Sunset sendoff

Our last day in Prince Edward Island we almost wimped out again; this time we almost decided to drive home rather than do the Point East drive.  It had rained in the night, and it was cloudy, windy and cold.  We checked out of our hotel and packed the car, and by the time we were done it had warmed up and the sun had come out, so we decided to go ahead and ride at least half of the drive.

The first stop on the Point East trail is Greenwich, also part of the Prince Edward Island National Park on the north coast.  There are walking/biking trails in this part of the park, and we chose the trail that had a long boardwalk across Bowley Pond to get to the sand dunes and the beach.

A huge patch of wildflowers on the Greenwich Dunes trail.

Gavin and I in the wildflowers.

Boardwalk.

Panorama of the boardwalk. See that dune in the distance on the left?

Over the pond, now we can see the dunes!

The Greenwich dunes and the others in P.E.I. National Park are different than what I think of as sand dunes.  Rather than being rolling hills of bare sand, these dunes are covered in vegetation with very few bare patches! Walking on the dunes is strictly prohibited to help preserve the vegetation.

Greenwich beach, and life-covered dunes on the right!

Once we got over the small dunes to the beach, I decided that I needed to at least feel the sand and water with my feet on this last day on the beach, even though I knew I had to put my motorcycle boots back on afterward.  I tried to get Gavin to join me, but he wasn’t interested in sandy feet in his boots.  :)

Gavin is amused as I play in the water.  :)

After our walk we went back to St. Peter’s, one of the tiny towns we had passed through on the way to Greenwich, and had some of the best fish and chips ever at Rick’s Fish ‘n Chips, another surprisingly awesome restaurant for being the only one for miles.  I asked the waitress if Point East was worth driving to and how far it was, and she highly recommended it, and she also recommended we visit the Singing Sands beach a little farther down the other side of the island.  We decided to take her advice and continue our ride.

Point East, the easternmost tip of the island, was about 45 minutes from our lunch.  There wasn’t much there, just a lighthouse and restaurant; the shore was fenced off due to danger of waves.  I get the impression that locals go there on the weekend to hang out and picnic in the grass below the lighthouse, but as it was Monday, there were only a few tourists there.

After Point East we headed to the Singing Sands beach at Basin Head.  This was a beautiful white sand beach surrounded by rusty red cliffs.  It is named Singing Sands because the sand makes an interesting noise when you shuffle your feet through it.  It took Gavin and I while to figure it out; we were kicking the sand, dragging our feet through it, stomping in it, thinking about asking the locals how to make the sand sing…  We gave up, and then as we were walking to one end of the beach I made the sand sing on accident as I was walking, and then we had it figured out.  :)  It is less like “singing” and more like the sound your jeans make when they rub together as you walk, but it was still unique for a beach!  :)  Here I finally got Gavin to take off his shoes and walk in the water with me. 

I'm walking around in a circle entertaining myself by making the sands sing.

Gavin sitting safely on a rock while I
play in the sand.

Since we wanted to be on our way home this evening, we drove back on highways rather than doing the southern portion of the drive.   On the way back I got yet ANOTHER bee up in my helmet!  Luckily it was also dead and harmless from hitting the front first.  I had to pull over on the side of the highway to get it out.  Gavin is convinced I need a new helmet; he has not had a single bug go up into his.  I have had several small bugs, but this trip took the cake for the bees... 

Back at the hotel, we broke our record and got the bikes loaded up on the trailer in 35 minutes, then we headed for home.

On our way across the Confederation Bridge a beautiful sunset gave us a wonderful sendoff from P.E.I.  A lovely way to end a wonderful vacation!

Sunset from the Confederation Bridge.

Accidental fusion food. :)

This morning we woke up to a very cloudy, windy and cold morning, so we wimped out on riding the motorcycles.  We decided to take Gavin’s Xterra and drive the North Cape Coastal Trail, which goes around the west side of the island.  We also decided to drive it in cars because it is the longest, and it doesn’t leave from Charlottetown; so we would have been riding well over 200 miles in the cold and wind.

