Posted by - 081907 First Class Camping 101
- 082007 Who Needs a Campground?
- 082107 Ease On Down the Road
- 082207 The Origin of Rocky
- 082307 Island-bound
- 082407 A Tourist’s Romp Through Charlottetown
- 082507 She Sells Sea Shells
- 082607 Take Me to the Bridge
- 082707 Race to the Maggies
- 082807 The Endless Beaches of the Magdalen Islands
- 082907 Another Day in Paradise
- 083007 A Man (and h’lady), a Plan, Magdalen
- 083107 Fin, et Salut
081907 First Class Camping 101
An uncharacteristic early start had m’lady and I completing the 1150km drive from Ottawa to just-outside-of-Moncton, New Brunswick pretty early, arriving at my parents’ temporary home at 9pm (even more impressive: that’s just 8pm Ottawa-time). They were homeless for the summer while my mom oversaw another house-building project, so instead of just spending the weekends at their small RV campground (amongst like-minded friends and relatives who shared their comfy-camping lifestyle as well as a common interest in highly competitive low-impact lawn games, cards ’n Coors Light into the wee hours, and Sunday afternoon NASCAR) they were there all week long for the entire summer.
I stopped the car in front of their trailer and m’lady and I got out with a yawn and a stretch. Finding the trailer empty, I tossed our suitcases into what was to be our home for the next two weeks – mom and dad’s 31’ Sunseeker RV – and we headed towards the warm glow of the Lean-To. Swinging open the wooden screen door of the rec hall/bar/lounge we found the entire park of campers capping off a communal dinner with an evening of – you guessed it – cards ’n Coors Light.
After hugs, handshakes and reintroductions all ‘round I grabbed myself a tall glass and quickly caught up to the crowd with several rather thick Crown Royals and Cokes. (I’ve generally got to be in the right mood to drink Coors Light, and that mood is: “dismayed that there isn’t anything else to drink”.) By 11pm I had my regained my east coast accent (along with a bit of a slur) and by midnight m’lady and I were hunkering down for our first sleep in the camper.
The bed was comfortable and the east coast evening air was fresh and clean; we slept like the dead. We woke up to find my dad off fetching the paper in his golf cart while my mom busied herself cooking up a morning feast of bacon, eggs, and home fries, with home-made toast and home-made jam on the side.
After breakfast and plenty of coffees we got a few lessons on how to use the motor home then drove into Moncton. We stopped in to check out my mom’s house-in-progress and spent the bulk of the day visiting my brother and his family. Fast-forward through another not-dissimilar night of drinking, a second great sleep-like-the-dead, and a copycat breakfast and the departure for our first-ever RV vacation was upon us.
Err…except for a few more RV instructions (like my cousin-in-law feeding us details such as “Stick this here tube into that there hole and that’s how you drain ‘er,” while m’lady scuttled along behind trying to write it all down) and a last minute scrounge to borrow a bicycle rack. And then – finally! – we were off, just m’lady and I and our home-on-wheels pointed still further east.
We pounded nonstop along the Trans-Canada Highway until we hit the Nova Scotia border, where we pulled into the tourist info booth for maps and directions to a grocery store and a liquor store where we stocked up with necessary provisions. And groceries.
Despite its size I found the camper pretty easy to navigate, even along the smaller streets of Amherst, NS. I wouldn’t want to take it through a drive-thru but with a full kitchen there would be little need to. Out on the highway the thing drove like a dream. It was like a Cadillac in comparison to the beaten-down handicap bus I drove back-and-forth across the continent as myself and three friends pursued the dreams and realities of live rock and roll.
Now, just a couple of years on, I was piloting mom and dad’s Sunseeker up the Sunrise Trail scenic route towards our first real vacation stop of the trip, Heather Beach. We arrived to find ourselves the only ones there. We parked the camper and m’lady made us a nice, fresh, delicious lunch. We ate with the salty breeze wafting through the window and watched the waves roll in while we planned the rest of our day over coffees.
After lunch we walked up and down the deserted beach searching for seashells and cool rocks. By the time we got back to the camper a few more people (including two lifeguards) had showed up to enjoy the beach and no wonder, it was a beautiful spot and a beautiful day. So beautiful in fact that we debated whether or not to stay put and just camp there in the parking lot for the evening but on m’lady’s suggestion we pulled up anchor and made our way another hour or more down the road.
We ended up at a private campground in Seafoam, NS where we parked on a fully serviced campsite overlooking the ocean surrounded by other campers, the vast majority of which were there for the season. Most of these RV’s and trailers were essentially cottages, and it was quite a spot for cottaging. We plugged in everything we could remember and set off to explore a bit. The place was aptly named; as a result of the incessant waves frothing up and onto the sand unmistakeable amounts of foam does indeed collect on the beach. We sat on some rocks and pondered a creek that separated the beach from a cemetery on a small bluff. We ultimately decided that it was too wide to jump so we made plans to return the next day and explore the cemetery on our bikes.
Eventually we went back to the RV and made tacos for dinner. Afterwards we revelled in our comfort, watched some tv and went down for another great night’s sleep.
This “camping” stuff is all right.
082007 Who Needs a Campground?
I woke up pretty early and got straight to figuring out how to do the dumping and other such RV chores. Stuff came out – I can attest to that – but the black water (aka sewage) meter on the camper read like there had been no change. My mother had mentioned that the gauges weren’t always completely accurate so after a head scratch and a shrug we walked down for a quick tour of a nearby cemetery before plowing out of Seafoam Campground with nary a hint of concern.
We stopped in Pictou to gather ferry information for upcoming adventures but aside from that we kept a slow and steady pace on the scenic highway that brought us northeast up the coast. We stopped briefly at the lighthouse at Cape George and continued down along the western edge of St. Georges Bay to Antigonish where we met up with the TCH.
After our first fillup of the trip ($124) we carried on along the highway until we were stopped at the fringe of mainland Nova Scotia by the rotating swing bridge of the Canso Causeway, which happened to be swung open for the boats when we pulled up and therefore closed for happy, freewheelin’ Sunseeker RV’ers like m’lady and I. We gaped at the starkly beautiful rolling hills of the huge island that lay ahead as the Grateful Dead rang out of the cd player singing to us of sunshine and daydreams. A few tranquil moments later the bridge spun on its axis and returned to its highway position. We revved up the engine and turtled our home-on-wheels across the short bridge, officially arriving on Cape Breton Island as we powered up the first hill on the other side of the causeway.
Before hitting the Cabot Trail we pulled into a picnic area where m’lady made us a super soup ’n sandwich supper. (Okay, it was lunch, but sometimes I just can’t resist a good alliteration.) As we turned left to leave highway 105 the panoramic beauty of Cape Breton gave way to the ever-stunning Cabot Trail.
