Prince Edward Island

Saturday 11 October

Eastern PEI

For the (Canadian) thanksgiving weekend I decided to visit Prince Edward Island. Instead of travelling Friday night I decided to get up early Saturday and get the 11:15 ferry, which after a rather early start I managed to do, arriving in PEI at lunch time.

Saturday was mostly spent driving around the eastern bit of PEI. First up were the lighthouses at Wood Island, where the ferry docked, followed by the Point Prim lighthouse, none of which was too special. Leaving the latter I drove Jack's Road, a really attractive earth road and this was definitely one of the highlights of the day. After a bit more, not so great, exploring of the coast I arrived at Beach Point. The lighthouse was nothing special but watching the Plovers (I think) play is the sand was really cool. After a bit more driving, including another lighthouse, and a short hike, I headed to my campsite for the night, seeing a really great sunset on the way.

In summary the day was mostly not that great but with three really enjoyable things - Jack's Road, the Plovers and the sunset - which more than made up for the rest of the day.

Wood Islands Point Prim Jack's Road Beach Point Driving Sunset


Sunday 12 October

PEI National Park - Greenwich and Dalvay

Next day, after not the quickest start, I headed to the Greenwich part of Prince Edward Island national park, and did all three trails there. All three trails are connected and I did them in a single hike. The best was definitely the trail that went out over the sand dunes. A lot of this was on a broadwalk over the ponds on the land side of the dunes which was cool and the dunes were pretty impressive as well. The other trails weren't quite as exciting although it was still nice walking along by the coast. After that I did a short explore and found a not that solid looking wooden bridge at a harbour mouth that I ended up driving over.

Deciding that the coast probably wasn't going to be that exciting to drive along I headed to the Dalvay section of the park where I did another couple of trails, again as a single hike. One of these was cool for the pond where water bubbled up from underground, although unfortunately you can't really see the bubbling in the pictures. After that I drove along the rest of the coast in the park before a short hike at the end. I really enjoyed walking along the beach and it was a nice end to a good day.

PEI National Park (Greenwich) Driving PEI National Park (Dalvay)

Monday 13 October

PEI National Park - Cavendish

Monday I headed to the third, and last, section of the national park, Cavendish. Cavendish is famous for reasons to do with Anne of Green Gables although as this was not of interest to me I ignored everything to do with it and instead went for a reasonably long (7.5 miles) hike. This starte off near the coast before walking along the edge of a bay, which looked more like a lake from where I was, before looping back. I then drove along the coast a bit before a short walk along a deserted beach. PEI defintiely has some nice beaches!

PEI National Park (Cavendish)



Charlottetown

I'd popped into Charlottetown, the capital of PEI, for dinner on Saturday evening and decided it was probably worth a visit so headed there after finishing around Cavendish. It was definitely worth going to see. It's a nice little town with a nice waterfront and a nice downtown core. I also saw an old fire engine outside one of the fire stations, which was very cool. I ended up spending rather longer than I thought I would there as I was enjoying walking around but eventually I had to start the drive home.

I didn't drive straight home however and instead detoured to Fort Amherst. This was an old British fortification with very little left now. However there were three lighthouses in a very scenic location. One of which still had it's keepers accommodation attached which made for a nice change as that appears to be a rarity here. I took the scenic drive back to the bridge and went through Victoria which has a pretty standard lighthouse. The lightening as the sun went down did make it rather attractive however. After that all that was left was the drive back to Wolfville.

Charlottetown Fort Amherst Victoria


Copyright Daniel Money 2014