We quickly discovered that this trail wasn’t quite as scenic as the one Central Coastal Drive from yesterday.  The route followed the coast, but very rarely could we actually see it.  It was mostly farmland, and it also detoured into literally every tiny 10-houses town on the route.  Very few of these tiny towns had anything to attract us, not so much as a gas station, shop or a restaurant!  We finally stopped at a visitor’s center to ask when we could expect to see a restaurant so we could have lunch.  :)

Me on one of the small beaches on the North Cape Coastal Drive. Not a
person in sight, but too cold to swim.  :)

About a half hour farther on the trail, we stopped at the restaurant called The Catch; literally the only restaurant for miles.  Surprisingly, it had great seafood, and it was on a harbor where fishermen were preparing for lobster season; stacks of traps lined the docks.  (since it is the only restaurant for miles, they could easily have been a terrible restaurant and we would have still eaten there gladly!  :)  )

At the topmost point of the island, the North Cape, we got to see the North Cape wind farm.  I’ve seen many of those big windmills before, but this one had a blade lying on the ground that you could get close to; I had no idea they were so big!!!  And we also got to get within 5 feet of the bottom of one of the windmills; I’ve never been that close to one, either, or heard the powerful blades whooshing through the air.

There was a short walking trail at the North Cape wind farm. People had
stacked stones all over on the shore.

Windmill!

Even though this route wasn’t as scenic as the last, Prince Edward Island certainly has beautiful road ditches and wildflowers!  Entire ditches overflow with Queen Anne’s Lace, or wetter ones are full of cat tails.  Many are exploding with purple and yellow flowers, with hundreds of bees humming over them.  

Lovely wildflowers!

A field of Queen Anne's Lace.

When we got back to Charlottetown it had started raining, and the band on Victoria Row was canceled, so we chose an indoor restaurant instead.  I ordered an amusing dish of coconut curry.  It was amusing because obviously the curry paste/spices were for a thai curry dish, but it was served with naan, basmati rice and a samosa.  :)  Accidental fusion food.  :)

Hopefully the weather behaves itself tomorrow; we have one scenic drive left to the eastern side of the island!

A bee in my bonnet. (literally)

Today we hopped back on our motorcycles to drive the Central Coastal Drive; a scenic route that leaves Charlottetown and goes north to the Green Gables shore, then heads south along the Red Sands Shore.  It only took us about a half hour to drive from the south of the island to the north (P.E.I. is about the size of Delaware), where the Green Gables shore encompasses the Prince Edward Island National Park, a shoreline with beach after huge beach of perfect soft, red sand and supposedly the warmest ocean water north of the Carolinas; we didn’t get into the water since it was only about 65 degrees and WINDY today.  We stopped off at several beaches just to take a look, and the continued on the trail.

Me getting windblown on one of the lovely red sand beaches.

Another lovely beach.  I have no idea why I am glowing.  Maybe my phone
caught my aura.  :)

Red sands, beautiful waves.

We stopped for gas around lunch time, and we ended up getting gas station sandwiches for lunch since I was hungry and we hadn’t seen any restaurants so far on the trail.

Life is rough on a motorcycle, eatin' sandwiches on a gas station curb...

After lunch we accidentally got off the trail and took a long detour all the way back to Charlottetown before realizing we were off the trail, so we had to go all the way back and get on the trail again!  So much for me trying to save battery charge by leaving my cell phone map off…  

Once we got back on path, a little farther along the shore we came upon the Green Gables Heritage Place, which is the location of the actual house and area written about in Anne of Green Gables.  We wandered through the house and took brief walks down “Lover’s Lane” and into the “Haunted Woods.”  We thought it was a little out of character for us to be wandering around Green Gables in motorcycle gear.  :)

The Anne of Green Gables house.

Carriage out back.

Gavin in the barn of Green Gables.