(Even though I grew up in nearby New Brunswick, it wasn’t until I was several decades old that I learned that the Cabot Trail is, in fact, a highway. I had always assumed it was a hiking trail. As a teenager I used to pump gas at a Petro-Canada near the TCH and I can’t tell you how many time I stared in awe as one elderly tourist after another would tell me that they had just finished the Cabot Trail. “What an achievement!” I would think, shaking my head in wonder. “And in only three days!” I could hardly believe it, but I did. New Brunswick’s budget for public education was notoriously low when I was a kid.)
We drove through the gorgeous hills that flanked the winding highway and as soon as the road met the ocean we pulled into the first rest area we could find and hung our hats for the night. The camper was well equipped for stand-alone ‘dry’ camping without any electrical or water hookups so we could sleep anywhere. I pulled the camper around so the side door and the main windows faced the water, affording us an uninhibited view of the ocean from that stretched from as far as we could see to the left to as far as we could see to the right. We laid on the bed together and watched the sun sink slowly into the sea through the open window. When it got good and dark outside we made dinner and got drunk like we owned the place (or was that just me?), eventually falling asleep with the crashing sound of the ocean coursing through our bedroom window.
Postscript: When we woke up the next morning I had a hankerin’ for an omelet. I puttered around the camper making a fabulous breakfast carefree and oblivious to the countless tourists that pulled in and out of our little turnoff to take pictures of the spectacular view. Eventually the two of us enjoyed our omelettes, bacon, coffee, and toast while sitting in our underwear with the dining table window open to the expansive, infinity of the sea just a few metres away.
Try pulling that off in a tent.
082107 Ease On Down the Road
We awoke just outside Margaree Harbour, Nova Scotia where a spectacular ocean view was all we could see through the windows of our borrowed RV. We had camped in a rest stop along the Cabot Trail and despite the endless stream of cars that pulled in for a photo and a momentary respite from the road we felt very private and secluded hidden away inside the Sunseeker as we lingered over breakfast and coffees.
When we finally got our wheels moving it wasn’t for very long. A few dozen kilometres up the road we stopped in Chéticamp for some groceries. It was a beautiful, sunny day so we parked the RV in the far corner of Co-op’s small parking lot and spent an hour or so exploring the town. We walked along a boardwalk that jutted into the ocean and enquired about a whale watching trip. After much humming and hawing we decided to stick with dry land for the day and save ourselves the $40 per person fee. We drifted into a gift shop where I noticed a stack of brochures on the counter. I picked one up and saw that it was a map to all the gift shops in the province. I immediately thought to offer the girl behind the counter $10 if she would put them away until we left but I wasn’t quick enough. “What’s that?” m’lady asked, sidling up beside me and reaching for one of the pamphlets.
If my ploy had worked it would have gotten expensive in a hurry. The boardwalk’s other two gifts shops had the same pamphlets on their counters as well. And to be fair, I was the only one of us that actually bought anything anyway.
So after seeing all that we could see in and around the boardwalk in Chéticamp we meandered back to the Sunseeker to continue our journey, m’lady holding her gift shop guide in one hand and a single red rose in the other.
Somehow she had managed to be born and bred here in Canada and still not seen a single, real-live moose in her 30+ years. In past trips through moose country we’ve always kept our eyes peeled but never caught sight of any. She had even started to suggest that moose were probably fictional (a scam created by big-wildlife to promote tourism) – or perhaps extinct. And though she was understandably skeptical, I was confident we’d find her a moose somewhere on our drive through the Cabot Trail and sure enough, we did.
Shortly after we got on the highway we came across several cars pulled off to the side of the road, each one chock-a-block with tourists pointing cameras. I eased the RV onto the shoulder and there he was, a large bull moose sitting at the edge of the forest about a hundred metres away. He sat conserving energy in the late-morning shade, remaining motionless except for the occasional subtle turn of his massive head, movements which belied the impossible ease with which he somehow held his enormous sixteen-point rack aloft.
We stared and gaped in awed wonder for quite some time, soaking him in. M’lady was hoping the moose would stand up and show his full size but aside from a few head turns and a lot of ear wiggles he just sat there like a huge photogenic beast with no concerns and nothing to prove; the Prime Minister of the forest.
Eventually we left and not five kilometres down the road we hit paydirt (figuratively, fortunately): a female moose and her two young’uns meandering through a field just off the road. We pulled in and hung with them for a long while. M’lady had to admit, it was looking like the fate of the extinct moose species was starting to turn around!
Not far along we came to the entrance of Cape Breton Highlands National Park. We stopped in and exchanged an entrance fee for a trail map, unhooked our bikes from the rack for the first time and headed off on a glorious trek through the forest. We explored one of only four cyclable paths in the massive park, a huge protected area that covers the entire northern chunk of the Cabot Trail. After a really great ride we redangled the bikes off the back end of the RV and hit the road. We took it slow – an inevitable choice given the constant rolling hills and mountains the Sunseeker struggled to ascend – and stretched the day out even further by stopping for a couple of nature walks and enjoying a lunch lingeringly prepared and consumed within the cozy confines of our turtlebus.
Leaving the national park we detoured north and stopped briefly at Cabot Landing Provincial Park. The namesake park holds a memorial dedicated to Giovanni Caboto, the famed explorer who landed somewhere nearby (though no one knows exactly where), thus ‘discovering’ America (an assertion that the good people of Bonavista, Newfoundland would certainly dispute). I found it rather ironic that Cabot’s landing point was not on the Cabot Trail itself. But then, how would he have known where the trail was?
Our trek north was intended to take us to Meat Cove. My map told me getting there would involve about fourteen kilometres of dirt road winding along crinkly sea cliffs, which seemed like a scenic little jaunt. As we were navigating the turnoff towards Meat Cove a local stopped his car and flagged us down. He told us we were crazy if we thought we were going to get our RV to Meat Cove, and if we did get it there we certainly weren’t going to get it back out.
That was all I needed to hear.
Instead we ended up camping just a few kilometres from the turnoff, in Bay St. Lawrence, a small (and I’m talking small) fishing village at the tippity-top of Cape Breton Island. We parked at the end of the road and set up for the night at the top of an old, unused boat ramp a couple hundred metres from the dock. We were across from what appeared to be the only merchant in town, a small snack shack with a couple of picnic tables out front. We did a walkabout and peered in vain at the ocean looking for whales. There was a buoy in the distance that sounded off regularly with a mournful drone that sounded like a dirge. We entertained ourselves with the dramas of the wharf birds and were astonished to watch one gobble down a fish that was nearly half its size. Inspired, we marched back to the snack shack and ordered dinner. M’lady had the fish ‘n chips while I went for the double burger with frings.
It was with an easy vacationing joy that we watched the sun settle into the sea and eavesdropped on the accents of the bored local kids that owned the other picnic table while our chef prepared our greasy dinner and the buoy moaned in the distance.
By the time the guy called us over for our food the moths were dancing around the light bulbs and the kids had started towards home. We took our Styrofoam boxes across the road to our camper and ate ‘er all up and went straight to bed. The clock said it was still pretty early but at the end of the road in northern Cape Breton, clearly the day was done.
