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Potato farms, lobster boats, cows, seafood restaurants, ride-on lawnmowers, Anne of Green Gables, and things that contain the word Confederation: what do they all have in common? There are more of these things here than anywhere else on the planet. Especially, ad nauseum, Anne of Green Gables paraphernalia. People even name their cows and lawnmowers after her.
This is now an official road trip - we broke 10,000 kms today!
Yesterday was a down day, chance to get caught up on sleep, laundry, bike maintenance as both Helli and I feeling under the weather. Walked around historic downtown, very charming area with old brick buildings, tree-lined streets, endless restaurants and coffee shops, quaint expensive boutiques filled today with Holland America Veendam passengers. The cruise ship comes right into town, which is only a few square blocks on the water. Charlottetown is very arts oriented with many theatres and a variety of festivals are held here annually.
Took a long walk through some of the residential areas and blown away by the size of most of the homes. Many are 4 stories, some well over 5,000 sq.ft., colonial architecture, on half acre lots, right in town! Walked back on
Confederation trail, where beautiful white fox with dark legs passed us by without a care and looking for his dinner.
We had already decided to spend 3 nights here, and the plan was to get up early and go for a scenic ride around the eastern side of PEI called the East Coast Scenic Route. While shopping yesterday, we met the staff at the Anne of Green Gables gift shop downtown and asked if we could return with the bikes for a photo opp with some of the items in the store. Brenda enthusiastically said of course, as long as she could be in the picture, bless her heart! We rode there this morning, and Brenda's eyes lit up with excitement as she hurried out the store to the bikes for her picture! Had it not been for her dress, she would have undoubtedly been on the seat. She is one of many genuinely friendly locals we met during the course of today.
Setting our GPS's for East Point, off we went, forgetting that Helli's GPS always wants to take the shortest route. We followed along aimlessly and turned onto a narrow road in the countryside. The narrow
road quickly turned into a dirt and gravel track. This should be fun on the bikes, and, it was fun for about half a mile. Don't always obey the GPS, people! Dirt track now became mud track, and sadly the photos don't do it justice! I aborted well before Helli who was ahead of me, and she had to U-turn in the slippery slimy muck! Check out the photo of her bike at the end of the day. Pink dried mud everywhere! But good for a laugh, and it truly was fun! Well except for the mosquitos that swarmed us and left bite welts on our faces.
PEI is extremely flat and mostly potato farmland with gentle rolling hills blanketed in small trees if not ploughed for potatoes. It reminds us very much of Lincolnshire in places. Joe and Fred: forget Sri Lanka, come and move to PEI and farm here! You would love it. Lots of properties for sale here!
Now to the lawnmowers. PEI describes itself as the Green Province. If they used lawns as a standard, it definitely wins. We rode for hours today and whether it was a farmyard, a house on the road
or a business it appeared they al had at least an acre of manicured lawn around them. We counted at least 100 ride on mowers in action and that is just a small percent of the yards that were already mowed. Even the country ditches had tidy lawn banks, not unruly long grasses like ours. If it wasn't manicured lawns, it was groomed potato fields, perfectly ploughed straight lines, that we constantly had the urge to take our bikes into to make a mess of it! Even the cows had on their best jerseys.
We took as many side roads as we could down to the water, and found lobster boats tied to tidy docks in picturesque bays. We had the great fortune of meeting a couple on Harley and Kawasaki as they came down to check on their lobster boat, Buds and Janet. The motorcycles continue to be a real ice breaker and we immediately had a bond between us pairs of BoaterBikers. They invited us aboard their boat for pictures, and made a genuine offer to take us lobster fishing the next morning at 4:00 am! Sadly it didn't work out with us staying 50 kms away.
We've enjoyed potatoes at every meal: best poutine ever smothered in turkey, stuffing, cheese curds, cranberry and turkey gravy; baked; fried; boiled in chowder. Delish.
The word for today is Pleasant: people, ride, scenery, water, red sand cliffs, weather (hot and sunny), food. PEI is definitely a place we would like to revisit for a relaxing holiday.
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