A little side note, a matter of pride for me…  You may know I have one huge fear in life, and that is insects, spiders, etc; basically anything that has more than 4 legs…  While enjoying our sunny ride suddenly a BEE got into my helmet as I am going 55mph down the road…  I could see it out of the corner of my eye sitting right down inside the visor…  Why it is a matter of pride is I DIDN’T WRECK THE MOTORCYCLE.  I was able to control my terror and stop and yank off my helmet and dump it out!  Go me!

Granted, it was a small bee, and it was already dead from hitting the front of my helmet, and then it got sucked in already dead.  :)

Some scenery from the Central Coastal Drive.

 

I don't know what crop this is in the field behind me, but it had the most
incredibly bright yellow flowers.  The color didn't come out near as brilliant
in the photo!

On the way to the south part of the trail, I managed to get us off trail again, and we got on the main highway back to Charlottetown.  It was REALLY WINDY; Gavin accused me of weaving on the road, but I was just getting buffeted by the wind itself and the wind of passing cars and had to keep adjusting!  After several miles of this, we decided it was too awful to stay on that road and I opened the map to find us another route back to Charlottetown.  The route I picked happened to have the bridge completely out, but right as I discovered this a couple of friendly local bikers pulled up behind us and offered to let us follow them to Charlottetown, so we got an impromptu group ride for a few miles.

Back in Charlottetown, we went out for dinner again in Victoria Row since there were more outdoor restaurants to choose from.  Tonight the band was a cover band playing pretty much all of Gavin’s favorite songs, so we stayed out a bit later listening to them.  Then we went back to the hotel to go to bed.  Tomorrow we will choose one of the other scenic drives P.E.I. has to offer!

Just a little wine at Jost

Today we hopped on our motorcycles and drove to Quinpool Road, where we had cheesecake last night; Gavin had seen a nice little coffee shop, so we had breakfast there.  Then we finished our time in Halifax by seeing the main landmark; The Citadel.  We wandered around a bit, and the most exciting part was we got to see a woman dressed in traditional military gear shoot an original Enfield single shot rifle.  We didn’t spend much time at the Citadel, as we wanted to try and get out of town before noon.  :)

Shooting the Enfield single shot.

View of Halifax from the walk up to the Citadel.

Non-talkative soldier "guarding" the Citadel.

Outside there was a WW1 trench built.  I doubt the guys in the real ones
would have been smiling like me...

This is the Noon Gun.  They shoot it off every noon since 1857! We heard
it today from our hotel room as we were packing up to leave.

After loading our motorcycles back onto the trailer (which takes us over an hour!) we stopped in to the Scotia Mall to have a quick lunch of some of the most tasteless Indian food we have ever had, then we were on the road to Prince Edward Island!

On the way to Prince Edward Island we wanted to stop by the Jost Vineyard to buy some wine; we had been drinking several varieties of Jost wine throughout the trip and wanted to bring some back since they don’t export it from Nova Scotia!  We arrived at Jost in the late afternoon, and we got to try three difference kinds of wine apiece, plus a bonus maple dessert wine, which was really tasty!

Wine tasting at Jost Vineyard.

The tasting bar, and me being silly.  :)

After buying some wine to take back to the US, we finally got out our bicycles, which had been stuffed in the back of the Xterra for the whole trip, to bike around the vineyards.  (note, getting the bikes out required us to take absolutely ALL our luggage, etc, out of the car, get the bikes out, then put it all back in, only to have to do it again to put the bikes away…)  The vineyards were bright green, and almost all the vines had grapes.  The bike ride itself was rather short for all the work we did to get the bikes out of the car.  Maybe at most we rode 10 minutes including stops for photos…

Grapes on the vines.

A lovely, albeit short, bike ride through the vineyard.

After visiting Jost, we drove the Sunset Trail, another scenic coastal driveacross the north of Nova Scotia to get to the bridge over to New Brunswick.  This road was another lovely scenic coastal drive.  We spent a little time driving through New Brunswick to get to the Confederation Bridge, an impressive 9 mile (!!) bridge over to Prince Edward Island.