082207 The Origin of Rocky
I woke up bright and early, quietly got dressed and snuck out of the camper. I strolled over to the nearby dock to see if I could spot any whales while m’lady kept on sleeping. No whales, but the sea alone was an inspiring sight for this sleepy landlubber first thing in the morning. Back at the mobile ranch I put on some coffee while m’lady roused and took a shower, which along with everything else pretty much depleted our in-house resources. After two nights of dry camping we were going to need a serviced site to fill our compartments that were becoming dry and empty the ones that were threatening to overflow.
Be that as it may, it’s not like we were on a mission to get parked for the day or anything, so when we pulled up stakes and got on the road we took it slow and easy yet again.
Heading lackadaisically south we soon re-entered Cape Breton Highlands National Park and thus the Caboto Sentiero. There was no reason to not take advantage of the beautiful park so we stopped for a few short hikes and took a ride along another bike trail (of which the park boasts just four). It was a great day for biking and such stunning scenery to ride through. I sure am glad we were able to strap the bikes to the back of the RV; it allowed for a whole other dimension of freedom and opportunity.
After an afternoon of exploring we were back on the road. About a half-kilometre before we left the Cabot Trail behind we happened upon a restaurant the could only have a great view. M’lady was hankerin’ for some sea bug so we pulled in for an early dinner. She ordered the lobster dinner while I went for the club sandwich (I don’t groove on the bottom-feeders). She bibbed up and chowed down while I attacked my sandwich one wedge at a time as we gazed out over the waters surrounding St. Anns. If my sandwich was any indication, her lobster must have been fantastic.
On the way out of the restaurant I bought m’lady a little stuffed lobster on a whim. I dubbed it “Rocky” (of course) and she took to it immediately (of course). She plunked the plush crustacean up on the dash and just like that little Rocky became our mascot and co-pilot. His maiden voyage led us through Sydney and further south along the scenic shores of Bras d’Or Lake, where we found a campground to call home for the short night.
082307 Island-bound
After steering my parent’s motor home along yet another scenic route down from Sydney, m’lady and I awoke from our last night in Nova Scotia on the pleasant shores of Bras d’Or Lake. As we had camped in a private campground we took advantage of the services offered. We did the tank emptying stuff and a few other motor home chores and utilized the wi-fi available to notify our friends of our pending arrival on Prince Edward Island.
When it was time to get back on the road we carried on our scenic adventure with our new little buddy Rocky the red lobster pointing us the way from his perch in the front window. We soon arrived in Pictou where we caught the ferry to the island. It had been a long time since I’ve taken a ferry to PEI, and never from Nova Scotia, but things sure had changed! Back when I was a kid, once you would arrive atCape Tormentinethere would always be so many vehicles waiting to cross that you would invariably have to wait for the second or even the third ferry before you’d get on. I guess when that big Confederation Bridge opened in 1997 it took care of the traffic backlog because before you knew it we were onboard and sailing across the Northumberland Strait. When we landed on the island we steered the Sunseeker straight towards Chris and Margot’s place in Rusticoville, with little plush Rocky pointing the way.
And lucky us, we arrived just in time for dinner!
Our gracious hosts were exactly that. We had burgers and ate Margot’s soup and drank Chris’ rum and parked our house in the driveway of their house, all of us with a spectacular view overlooking the sea. We debated going to Baba’s Lounge to see the wonderful Grand Theft Bus but we quickly and steadily drank ourselves away from the idea. Chris introduced us to Flight of the Conchords and we binge-watched several episodes on his enormovision. We ended up having a grand old time all by ourselves without setting foot out of the basement. And when the end of the night presented itself m’lady and I simply staggered out to the driveway and went to sleep in our own little house-on wheels.
It was a pretty great travel day.
082407 A Tourist’s Romp Through Charlottetown
A rainy morning kneecapped our goal of riding bikes to Cavendish and back from Chris and Margo’s place in Rusticoville, so we quickly formulated a more-than-adequate plan B. I waited for a break in the drizzle and rode to North Rustico – a quick and lovely 2.5 kilometre trek – and met Chris at work. He had agreed to lend us his van for the day so we could boot around Charlottetown without being burdened with our bulky RV.
“I’ll be done work at five o’clock,” he told me. “Just meet me back here around then.
“The van is outside in the parking lot,” he continued. “It’s open and the keys are in it.” I go out there and of course the guy has all of his musical equipment sitting in the back. His bass, amp, speaker cabs, everything; all packed up and ready for stealin’. Gotta love good old low-crime PEI. “Oh, I lock it when I go to Charlottetown,” Chris assured me. I promised him that we’d keep it locked up tight once we hit the big city.
And hit it we did! I nestled my bike in amongst Chris’ gear and zipped back to the house to pick up m’lady and off to Prince Edward Island’s capital city went we. Still firmly in tourist mode we went straight to Charlottetown’s info centre. M’lady picked through the brochures while I perused some local arts and crafts that were on display. I became overly enamoured with a ceramic piggy bank in the shape of one of PEI’s famous potatoes. What an absurd item! It looked like a kid from a school for the ungifted tried to make a brown Easter egg and failed miserably. I couldn’t walk out the door without one.
We began our sightseeing with a walk up Great George Street – which itself is a National Historic Site – but our primary interest was finding something to eat. We stopped into the first donair shop we could find (which didn’t take very long at all; east coasters love their donairs) but they were only serving pizza for the lunch rush and wouldn’t be making donairs for another hour. Damn! Back on the sidewalk I was scanning the horizon for another donair shop when I heard my named being called, a strange sensation indeed considering I was over a thousand kilometres from home.
“Hey Todd!”
I turned around and whattya know, if it wasn’t Dmayne, a well-known Charlottetown socialite whom I’d met six years earlier just a block from the very spot we were standing.
“Hey Todd, how’s it going?” he asked with the same welcoming smile he always wore. “We’re doing great, Dave,” I responded, before quickly pivoting to the salient point. “Do you know where I can find a donair around here?”
“It’s good to see you man!” he exclaimed, giving me a hug. “What brings you to Charlottetown?”
“Uh Dave, about that donair shop?” First things first.
“Well, there’s one right behind you,” he replied unhelpfully, “but they only have pizza right now.
“There’s another place around the corner,” he continued, “but it closed down not too long ago.” He looked up and down the street, scratching his head. “There’s also a place back that way, but it closed down too.”
With no donairs in our immediate future I somehow swallowed my desire for folded sweet meat – an act of will that was as pleasant as it was filling – and managed to turn my attention to our quick sidewalk chat. Dmayne invited us to a party that evening that sounded like a great time and soon left us to continue our search for sustenance. To keep it fast and cheap we hit a nearby Tim Horton’s outlet (Timmies are even more common than donair shops in the east), which was a pretty big disappointment. We should have gone for a couple of slices of pizza after all.
