd largest town in PEI, Summerside and Barb and Liz wanted to visit the tourist office there to get some information on some sites that they wanted to see. I accompanied them just to stretch my legs and within about 3 minutes of walking around I was soaked with just a tiny travel umbrella to hide under.

It’s pretty obvious that trying to see any outside sites while it’s pouring is really a drag. Under normal circumstances, Barb and I have made a point of focusing our activities indoors when we have travelled to other places and have experienced some rain. Unfortunately, PEI seems to have a dearth of any kinds of indoor activities that we could find. However, Barb had one last thing on her (endless) list of things to see that on first pass didn’t seem to be something that Peter and I were very interested in but in the end turned out to be somewhat interesting: the PEI Potato Museum.

The PEI Potato Museum had a complete history of the potato with lots of fascinating pieces of information including where the potato originally came from (South America) and complete details on all of the different types of fungus and blight that can affect the potato. You just never realized how much there was to learn about the potato until you visit the PEI Potato Museum.

The good news was that when we were exiting the Potato Museum, the sun was out again.

Dinner and Music

Being in PEI, one of the must-do things that one should attend is the lobster supper. A lobster supper is essentially a one-price dinner with lobster and several other courses included. We drove to the town of New Glasgow to have dinner at the New Glasgow Lobster Dinner – a large place that could easily seat 500 people and with the sole objective of serving as many lobsters as humanly possible. The New Glasgow Lobster Dinner started off with all-you-can-eat mussels and clam chowder, salad before the main course of the lobster.

Lobster bibs are a critical requirement at a lobster supper as you are rolling up your sleeves and getting in their with both hands. Lobster juices fly and you would be a complete mess if it were not for the bibs provided. Of course, few things are better than freshly boiled lobster dipped in butter as you extract each piece from the shell.

Our evening ended at an Irish musical called a ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee). This is a traditional Irish gathering where music and storytelling is done. A band called Fiddler’s Sons played and it was an extremely enjoyable end to the evening as well as our stay in Prince Edward Island. I can honestly say that you really should may it a priority to visit PEI at least once as it truly is a spectacularly beautiful place with warm, hospitable people.

Tires Put Flat on New Brunswick

This morning we left our B&B in PEI and headed towards the Confederation bridge that separates PEI from New Brunswick. We did a quick stop for gas and happened to notice this small bulge in one of the tires on our rental car. Actually the bulge was about the size of a tennis ball and it looked like the tire was going to explode at any minute. Going over the 13 kilometer bridge with a tire that was about to fail wasn’t really something that we felt was too smart so we felt that we had to deal with it right away. Without getting into a lot of details, we ended up losing about 3 hours of our day and ended purchasing a replacement tire – finding a tire store that had the right size tire is what took up most of that time.

Unfortunately the loss of those hours had an impact into our itinerary and specifically new Brunswick will be the biggest casualty.

As soon as we got into New Brunswick, we immediately started hearing the difference at the first store that we stopped. The difference that I’m referring to of course, is hearing French being spoken. It’s interesting how the language makes a place so much different than another. I began to think that i was really looking forward to getting into Quebec.

What was left of today was spent in a few stops along the Bay of Fundy part of New Brunswick – specifically Cape Enrage and the Hopewell Rocks. The Hopewell Rocks area is famous for showing the incredibly huge tides that occur in the Bay of Fundy. Cape Enrage also faces the Bay but is a high lookout point that overlooks a spectacular vista of rock walls facing the water.

We really only spent a few hours (total) at both of these places when we had to stop the car and discuss how we would be changing our plans in New Brunswick. Our original plans were to visit the town of St. Andrews tomorrow (located in the south-east corner of the province) but because we were unable to make it all the way to St. Andrews today due to our tire problem, we have decided to remove it from our itinerary all together. As a result, we will be heading directly north tomorrow morning towards the Gaspé region of Quebec. This will effectively add one extra day to Quebec and we are uncertain at this point where we will be staying the extra night. This will be discussed tomorrow and our decision will impact room reservations that we have in some locations in the next 10 days.

Stay tuned for more detail …

Baden