After checking in to our hotel in Charlottetown, we headed toward the waterfront to have dinner.  We stopped in Victoria Row, where we saw several restaurants with outside seating, and there was a live jazz band playing to entertain us.  After dinner we headed back to the hotel and caught up on some boring computer work (shame on us for working on vacation! :) ), then went to sleep.  Tomorrow we will take our first motorcycle trek through Prince Edward Island!

Dinner in Victoria Row, Charlottetown.

Victoria Row at night.

Peggy's Cove: Population 35, plus 1,000 tourists :)

This morning we took the motorcycles down to Peggy’s Cove, one of the most famous little fishing villages in Nova Scotia with a lovely lighthouse.  The road was curvy and lovely, but we unfortunately got stuck behind a huge tourist bus with nowhere to pass, and had to follow it all the way to Peggy’s Cove, so not too much motorcycle play was available.

The year-round population of Peggy’s Cove is 35 people, but this little village attracts hundreds of tourists to see its famous light house.  :)  We had lunch at the Sou’Wester restaurant – literally the only restaurant in town, but I had some amazing fried haddock, probably the best fish ‘n chips I have ever had.  (the first component of the fish ‘n chips, that is; I usually replace the chips with a salad)  We took a brief walk onto the huge pink rocks where the light house was built, and a brief walk into town to look at the colorful houses and shops, then we headed out. 

Bagpiper playing in front of the light house in Peggy's Cove.

The lighthouse and the flocking tourists.  :)

Gavin and in front of the lighthouse.  Very windy....

The large rocks on which the lighthouse stands were brought to the area
by a glacier.

The village of Peggy's Cove.

Lobster traps.

A fishing boat.

Obligatory yoga pose in front of the light house.  :)

We continued riding south along the coast to Lunenberg, another cute little touristy town filled with colorful shops and restaurants.  We stopped for ice cream along the water and were entertained by a men’s choral group singing sea chanties.

Lunenberg

(Mom don’t read this next paragraph…  :D  ) On the way back to Halifax, we decided to try the highway for a bit to save some time getting back. My competitive self decided I didn’t want Gavin to have the top speed on our motorcycles, so I got up to 85mph briefly, then slowed back down just so I could have the top speed. We didn’t like riding on the highway, so we got back off and took the back roads the rest of the way back.

We had dinner on the waterfront in Halifax at Murphy’s – a restaurant on a dock jutting out into the harbor.  We sat by the window and had a nice view of harbor activities.  Then we headed away from the waterfront to have some cheesecake at Sweet Hereafter; though it only sold cheesecake, it was the top rated restaurant on Trip Advisor.  It was seriously good cheesecake; though Gavin and I usually split one dessert, we each had our own piece.  He had coconut/chocolate/pecan, and I had blueberry peach crisp with fresh local peaches and blueberries in the cheesecake!  Then, tired from our long ride, we went back to the hotel to turn in.  Tomorrow will be our last day in Nova Scotia!

Drinking sangria at Murphy's.

View of the harbor from Murphy's.

Gavin enjoys some post-cheesecake coffee at Sweet Hereafter.

Today we left Cape Brenton Island for Halifax.  We started with a relaxing breakfast on the patio of the local Highwheeler Cafe, then drove off the island and back onto the main body of Nova Scotia.  We checked into our hotel and were lucky enough to find two parking spaces right across from one another on the first floor of the parking garage, so we had plenty of room to park the Xterra and the trailer, plus the bikes once the trailer was folded up!  After settling in to our room, we walked down to the waterfront boardwalk to have some dinner.  We picked one of the first restaurants we saw that had outdoor seating for dinner, then we browsed the boardwalk some more.  We noticed a lot of motorcycles driving around, and there was a little cul-de-sac with probably at least 30 decked out motorcycles parked around it; I guess that is the thing to do if you ride a motorcycle in Halifax.  Since we had a long day of driving, we turned in early.  Tomorrow we will take our next motorcycle trek along the "lighthouse route."

The waterfront of Halifax.

Panorama of the waterfront.