After lunch we did the full tourist romp of Charlottetown, including stops at the Confederation Centre and a tour through their excellent (and free) art gallery, a look inside the big church in the middle of town, and of course Province House, home of the 1864 meetings that marked the birth of Canada. I picked up a poster of Canada’s most famous not-famous historical photo: the twenty-five delegates of the Charlottetown Conference posing on the front steps of Province House, and though I put the poster in a cheap frame several years ago it has yet to make it onto one of my walls.
Rich White Guy, Rich White Guy, Rich White Guy, Rich White Guy
Nice city, that Charlottetown. It’s a bustling little minitropolis with some darn fine architecture, a heck of a lot of history, and nothing but good people (though their donair offerings could use a boost). We topped off our self-guided city tour with a stop at a local brew pub and were headed back Rustico-way well in time to meet Chris at the end of his workday.
That evening the four of us decided to have dinner and then go to the party Dmayne had told us about. Good plan, but what to eat? We were all hungry enough for a major feed so we decided to go to locally-renowned Fisherman’s Wharf, home of the sixty-foot all-you-can-swallow buffet. I alone ate about three fishermen, and once we were all stuffed to the gills we went back to Chris and Margo’s place and sat ourselves down into chairs that were utterly unwilling to let us back up. Except when it came to pouring more drinks I suppose, but even that took all the effort any of us could muster. But somehow we managed, again and again and again.
The bottom line is that we never made it to the party, but no matter. We had a great night drinking and laughing and couldn’t imagine a better time than that, and when we’d had all the fun we could find it was a simple hobble out to the driveway for another deep sleep in the ocean air.
082507 She Sells Sea Shells
When the morning found us it happened to be a Saturday, so with the day free from gainful employment all ‘round we and our hosts went out together for breakfast. Afterwards Chris took us all for a little drive around North Rustico, pointing out the highlights of his home village. I can report that Chris grew up in a beautiful little spot and though it is small it is not without its charms.
All too soon we were back at their house exchanging farewell-hugs. With the bulk of the day still ahead of us m’lady and I pulled the RV out of their driveway and continued our exploration of beautiful Prince Edward Island.
We started with a quick ten-kilometre drive north to Cavendish where we visited the house attributed to Anne of Green Gables. Though m’lady is an actual fan of the franchise it was the incongruous meeting of real and make-believe that piqued my interest. Y’see, Anne of Green Gables is a fictional character and yet this was supposedly her real-life farmhouse, albeit once-removed from its original location.
(The facting of the fiction: The real-live house on display was the one that author Lucy Maud Montgomery used as the mental backdrop when she created her books, much like how Bram Stoker visualized the castle in Bled, Romania when he was writing Dracula.)
We meandered through the house and around the grounds and we smooched on lover’s lane and everything, all the while trying to stay ahead of a minibus of Asian tourists* who remained hot on our self-guided heels. Curiously, this was the first time on this journey that I’d noticed Asian tourists anywhere. M’lady (who spent several years living in Tokyo) informed me that Miss O’Green Gables is very popular in Japan. I suspect a lot of Japanese tourists come to the Maritimes to see Anne’s house and then head straight to Banff or Vancouver.
Once we had seen all there was to see I stopped into the gift shop and bought an Anne of Green Gables shot glass. I straight-faced the girl at the register asking whether Anne had been a wizard or a muggle and she deadpanned me right back, however I did get her to laugh when I pointed to a bowl of shells for sale on the counter and whispered that she was the one the tongue twister people were looking for (the seashore was just across the road). I got my laugh and an ironic shot glass so with a job well done I hi-tailed it out of there.
Thus began a drive that would take us halfway across Canada’s smallest province. It was a journey that clocked in at well under two hundred kilometres, even after taking every detour and side-road possible. That said, we fleshed out the short, slow, beautiful drive with a lingering, if slimy, lunch break along the way.
I’m not sure if we were actually hungry enough to eat or just taken with the utter perfectness of the roadside sea-view restaurant, but we pulled in. We headed straight to the patio in the back where a self-serve oyster bar was the centrepiece of the large outdoor space. I don’t know what I ordered but I can tell you what I didn’t order: oysters. Are you nuts? I can’t imagine looking at one and thinking, “yum”. It boggles my mind. They are icky shell warts and I’m just not interested. I strongly suspect that I had the burger.
M’lady, on the other hand, engaged in a no-holds-barred tong and shuck tutorial, dislodging and slurping down any number of the foul creatures. It was like watching Fear Factor.
After lunch we let our stuffed Rocky Lobster mascot lead the way once again. As is his habit, the little fellah chose the scenic route, affording us the opportunity to slowly relish the beauty of the island the rest of way to the end of the road at North Cape. We poked around the lighthouse up there and admired the thirty or so huge windmills making good time in the steady ocean wind. I popped into the info booth/gift shop and asked if it would be okay if we stayed there for the night. They said “sure!” and suggested we set up behind their building. I pulled the Sunseeker around and parked in a gloriously beautiful spot, just a few metres away from the exact northernmost point of Prince Edward Island. Wow. I slid out the sliders while m’lady mixed us a couple of drinks.
The lighthouse flashed and the windmills whirred and we watched the seals playing in the water while the sun sank into the sea. When it started to get dark I began to hear another one of those mournful buoys floating out there in the blackened ocean, just like the one that dirged us to sleep when we camped at the top of Cape Breton Island in Bay St. Lawrence. It could be that the buoy only started sounding once night fell night or perhaps it simply had to get dark enough outside for me to notice the lonely droning. Regardless, as I sat there listening and gazing at the waning horizon it occurred to me without a doubt that this was the best campsite we’d had so far on this trip.
In fact, it was this very camping spot that ultimately sold me on the whole RV experience. I knew getting out on the road with a little house on wheels would be pretty sweet, but the hostel-tromping backpacker in me didn’t really expect to be won over by RV life. But I must say there are lots of places – and cool places too – where an RV is the only real option. There’s no way we would’ve gotten away with pitching a tent in most of the spots we’d slept in the previous week. Any passing police car would have pulled in and urged us to move on, no question. Including the beautiful spot at the base of that lighthouse. That said, even if the North Cape police turned a blind eye the endless wind gusts that fed the spinning windmills would make it pretty challenging to pitch a tent anywhere around there, let alone get a good night’s sleep in one.
And then there is the delicious freedom to pull over at any random trail for a little impromptu mountain biking, capped with an in-vehicle shower and a fresh snack. I tell you, I’ve always wanted to visit the northern chunk of this continent and now that I’ve had a taste I think one of these campers would be the way to do it. I’m not going to run out and buy one or anything, but I must admit I like these RV’s.
Or it could be that I was getting delirious on whisky and sunset. It’s hard to say.
*A pride of lions; a school of fish; a murder of crows…Ladies and gentlemen may I introduce: a minibus of tourists.
