PEI TRIP
Day One. Monday August 15 North Cape Coastal Drive, 50 miles. Jacques Cartier Provincial Park to Mill River
We left NYC on Saturday morning. Google thought it was a 13 hour drive to Charlottetown, where we'd meet George, who would drive us to the northwest end of the island. But between traffic, gas stops, and an apparent time warp, after nearly 13 hour we were in Nova Scotia with six hours left to drive. And as we were setting up our (new) tent for the first time (in the dark), it started to rain.
By morning, it was still raining, with no sign of letting up, so we decided there was no point in rushing the drive just so we could bike in the rain. So George dropped us off at Jacques Cartier provincial park in the evening and we fixed some supper and went to sleep.
In the morning we rode north and west 28 km along the coast to North Cape where we had lunch and walked to the lighthouse and helped gather stones so the offspring could build a tower. We turned with to ride the road on the west side of the cape making good time until I heard the snap of a broken spoke. I duct-taped it into place and took the downhills slow, and we rode to St. Edward, where Paul Dalton keeps a shop in his basement.
Paul, it turns out, doesn't just repair bikes but rides them, long distances. He's not sure, but he thinks he might be the only person who's ever ridden two Ultraman triathlons in one summer -- with an Ironman in between. An Ironman is a 2 mile swim, a 120 mile bike ride, and a marathon -- 26.2 mile run. An Ultraman is twice that. He also bicycled from Vancouver to Newfoundland couple of years back, 4200 miles in 57 days.
Paul replaced the spoke, trued the wheel, and gave us water for the dog. It was late in the afternoon so Paul suggested we take route 2, the main route through the the center of the island, to save time. He assured us it had a paved break down lane and would be safe. Trucks indeed slowed down before passing us, as did many cars, most of whom also gave us a very wide berth. We arrived at Mill River Campground long enough before dark to cook our meal.
Day two, August 16. Confederation Trail, Mill river to Linkletter. 40 miles.
When I heard about the confederation Trail, a rails to trails path that runs from one end of PEI to the other, I assumed it would be packed--kids, dogs, parents with strollers, hikers, bikers out for an hour or two. But it turns out to be empty. We see half a dozen other people all day and we ride in silence away from the road, the only sounds our own conversation, the breeze in the trees, and birdsong. Goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace and purple flowers I don't know line the path, and the air smells divine: fir trees, camomile, clover, freshly cut wood, and hay. Also the occasional skunk and dairy farm.
We make an early stop in O'Leary and finally find gas for our stove, for which we've been searching since we arrived in Canada. (For reasons I don't understand, you can't buy the stuff in NYC. The Mate, who does the camp cooking, has been valiantly producing meals over a can of Sterno, so this is a happy moment.
The Offspring calls, Stop! and The Mate and I stop. Are you okay? He points: "raspberries!" We stop and forage; it turns out there are also blackberries. Off the vine in the sun is, as far as I'm concerned, the only way to eat blackberries, and these are divine.
Riding on the packed gravel surface of the trail is more comfortable, but slower, than road riding, and it takes us seven hours to rise the 40 miles to Linkletter, our next stop. We arrive hungry and tired.
Day 3 August 17 Linkletter to Cabot Point. Rain. 25 miles
We wake to rain, persistent and soaking. After two fairly long days a rest day might be nice. We bring breakfast into a little shack with a picnic table and study our maps and contemplate our options. A younger couple turns up, suited up in full rain gear and ready to go. They're also towing a dog trailer and Jojo says hi to their puppy.
We don't have proper rain gear on this trip, but by midday we're getting restless so we pack up and ride to town for lunch. Three miles with a headwind driving rain into our faces and we're wondering if we should just turn back. But after a big meal and lots of hot tea we are feeling rejuvenated and the sky is a little brighter so we press on.
The first half of today's ride is on the Confederation Trail again. There's a town at our halfway point and we stop for groceries. Briefly, the sun comes out.
I discover that my overloaded rear wheel has been churning up gravel and my rear brake, both derailleurs, chain, and cog set are covered in gravel. I rinse it off as best I can with plain water, but I really need WD-40 followed by White Lightning dry lube. My chain makes crunching noises for the rest of the day.
