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Published: July 25th 2011
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Signage
These red coast signs marked our morning route Another short day turned long by bad biking conditions...
There was not much in the way of restaurants near the motel we stayed at last night. Luckily the motel itself had a restaurant where we planned to eat breakfast, and we were told upon checking in that it opened at 7am. So at 7am we were outside the door, wondering why the lights were off. We went back to our room to finish up any last details and get completely ready to go, and then came back at about 7:20. Still nothing, so we rang the night doorbell. Upon answering, a sleepy looking man let us know that on SUNDAYS, breakfast didn't start until 8. Too bad, that's an extra hour of sleep that we could have had. We might have felt bad about waking him up if the breakfast hours had been posted somewhere, on the door for example. Out of principle we would have eaten somewhere else if there was anywhere reasonable, but there wasn't, so we waited it out, and had breakfast there anyway right at 8. At least breakfast was really good and filling.
While at breakfast we met a group of four older guys
Another Special Delivery
Sorry Sabrina, I don't think we're going to find a Saint Yao for you, this is the best we could do for an early wedding gift who were also on a bike trip. They had started in Ottawa, but had done a similar route to us from Montreal onward. One difference of note was that they had gone a bit higher in Quebec before crossing into New Brunswick, and taken the Trans-Canada trail for a lot longer than we had. Apparently their experience on the later part of the trail was as enjoyable as ours, but on the part of the trail we missed they found bad road conditions, and they had experienced a number of flat tires, and even some cracked wheel frames. Lucky for us we guess. They were all wearing the same shirt which at first glance appeared to say Asphalt Wheelers, but on closer look actually said Assphat Wheelers.
When we finally got started it was 9 am and gloomy out. The sun was hiding, and it was cold and windy, but no rain. We got moving, and things worked out fine at the start. We planned to take a scenic route from the motel to Charlottetown to enjoy some of the nice waterfront views, and also in the hopes of avoiding some of the infamous PEI hills. This worked out
Morning View
A piece of PEI's red coast well at first, and we had some nice flat stretches, but eventually the hills had their way with us.
We also hit some really bad winds. We know we've complained about this before, but they really were at their absolute worst today. Flipping Winds is the best description - more on that in a second. After some rough hills we had finally closed to about 8.5 km of Charlottetown, but were quite cold and tired and a little down because of all the winds, so we stopped for some nice hot chicken soup and warm cookies at a subway to warm us up and give us a boost. Getting back on the road, we noticed the Assphat Wheelers had caught up to us. They were slightly slower than we are, but took the more direct route than we did, and were now just ahead of us. We caught up to them, said hello again, found out we were staying at the same place as them again tonight (UPEI residences), and then passed by them and kept moving. Very shortly after, we stopped for the usual "Welcome to Charlottetown" sign for a picture, parked the bikes, and tried to set
What You Don't See
Not pictured: flipping bike up. Because the sign was set back further from the road than usual we had some trouble figuring out what to do, and once we were stopped it wasn't long before the Wheelers caught up to us again. Helping us out, one of them volunteered to take the picture for us, which worked out really well. We set up and he got the shot. During the shot, the wind earned its name as it flipped Eric's bike over. Not just blew it over, the bike literally went all the way over itself again after the first fall!
When we made it to the residences and checked in, it was about 1:45 pm, but we were in good spirits. We took a little rest, got cleaned up, and headed into town. We stopped by a tourist centre for some information, and went through a museum about Canadian Confederation (apparently PEI is the birthplace of this even though PEI didn't join Canada until much later) which was really great. Hungry, we headed to a well reviewed restaurant for more seafood, and some PEI potato nachos. Both were great, as was the view of the water. Afterwards we checked out a few
Einstein Therese
In our residence hallway shops and got some good ice cream from the same company as the lighthouse ice cream in Fredericton (Billy Timber's Candy Company) - this time we knew what to expect so just ordered a single "kiddie cone" (still bigger than most single scoops). We really love this ice cream, but tomorrow we are going to go to a tour of the Cows Creamery; for those of you who don't know Cows apparently gets rated as the best ice cream in Canada year after year, so we will compare and weigh in on the difference. Cream-off, yum!
We have lots of plans for tomorrow actually, but you can read about them tomorrow night. For now, good night all!
Stats:
Departure time: 9:05 am
Arrival time: 1:45 pm
Total distance travelled: 60.5 km
Total time on bike: 3h 13m
Average speed: 18.8 km/h
Trip distance: 1806.9 km
P.S. If you've been following our blog, we'd love to send you a postcard from Newfoundland when we're done our trip! Leave a comment (or send a private message) with your address so we remember who you are and have your address in a convenient place - even if you think we
Lobster Therese
Watch out for those claws! know your address, we may not have time to go through all our contacts when we get to Newfoundland, so reminding us through the blog is a must!
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mom
non-member comment
Fine dining
I'm impressed with some of your restaurant choices. You haven't mentionned McDonald's for a while. So, you made it to P.E.I. I wonder if you passed by a restaurant called Fiddles and Vittles, it"s where dad sang in a contest and won a free dinner when we went on our Bowler Trailer trip to the east coast in 1996. Memories!!! I hope you get a chance to visit Aunt Agnes' sister Mary and Paul Demeulenaere (R.R. 1, Montague, P.E.I.). What ever happened to the other 2 bikers? Later, love MOM