082607 Take Me to the Bridge
M’lady and I woke up perched on the northernmost tip of Prince Edward Island inside our perfect little borrowed home-on-wheels. On one side of us was the expansive Gulf of St. Lawrence (or was it the Atlantic Ocean?) and behind us was a not-yet-open info booth, beyond which stood a line of majestically twirling windmills. I started the day playing outside with the ocean and the windmills while m’lady made coffees in the RV’s kitchen (or is it a galley?). After a cuppa joe and a few final pics of the gulf and mills we slid in the sliders and got on with what would prove to be another wonderfully scenic drive.
Despite taking the longest and slowest route we still managed to arrive in O’Leary in less than an hour (PEI is so small that sometimes I’d swear the maps are actual-size). We easily found the Potato Museum* and parked in their lot. We were early for being early; being a Sunday the museum wasn’t scheduled to open for a few more hours yet so we made lunch, unhooked the bikes and tried our luck on the Confederation Trail.
PEI was quick to belly up and finish their chunk of the vast Trans Canada Trail network, completing the main artery of the island’s Confederation Trail as early as 2000. I love pretty much everything about this country of mine having an interconnected web of interprovincial bike paths so of course I was eager to try out PEI’s contribution. The Confederation Trail was built on the old trans-Canadian railway line so the crushed stone path that traverses from one end of the island to the other is smooth and flat, and it offers several optional detours along the way.
We pedalled about eight kilometres through stunning scenery, crossing picturesque bridges and stopping at several of countless idyllic rest stops along the way before turning around. Gosh, what a ride! I absolutely loved it. Riding the entire Trans Canada Trail is definitely a future dreamtrip of mine.
By the time we got back to the parking lot we’d decided to pass on the museum after all, but we did stop into the gift shop and really now, isn’t that the main thing? Afterwards we racked our bikes to the rear of the Sunseeker and snapped a few pics of our mascot Rocky d’Homard posing in front of the museum’s giant frontispiece potato before heading off for more adventures.
Or at least a snack, we thought, as we almost immediately found ourselves pulling into yet another roadside oyster place. The restaurant was offering free shucking contests on the patio where the lucky winners were welcome to slurp down the precious, slimy prizes inside. Of course m’lady imbibed; of course I abstained.
Our final stop on Prince Edward Island was a toothless tourist trap called the Bottle Houses at Cape Egmont (not to be confused with the extremely-similar Bottle Houses at Treherne, Manitoba or the ones in…okay, unlike potato museums there are only two tourist-y bottle house roadsiders in the world).
It seems some guy with an enormous drinking problem and/or manic bottle-collecting fetish decided to invest his spare time – and a man with such problems is bound to have plenty of spare time – into building a pair of small houses and a church out of empty liquor bottles. Each structure is made from over ten thousand individual bottles imbedded in cement but like I say, they are rather small. And rather plain, if I’m being honest. As children’s clubhouses they would be quite awesome, remarkable even, but as houses that somebody could actually live in? Not so awesome. Though here I am remarking on them.
And while I’ll admit that the place is definitely a curiosity and it rather impressively made it into Ripley’s Believe It or Not! column, I’d conclude that if you ever happen to find yourself driving in or near Cape Egmont, PEI you’re just as well to save yourself the $5 and just keep right on driving.
With the last and least stop of our island adventure complete we endured another fifty kilometres of gorgeous coastal driving before putting Canada’s smallest province temporarily in our rearview mirror. As we pulled our 28’ RV up to the Confederation Bridge toll booth I was shocked to learn that our $40 fee to leave Prince Edward Island (going to PEI doesn’t cost a cent) was the same price they were charging for a lowly little regular-sized car. Crazy.
And what a ride! The 12.9km Confederation Bridge (that’s eight miles, which makes it the longest bridge in the world that spans over iced waters) that connects Prince Edward Island to the mainland is truly a jaw-dropper. If you manage to maintain the posted speed limit of 80kms/hr it takes ten solid minutes to cross the bridge, which affords ample time to appreciate what an amazing architectural achievement it is. But it’s hard not to slow down a little when you are presented with the stunning views. I mean, the infinite strip of perfectly symmetrical concrete stretching fore and aft is distracting enough, but it’s those elevated vertigo-views of the endless, all-encompassing sea on either side of the bridge that really slowed down our crossing**.
Once our wheels touched solid ground on the New Brunswick side of the Confederation Bridge our RV vacation was essentially over. From there it was just an hour or so to my folk’s place in Moncton where with some sadness we handed the keys of the mighty Sunseeker back over to its rightful owners. We overcame our melancholy-of-impermanence with a heck of a barbecued dinner and several stiff Jack and Coke’s while revelling my mom and dad with many of the tales included herein. I believe I left out the story about the time I pulled out of our densely-wooded camping spot with the RV’s sliders still slid out.
Thanks Sunseeker (and mom and dad)! It was a great ride.
(Lest you think this is the end of this series, allow me to reassure you and suggest you remain on the edge of your seat. For after just the briefest of parental retreats our adventure continues with an exciting cycling tour of the Magdalen Islands.)
*If you’re surprised to learn that Prince Edward Island has a museum dedicated specifically to the lowly potato then you’ll be extra-surprised to know that there are in fact fourteen potato museums currently operating on planet Earth. The closest competitor to our little Potato Museum there in O’Leary, PEI? Potato World in Florenceville, New Brunswick, just five hundred kilometres away.
And just like you, I have thus far visited none of them.
**Though not nearly as slow as those pre-bridge ferry crossings that we had to endure back when I was a kid. The ferry crossing itself was always fine and I think it only took a half-hour or so (is that even possible?) but I recall having to get in line for the ferry several hours early to ensure a spot on the boat. I doubt many people pine for that particular part of the good old days.
082707 Race to the Maggies
After spending an evening in Moncton soaking up my mom and dad’s generous hospitality m’lady and I were back on the move, once again headed to Prince Edward Island. But this time things were different. First of all, we were no longer turtling in my parents’ RV, having traded down somewhat to our monstrously large (whilst comparatively tiny) SUV. And secondly, this time PEI wasn’t our destination, it was to be our launching point.
And where exactly can you “launch” to from an end-of-the-road sort of place like Prince Edward Island? Well, in this case the answer would be the Magdalen Islands – known in French as Les Îles de la Madeleine – a Quebec-owned archipelago of small islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence about halfway between PEI and Newfoundland, and it turns out that to get there one must catch a ferry from Souris, PEI.
Which we very much almost missed. Our departure had been delayed waiting for our laundry to dry at mom’s place plus I missed a wee sign along the way that drew us a little bit off course. Then there was my navigator’s British Columbian confusion trying to locate “Surrey” on our map of Prince Edward Island. I suppose it’s possible that Souris could be pronounced “sower-iz” but my New Brunswickness just doesn’t see it that way. Either way we were running behind.
In that regard it was almost a blessing that even from the heights of our big Mitsubishi Montero the oceanic views while crossing over to the island were mostly obscured by the high walls of the Confederation Bridge. While crossing the previous day at the helm of the much taller motor home the staggering views slowed me down considerably, but with little to distract me but the grey blur of concrete I was able to concentrate on maintaining the speed limit.