Capering on the Cabot Trail

Me at the entrance to the legendary Cabot Trail, conveniently located right next to our motel. :)

Today we started our very first motorcycle vacation.  Not a motorcycle vacation where we actually packed our luggage on our motorcycles and drove them to our destination; we are not that dedicated.   Instead, we loaded our motorcycles on our trailer and drove up to Nova Scotia!

Checking the weather on the way, we saw that the forecast was clear until Wednesday, and then it was supposed to rain.  Since we are doing a bit of a plan-as-you-go trip this time, we decided to scrap original plan, which was to end the trip riding the Cabot Trail, and instead head straight there while the weather was good!  So last night we parked our trailer and slept at a little motel near Baddeck, and this morning we headed out on the Cabot Trail!

Beautiful sunrise over the lake, view from our motel window! We arrived at
night, so we didn't know we had this nice view.  The motel's slogan is
"A View with a Room" so we did have a hint...  :)

A little sailing school in the lake. 

Gavin and I on the Cabot Trail.

Lots of rocky outcroppings with beautiful pink and grey rock.

A little rocky peninsula with lovely views.

On the Cabot Trail.

The Cabot Trail is said to be one of the best motorcycle rides in the world.  It runs 185 miles around Cape Brenton Island and through Cape Brenton Highlands National Park, and is supposed to be as close in scenery to the highlands of Scotland as you can get without actually going to Scotland.  It hugs the coastline for much of the trail and also dips inland through some small mountains and lush, green forests.  There are many beaches and hiking trails along the route, but we opted for mostly just enjoying the drive, especially since motorcycle boots are NOT comfortable to hike in, and wet hair is awful in a helmet!

The trail was full of motorcycles, of course.  I think Gavin and I with our little Honda Shadows had the smallest, least “dressed up” bikes of any on the trail.  There were dozens of custom Harleys, vintage Honda Goldwings, and the occasional Ducati.  Most were cruisers packed with luggage or decked out with custom paint and accessories, etc.  And most were friendly and waving to us as we passed; one of my favorite things about riding motorcycles is the “motorcycle wave,” where motorcyclists will wave at any motorcycle going in the opposite direction.  It makes me feel like I’m in a cool club.  :)

Toward the end of the ride, Gavin and I, not having cushy touring bikes, started to get REALLY tired and sore – our bikes aren’t made for going long distances comfortably, and we ourselves have never rode more than about 2 hours at a stretch.  J  Plus, the last bit was a highway – and we never ride on highways.  So we got to ride at highway speeds for the first time on our bikes.  Gavin told me later that he got his bike to 75mph for a second just to try it, after he had been complaining all day that I was driving “too fast” when I was only going the speed limit all day…  :)

We tried to get to the top of the island to see Meat Cove, but soon after this
picture we were stopped by a gravel road. But it is about the journey, and
there was plenty to see on this one!  :)

Also on the way to Meat Cove.

An action shot, me riding up one of the mountains. Fun curves!

Gavin on the Cabot Trail.

The west side of the island - you can see part of the trail in the distance!

Me and my bike.   (and helmet hair)  :)

We went back to the motel to shower, and then went do dinner at Baddeck Lobster Suppers, a big, kitschy all-you-can-eat dinner catering to tourists, but according to our guidebook had the freshest seafood.  We arrived around 8pm and had to wait a while for a table, but once seated we got to have unlimited seafood chowder, mussels and rolls while we waited for our main course of grilled salmon.  The mussels were some of the best I have ever tasted – no sauce needed to make them palpable to my Midwestern sensibilities; they were served with only minced garlic and melted butter! After our huge meal, we also could have unlimited dessert, so we had a piece of apple pie and chocolate cake.

Delicious mussels!  :)

We headed back to our motel and checked the weather forecast.  We saw that it was supposed to start thunder-storming in the early morning, so we loaded our bikes on the trailer and covered them with their covers, then went to sleep.  Tomorrow we will head out of Cape Brenton Island and down to Halifax!