Another province behind us we venture onwards, Prince Edward Island here we come,but first we have to cross the Northumberland Strait. The Confederation bridge was completed and opened on May 31 1997, a great feat of engineering , spanning 12.9 Kms or 8 miles and is the longest bridge in the world that crosses ice covered water in the winter. Faster than taking a ferry, and a great way to get to PEI , it is a toll bridge, you don’t pay when you go over but to leave you pay, $18.00 for us on the motorcycle, lots more if you are in a rig!! Well I don’t like heights, never mind the thought of being over water for that long,and it’s a bit nerve racking if it is windy, but we had no problems and I felt much better when our bike tires where on teraferma!!!
PEI is the potato capital of the maritime’s, the soil is a beautiful red Color and is very rich in nutrients. And there is potato fields everywhere!!! They also use the dirt to dye t- shirts and they are called Dirt shirts!!!
PEI is also the home of the famous book “Anne of Green Gables” written by Lucy Montgomery , everywhere there is something to do with the character of Anne, you can buy, books, hats, clothes etc, etc. We must confess we didn’t go into the Canadian Natioanl heritage site, too many people and not our thing! We did travel the windy coastal roads , averaging 250 miles a day, all secondary roads, some not so good but scenic, beaches and light houses along the way and yes lots of potato fields.
We stayed in Summerside as it was central for us and much quainter than Charlottetown also we had a motel room that had a kitchenette, one thing with travelling for so long you do get tired of eating out!! So first thing to cook was some yummy seafood chowder and I must say with only salt and pepper available it turned out pretty good! The maritime’s is the capital area for seafood and lobster ,so that is what we are trying to eat, though I love Lobster, the scallops and mussels are my favourite , you can get a beautiful Lobster dinner for about $32.00 with all the fixings. So we will indulge a few times as we travel around.
The Northen tip of the island has wind turbines and as we have travelled around they are spotted across the island and for that matter the country, so yes we have had some wind!!! Also the tip of the island boasted one of the longest reefs stretching approximately 2 Kms, at low tide you can walk out, but of course we were at high tide and could just watch the waves .
Though on the map it looks like a small province it is diverse and a beautiful place to see, we attended the first of hopefully many music shows, a blues jazz show, great music. The maritime’s have a gift for music ,singing and dancing, the winters are long and cold so they have house parties , and it is a night of music and visiting , dancing.
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