I had already noticed that most choose not to exceed posted speed limits on the Island, even while driving on the 90km/h Trans-Canada Highway. This observation proved especially salient as we raced towards Souris flying past car after car at outrageous, breakneck speeds. It was worth it: we pulled up to the ferry with eight minutes to spare. I told the guy in the booth that we still had to get our bicycles and gear together and deal with long-term parking at the B&B across the street that supplies the only service in town (but still only charges $5 a day). The guy in the booth told me to hold on a minute and started squelching into his walkie-talkie. The next thing you know he directed us to park twenty feet from the ramp to the ferry, and for free, no less! We raced to get our stuff together while they held the boat for us and in a long, stretched out, breathless flash we were on board. Whew, we’d made it!
Beers were reasonably priced on the boat so after a quick lunch in the cafeteria we hit the bar. Five hours later we docked after circling around the very-gorgeous Entry Island, the only non-connected island of Les Madeleines that is inhabited (pop. 130).
Okay, a bit about the islands. Though the archipelago is much closer to either PEI or Newfoundland than it is to Quebec, the island chain is indeed part of La Belle Province so Les Îles de la Madeleine are primarily French. It’s made up of about a dozen or so small islands, six of which are connected by sand dunes. Five of the six connected islands are French-speaking while one island (second from the end) curiously remains steadfastly English. About 13,000 people live in the Magdalens and if they aren’t working in the fishing or tourism industries they are mining road salt from the massive salt dome that underlies the islands.
The Souris ferry runs from April to January and if you want to get to or from the Magdalen Islands outside of that time frame you have to charter a plane. The ferry lands at Cap aux Meules on Cap aux Meules Island* (all of the islands include a self-titled town) where it dropped us shortly after 7pm. After a brief stop at a very convenient and helpful information booth we started towards a campground in Fatima, across the island. Sea level being what it is, the first ride off of a ferry always begins with up up up. As we crested the first hill we could see all the way across to the other side of the island and to the ocean beyond. There was Fatima, about four or five kilometres away. We could plainly see the road that would lead us there, running through random smatterings of houses and barns. We had picked up a map in the info booth but it seemed like we would hardly need it. Before we left Cap aux Meules we stopped for some groceries and we easily made it to the campground and got set up in time to watch the sun sink into the Atlantic Ocean in front of us before a nearly full moon rose spectacularly behind us.
And so it was that on our first outing we only rode about eight-and-a-half kilometre. It was an excellent and easy segue into m’lady’s first bicycle trip and the first I’ve done with someone else**.
*In English the town is referred to as Grindstone, and it’s on Grindstone Island.
**Not counting a dramatically under-planned whimsical trip from Moncton to PEI that I attempted with a buddy when I was about eighteen. We got as far as the first campground after the ferry. Two days later we hitch-hiked home, leaving our bikes at the campground. I suspect they are still there.
082807 The Endless Beaches of the Magdalen Islands
Peeling back the tent flap on our first Magdalen morning we were greeted with a brilliant blue sky on a wide, sunny day. We came to life in a slow, relaxed manner and after a whole lot of sitting around we showered, made a hot cereal breakfast on my little campstove, packed up our gear and repacked our panniers, and by the crack of high noon we were on our way.
Our plan was loose (obviously). We decided we’d simply go in whatever direction the wind was blowing and at the time that direction was north, so off we went. The road being what it was we actually started with a little romp east but soon enough we had a brisk southerly wind at our backs* and we were skating along at a zippy 25kms/h taking in the amazing sights with the greatest of ease.
We had camped on Cap aux Meules Island, which is basically the bottom middle of the archipelago’s half-dozen inhabited islands. The islands are connected by the most amazing and convenient strips of sandbar upon which roads have been built. These natural connectors are long and narrow – at times no more than a dozen metres across – and they were an absolute joy to cycle on, particularly with a strong wind at our backs. And they were beautiful too. Cresting the hill outside of Fatima and seeing the road stretch down into a sandy ribbon was quite an amazing sight.
Once we crossed over to the next island (Havre aux Maisons) we veered off the main route and found a lighthouse overlooking a deserted beach. To our right was an eroded wall of crimson stone topped with a row of cormorants basking in the sun while off to our left stretched a long expanse of white sandy beach backed by tall white cliffs. The scenery was truly stunning. We coasted down to the beach and enjoyed a nice long walk looking for seashells.
Back on our bikes we rode eight or ten kilometres on before stopping at another beach near the end of Havre aux Maisons. This beach was not deserted. In fact, it even had a funky little food kiosk where m’lady and I enjoyed a delicious crêpe while we looked over our map and decided on our options for the rest of the day. At this point we had gone about twenty kilometres and it was already after 2pm. Our map showed that there was a campground about a half-kilometre up the road from where we sat but then there wouldn’t be another (nor another restaurant, it seemed) until we reached the end of the entire system of connected islands, about 45 kilometres further on. We decided it was too early to stop for the day and that we’d keep going, which may or may not have been the best choice.
That persistent southerly wind blew us along kilometre after kilometre of thin sandbar as endless beaches backed by the infinite Atlantic Ocean enveloped the entirety of our view on both sides. However, at the upper part of the archipelago the island chain (and their connecting sandbars) hooks around and heads back in the other direction creating a rather large bay. As a result, for the last stretch of our ride north we could see exactly where we were trying to get to across the bay to our right. Somewhere along the way we came across a small grocery store. We stopped in and grabbed some food to make for dinner before plowing on.
By this time the day had gotten pretty long and we were starting to tire. With the wind behind us we hadn’t been fatigued enough to rest as much as we probably should have, and now here we were turning headlong into that wind. Funny how much stronger it seems when it’s in your face.
Did I say we were “starting to tire” as we turned the corner out of our backwind? Yeah, I guess it’s fair to say that I was tiring but m’lady was exhausted. This was already the farthest she’d ever ridden a bike and the first time she had ever hauled gear and she was feeling it. But she was a real trouper; she sucked it up and powered through the last windy leg of our journey with our little Rocky mascot poking his plush lobster head out of her pannier the whole way.
When we finally made it to Grande Entrée Island we rode straight to the only campground on the last four islands and pitched our nylon home on site number 22. Before us we could see the entirety of the road that had occupied our previous two hours snaking along the arcing peninsula, with the endless blue ocean fading into nothingness beyond. Behind us was a red rocky cliff jutting out into the same boundless ocean on the other side. It seems that no matter where you are in the Magdalen Islands if you can get yourself to high ground you’ll be able to see the sea on both sides.
For the record (and for my fellow “number” geeks), here are the cycling statistics for our first two days on the Maggies:
Time: 4:26.38 (breaks don’t count; the clock stops when the wheels stop turning)
Average speed: 16.9
Distance: 74.93
Total trip distance: 74.93
Top speed: 55.0 (this was definitely whilst going down a steep hill, likely with a pretty powerful gust of wind at my back taboot)
(All figures are metric, obviously. This isn’t North Korea.)