Then it's back to drizzle. Today is a short day, though, and we make it to Cabot Point Provincial Park in the late afternoon, with enough time to do laundry and get organized.
Like all of the provincial parks, this one has an area for bikers, with campsites separated from the cars and RVs. Our tent is surrounded by thick fir trees. The rain has finally stopped and the moon is near full and I can hear the wind in the trees and the surf in the distance.
Day 4, August 18, Central Coastal Drive. Cabot Point to Cavendish. 20 miles.
I'm happy to be back on roads after a day and a half on gravel, which makes for slower travel, plus my gears are still grinding away. After yesterday's ride in the chilly rain, I'm famished. Bananas, orange juice, half a package of cookies, nuts, dried fruit--we're all burning calories like crazy. I'm getting tired of eating.
Today's roads prove hilly. We have some glorious downhills and some labored hauls back up. Since The Mate is towing Jojo in his trailer, I've got the stove, two cook sets, camping gas, and all our food. We're both loaded more heavily than usual and we're feeling it.
Traffic is also heavier here as we approach the birthplace of Lucy Maud Montgomery and the places she described inAnne of Green Gables. A car peels by us going way too fast around a blind curve, the driver leaning on the horn. The license plate tells us the car is from off island. Later we're passed by twelve members of Quebec's Hell's Angels, all in need of mufflers. When the next car is a pickup towing a camper, it's an unusual relief.
We stop at a campground in PEI national park, pitch our tent by the beach, and go for a swim. The water is much warmer than what we're used to on the Maine coast--heavenly. The rain comes in and there's thunder in the distance, and the beach clears.
The Mate and The Offspring decide to ride two miles into town after dinner. While they're out, thunder rolls in again , this time closer and louder and clouds rolling in across the ocean. In a hear the rain on the water and I run to the toilets. While I'm there, the clouds break and I get soaked running back to the tent. A gust of wind flattens the tent as Jojo cowers and I worry about the guys. The rain blows over and I take some photos of the sunset. Right about dark, the guys show up. They'd been sheltered at the ice cream place during the downpour and then biked back from town.
Day 5, August 19. Cavendish to Stanhope. Bike paths in PEI National Park, plus Route 6 between. 20 miles.
The guys bought a can of WD-40 on their trip into town and I empty the whole thing onto my chain and derailleurs, getting them reasonably clean. I'm able to ride without constant grinding and crunching sounds.
The down side: every night in a campsite is a crapshoot. If our tent is downwind of someone's campfire, I end up breathing a lot of smoke. Last night, I lost. The campground was dense and full and lots of people were keeping fires burning through the rain and there's a huge amount of smoke everywhere and it gives me an asthma attack. I wake repeatedly in the night dreaming I'm drowning and keep taking more medicine. By morning my lungs are clear but I'm exhausted and it's a tough day's ride.
We ride along the coast on a paved bike bath in PEI National Park, our nicest ride so far on the trip. But to get to the next section of the path, we have to ride along Route 6, one of the most heavily traveled roads we've been on. As usual, most of the drivers slow down and give us plenty of room, but the occasional truck or RV passes hair-raisingly close. We return to the bike path but the eastern segment isn't as beautiful as the earlier part and we're exhausted from riding in traffic on choppy up and down hills and we cut the day short.
Day 6 Aug 20 Confederation Trail, Stanhope to St. Peter, 35 miles
Our neighbor last night made a completely smokeless fire, using the trick of raising the fire ring -- like many in OEI's campgrounds, consisting of a truck wheel-- with a small log, allowing the fire to draw.
We finished out the bike trail in the national park and then went back onto route 6. Traffic was lighter, maybe because of where we were, maybe because it was Saturday morning. But we turned off onto a road with a three digit number and it was seriously quiet and moved back to the Confederation Trail.
The section we rode today is supposed to be the most beautiful section, and it was lovely, but in my opinion not more so than the other sections we've ridden. More birches, less spruce. Lots of wild roses, but all gone by; maybe in season they make that section particularly nice. Raspberries in profusion. Wide open fields of blueberries with signs warning against trespassing. We see more cyclists today, including some other families, but the trail is still very quiet.