As I mentioned, the ocean took up our view in front and behind our camping spot. Beside us, on the other hand, was a large and rather incomprehensible cross. It was made out of what seemed at first glance to be countless recycled plastic signs but on closer inspection it appeared that the myriad of panels were made intentionally to be parts of the huge cross. I have no idea what it was for or about but it sure was conspicuous.
After dinner I grabbed our map and flattened it out on the picnic table. “What are you doing?” m’lady mumbled. “I thought maybe we could plan a couple of little side trips for tomorrow,” I replied enthusiastically.
“You don’t understand,” she said, her voice numb with fatigue. “I’m never, ever riding a bicycle again.
“Sell them,” she said without a hint of humour in her voice. “We live here now.”
We decided to take the next day off. The view from our campsite was too spectacular for just one night anyway.
*After a lifetime of head-scratching I finally looked it up: Wind direction is described not by the direction that the wind is headed, but rather the direction from which it originates. Thus a “south wind” or “southerly wind” blows from the south to the north, not the other way around. You probably already knew this but I’m finding it hard to wrap my brain around. The “other way around” just seems to make so much more sense to me.
But then again, sometimes “sense” is not my forte**.
**Which reminds me of my favourite joke that nobody ever realizes is a joke: “Yes, I play a little, but piano is not my forte.” Don’t worry, nobody ever gets it.
082907 Another Day in Paradise
After sleeping like the dead following our trans-Magdalen pedalling excursion m’lady and I awoke to a gorgeous day basking down onto our spectacular campsite. Crawling out of the tent with my toothbrush, I stretched my calcifying carcass and mumbled something about it being a nice day for exploring the island. From within the tent behind me came m’lady’s voice, which I thought sounded surprisingly strong and clear considering we had just woken up.
“I told you last night. I’m never riding a bicycle again.”
So I set off by myself in search of a nearby property for sale, perhaps something with an ocean view and maybe an outbuilding where we could set up some sort of shop, like selling used bicycle parts for example. On my mission I discovered a nearby variety/liquor store and a wharf just three-and-a-half kilometres away that had several restaurants and gift shops, but no potential homesteads.
On my way back to the campsite I stopped into the variety store and bought a couple of coffees and a small bottle of Irish cream. I rode my bike extremely gently the rest of the way but I still spilled just enough of the coffees to make room for the Irish cream. Perfect.
Armed with the balm of liquorfied caffeine and such high-quality intel I was eventaully able to convince m’lady to get back on the horse – if ever so briefly – and make the ride to lunch. Along the way we cemented our compromise by stopping into the camp office and rebooking our campsite for a second night. While we were in there the lady pointed out several adventure excursions offered by the campground, including a swimming tour in and around a string of caves that are carved into the island rock a few kilometres away. I peppered her for details and quickly confirmed that there was no way in hell I was going to plunge into the turbulent, frigid Atlantic ocean and bob helplessly through a labyrinth of jagged tunnels like a cork in a tempest, much less spend $38 for the privilege. Actually, anything that requires both a lifejacket and a helmet is pretty much a no-go for me. I’d learned my lesson a few years previously at the gates of a watery death beneath Peru’s mighty Rio Urubamba, thank-you very much. I was, however, rather interested in checking out the beach where the swimming tour began, as it looked cool in the pictures.
A very lovely (and purposely relaxed) ride later we arrived at the wharf and selected one of the restaurants. We enjoyed a great lunch and even bought a few small paintings from a local artist weirdo (I mean that in the nicest of ways, of course) who puts on one-woman shows nightly in her own little theatre. Her technician was out of town so unfortunately there was to be no show that night, lest m’lady would have gone for certain.
The paintings are quite clever and unique. They are photocopies of tiny, colourful Magdalen landscapes that are lacquered into thin, sturdy frames made from repurposed lobster traps. What makes them so endearing is their shapes. Of the half-dozen or so we brought home two are tiny, maybe three inches square (one hangs just a few inches up from our kitchen floor next to our cat’s food bowl) while the others are all long and thin, like 3” x 15” or 3” x 20”. Almost all of these are wide landscapes but my favourite is the one that hangs portrait-style. It’s also a landscape but it’s an absurdly narrow one that is only a couple of inches wide. And durable? I’ll say. I can’t imagine a better souvenir for someone who is forced to stuff everything into a bicycle pannier bag.
After our shopabout we took a scenic bike path back to the campground and soon set out again to find that beach where the caves were. We cycled to the area and walked along a rock line that the lady in the camp office had described and we found it! An enormous, barren beach flanked with amazing caves and endless rock formations carved into the squat cliffs on either side. The sandy crescent was easily a kilometre long and it was all ours. While m’lady dipped her feet into the sea and busied herself taking pictures I walked all the way to the far end of the beach and ogled as waves crashed into the very caves that the crazy tourists swim up to. Gosh, it was all so spectacular.
Eventually we returned to our bikes and made our way back to our campsite for good. We stopped for groceries and drink on the way and cooked up a batch of overly-delicious hot dogs upon our return. A couple from Chicoutimi had pitched their tent next door so I fished a bottle of special-occasion tequila out of my pannier and the four of us shared it until it was gone.
With m’lady tucked into her sleeping bag for the night and a tantalizing full moon lighting the way I took a well-drunken stroll through the woods for a late-nite look-see at the ocean. It was beautiful, as everything in Les Îles de la Madeleine seems to be, and I managed to not drown myself or anything.
And that, my friends, was that. Here are the stats:
Time: 1:29.00
Average speed: 15.1
Distance: 22.40
Total trip distance: 97.33
Top speed: 39.5
083007 A Man (and h’lady), a Plan, Magdalen
M’lady and I woke up to another stunning day in the Maggies. We pulled back the tent flap and started our day with campstove coffees and hot cereals. After our sun-kissed breakfast we stretched out on the picnic table, stared up at the clear blue sky and formulated a plan. We decided to try cycling from our spot on the farthest end of the island chain all the way back to Havre aux Maison Island, where the next nearest campground was. From there it’s only about a dozen kilometres to the ferry terminal in Cap aux Meules. An essential part of the plan was to ride nice and easy and to take mandatory 45-minute breaks every fifteen kilometres whether we felt we needed it or not. The wind was still blowing north – the same way it had been blowing since we’d arrived on the Magdalen Islands – so we figured it would be against us for most of the day.
And…break! With a clap of the hands we roused ourselves and silently selected chores, packing, zipping, cleaning, and strapping everything in sight. We were on our bikes and ready to head out by 10:30am. The first seven or eight kilometres saw us travelling north so with a brisk wind at our backs it was a pretty sweet start to the journey.
We pulled over at a wildlife reserve and enjoyed a short walk down to the wide, gorgeous beach, stopping along the way to pick a handful of fresh blueberries. This was where huddles of walri* would bask shoulder-to-shoulder in the not-so-long-ago, in the heady times before they were slaughtered into oblivion by greedy European blubber-hunters who just didn’t know when to let up. Any walrus that survived the onslaught managed to put the islands in their rear-view mirror by 1799, the last time one of the majestic sea-cows was ever spotted in the Maggies. Sigh. It was a nice spot though.
(I just can’t imagine what an amazing, awesome sight it would have been to see that vast beach filled with those giant creatures. And there’s absolutely no reason why it isn’t, except that certain long-dead rich people pined to be richer.)
Just past the park the road hooked around and pointed us south, straight into the wind, which was quite ferocious. Sticking with the plan, we took our first scheduled break despite having stopped already at No-Walrus Beach. And what do you know, pretty much exactly at our fifteen-kilometre mark was an info/interpretation center. What luck! Or was it?
The info was all about the island we had just left so all of that was moot, and the interpretation was an overview of a neighbouring salt mine that didn’t seem very interesting to us. No matter, I figured we could just sit there and rest.
Nope.
The lady who was manning the booth was a real go-getter; she simply would not leave us be. In fact, she insisted on giving us her entire spiel, which took forever. It was tiring, annoying, amusing and informative all at the same time, kinda like high school. Get this: the island system itself was created out of salt. 300 million years ago these salt deposits built up near the equator before migrating north and settling here. Layers of silt eventually built up, increasing both the pressure and the temperature of the salt and causing the deposit to expand upwards into a huge dome. Eventually the salt rose high enough to poke the accumulated silt above the water and voila, les Îles de la Madeleine were born. Nowadays the province has doozers stationed miles underground and undersea doing their best to get all that salt up to the surface where they can eat it, spread it on their roads, and sell it. I hope the dome holds up.
Well rested and overly informed we finally set off again, stopping another fifteen kilometres later to cook some beans and wieners on the beach. Our plan was definitely working. The relatively relaxed pace we were setting combined with an abundance of fuel (read: food) kept m’lady in happier times for the ride despite the rude wind that continually impeded us. When we arrived at the Havre aux Maisons campground our spirits were high and we felt good. And what’s more, our campsite was right next to the mini-putt! I do love me some mini-putt. It makes me feel like a giant, especially when they have windmills and things like that.
Anyway, I excitedly dumped the gear off my bike and rode to the nearest depanneur for celebratory beers for the two of us. M’lady made some dinner and we settled in to celebrate.
The day’s stats:
Time: 3:18.00
Average speed: 15.5
Distance: 51.00
Total trip distance: 148.33
Top speed: 50.0
By the time we finished supper the weather had turned rather bleak, bleak enough to prevent us from playing mini-putt, which was a shame. We would have had the course all to ourselves and everything. In the very, very short moment between laying my head on my inflatable pillow and falling dead asleep I hoped, dreamed, and nearly prayed that the weather would clear up overnight so we could play a morning game.
*Though groups of walri** can be referred to as either “herds” or “pods”, the collective noun “huddle” is also acceptable and way cuter, so “huddle” it is. What I’d like to know is who gets to come up with these terms and how do I apply for the gig?
**Not a real word. Yet.
083107 Fin, et Salut
It poured rain on and off all night. Though we only had about a dozen kilometres to go to get back to Cap aux Meules I sure didn’t want to ride through a downpour for those kilometres. Plus there would be no mini-putt. We laid in our sleeping bags listening to pattering raindrops bounce off the tent and talking about how smart we were to have pre-booked a room in anticipation of our ferry crossing the following morning. Eventually we heard a break in the rain so we jumped out of bed, packed in a hurry and got the party started.
A few clicks up the road we came across the first bona fide grocery store we had seen since we had arrived in the Maggies. We walked in looking like two kids in a candy store. We bought some cold cuts and buns and made sandwiches out front of the store, eating them up as the rain started trickling down again. For the next few kilometres the rain was off and on, though never on enough to get us very wet at all. We stopped into a couple of boutiques and while we were inside it poured down hard. We waited it out in the shops and made a run for it at the next precipitation break, completing our last leg to Cap aux Meules pretty much dry.
We had booked the cheapest room we could find ($50 a night) and when we checked in we were happy to discover that it was also the town’s closest accommodations to the ferry, just 500 metres away. We checked in around noon, showered, got beers and relaxed. The room was hip and cool and they had a great little restaurant/bar downstairs. The place is called Pas Perdus and if you’re ever in town I recommend it. After an hour or so we did a little walkabout and I even convinced m’lady to join me for a short ride along a fantastic bike path skirting the water through town. But before long the cycling aspect of this trip was over once and for all, as the spitting rain and thick fog made the day scream out for nothing aside from sitting around and relaxing. So that’s what we did.
Gazing through our wide rain-streaked window at the unlikely town of Cap aux Meules, perched on a bloated mass of salt bulging out of the world’s largest ocean, I couldn’t help but wonder how I had grown up hardly even hearing of the place. I tell you, every Canadian should get themselves over to the Magdalen Islands. It’s a pricey ferry ride (at the time it was $40 a person each way to walk on, while two people and a car was over $300 return), but it’s well, well worth it. I’ve travelled quite extensively through this grand country of ours and I’ve not seen anything in Canada like it, and though the Maggies rest between Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland the archipelago feels somewhat like a foreign holding, like how France owns all those little tropical islands throughout the world. And geez, we didn’t see the half of it! M’lady and I only managed to visit a handful of the Magdalen islands this time around, but I’m hoping there will be a next time.
Here are the final cycling stats, which don’t include our little boot along the Cap aux Meules waterfront:
Time: 47.07
Average speed: 15.8
Distance: 12.46
Total trip distance: 160.79
Top speed: 48.0
A hearty congratulations to m’lady for completing her first bike trip!
The following morning we woke up early, squished our panniers full and coasted onto the ferry with just eight minutes to spare – the exact same amount of time that had been left on the clock when we boarded the same ferry five days earlier – and once again we were the last ones on the boat. We headed straight to the cafeteria and ate up a lot of coffee and a little breakfast as the boat pulled out of dock and steered into the Atlantic Ocean. Afterwards we sat in the bar and endured a mediocre live band who was clearly at the pinnacle of their career until we landed back in Souris, PEI an hour or so later. From there it was a relaxing fifteen-hour drive back to Ottawa, a pleasant ride that was broken up somewhat by our fourth consecutive crossing of the ever-impressive Confederation Bridge, a slight detour in Hartland, NB to once again drive across the world’s longest covered bridge (at almost four football fields long the wooden tunnel is also quite impressive), and an easy night at a Quebec campground along the way. Broken up or not, I’m the kind of guy who loves nothing more than a long drive, and driving a car after a bicycle trip is always extra-sweet. Especially going up hills!
Overall, between bunking down in First Class RV comfort in stunning locales throughout the Maritimes and our bicycle romp through the utterly unique Magdalen Islands this was one heck of a vacation top-to-bottom and start-to-finish. Superb. Four stars. Would do again.
Though I still pine for the mini-putt game that never was.
Todd Man Out 