Travelers Inn in Mt. Stewart was playing Supertramp, made us salads with hummus and some of the best home fries ever, and was adorned with huge paintings of women that looked like mug shots. It turns out they are, sort of: they're painted after mugshots of Australian convicts from the 1930s. Creepy and compelling.
We stopped at a pizza place for gluten free pizzas and subs. While Fhe Mate and The Offspring ordered I sat outside nibbling almonds and keeping The Animal company. A guy roared in on his lawnmower, rode up to the pump, filled it up, and roared back off. Meanwhile an eagle circled overhead. We've also seen great blue herons, blue jays, rabbits, ducks and geese, gulls, and various birds I can't identify.
We're stronger than we were when we started riding, making better time and riding more comfortably. I'm sleeping soundly and I've almost completely forgotten about the US presidential election. I had the opportunity tonight to get on wifi, but decided I don't have any interest in looking at email or Facebook and I definitely don't want to know what The Donald has been up to.
Day 7. Confederation Trail to the terminus at Elmira and then local roads to East Point, then back west to Campbell's Cove Campgound. 40 miles.
The trail from St. Peter to Elmira runs along the shore at first and then cuts into the woods again. A long section is lined with maples whose branches meet overhead to make a long green tunnel, and it's completely magical. A slightly bittersweet day of endings, as we reach first the trail's end, at a railway museum we decide not to enter, and then the end of the island, where there's a lighthouse only I opt to climb. Here, as on North Cape, there's little traffic, and drivers give us plenty of room.
We finish the day with a ride back west to the campground at Campbell's Cove. The view is over open ocean and we pitch our tent on the beach. A neighbor in an RV sets up a palm tree and plugs it in. Here, as on North Cape, there's little traffic, and drivers give us plenty of room.
After sundown it's a clear night and the moon hasn't risen yet and The Offspring gets his first view of stars without light pollution. He's appropriately awed.
Day 8 Monday Rest day
We opt for a second night in the same campground, taking our first rest day of the trip. This is one of the nicest campgrounds The Kate and I came Ed remember staying in, a combination of the facilities and the nicest people. We move to a tiny cabin because rain is in the forecast and it sounds like a nice opportunity to stay dry. We eat ravenously and do laundry. The offspring and I get in a swim before the rain comes while The Mate bikes a few miles down the road to a farm.
The rain comes, on and off. We could have ridden through it, but we needed a rest day. The guys have found some other kids to play games with, and I take a nap.
We settle in for the night and I don't hear the wind I've become accustomed to, and I find I miss it. I seem to toss and turn rather than falling soundly to sleep as in the past several nights, maybe because I'm not dead tired from riding, maybe because we're sleeping in bunks, in separate beds, not like pa k animals in the burrow of our small tent. But eventually I sleep and later I wake to the sound of pouring, driving rain, and I'm glad not to be I n our tent above the shore. I wAke again later after the rain has stopped and walk across the grass to the toilets and step in puddles up to my ankles.
Day 9, Campbell's cove to Brudenell provincial park, 45 miles.
We awake to discover that the wind has shifted and is blowing due east, and hard. We set off along the East Point coastal road, and the views are beautiful and traffick light, but the wind gusty and progress difficult and slow. So we return to the Confederation Trail, away from the coast and protected by trees from the worst of the gusts. But the headwinds still mean slow progress and it takes us s ver hour to ride the 25 miles to St Peter's. We stop for a long lunch and decide to stop our ride and stay in the campground a km away. But then The Offspring decides he'd rather ride anothe 15 miles today so tomorrow's ride will be 10 miles shorter. And so we set off on one of the roads across the center of the island to cross to the south coast. The wind is now a cross wind rather thanked on, but the road is very hilly. We leave St. Peter's at 5 pm and we have to make good progress to make Brudenell by dark, and we push through
On the way up a long hill, The offspring calls to me. I stop. He pulls up beside me and tells me his pedal has cracked. I put a couple of zip ties around it for stability and wrap it in a couple of yards of duct tape and hope we can make it to Brudenell. I twist the tape the last few wraps around so it won't be too slippery. We ride a few hundred yards and I ask him how it feels. "Sticky."
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