Rob-n-Hild, Eastward Ho!

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Moncton - Cavendish 221 km. 3:11 hours. Elevation maximum 156 metres

The sharp-eyed amongst you will notice that today we drove East again. I know, we are supposed to be going West now on our way back to Ottawa, but we wanted to stay in the PEI National Park at Cavendish and they only opened today for the summer! We had to delay our visit to PEI until now, and then the forest fires close to Halifax delayed our visit there (we are going at the weekend) so there is some mixing up of directions going on. Don't worry, we are still going to get back to Ottawa, eventually.

We had a relatively late start as Hild had a meeting before we left, but as our first stop was only half an hour away it didn't mess up our plans. We stopped in Shediac to look at the World's Biggest Lobster - who looked like he was going through a difficult moult just now, but was being helped by some artists touching up his paintwork! Pelle got in some nice pics with his (larger) cousin, but looked somewhat worried to be posing in a lobster pot!

Shediac is very much a lobster town and they don't let you forget it as you drive through - claiming to be the Lobster Capital of the World. Nice when people are modest don't you think? So, we decided to find somewhere to eat some and found our way to Pointe-du-Chêne where at the harbour there were plenty of boats - and a nice restaurant who did - wait for it - lobster-rolls! We also had a lobster club sandwich (which had bacon as well) and which was cheaper than the roll, but seemed to have more lobster meat. Go figure. They were both yummy and we couldn't decide which one was better - or even if they were better than the lobster roll we had had in Moncton on Sunday. Guess we will just have to keep trying some more....
On the sea wall protecting the harbour we could see a couple of doggy statues and when we went over for a look, we struck up a conversation with a gentleman in a convertible. Turns out, he was an ex-Police officer who was happy to let us know that the dogs were actually there to scare away sea-gulls! Their tails are fluffy and move around in the wind and a friend of his, who is responsible for security at Fredericton Airport, says that they have a lot of them there to scare the birds away. Not at all what we were expecting. We thought it was because Pointe-du-Chêne referred to dogs, but chêne means oak tree not dog (which is chien - oops!).

After lunch we drove on to get to Prince Edward Island (forever after referred to as PEI because I am not typing all that again!). The island can be reched by ferry, but since 1997 it can also be reached by driving over Conferderation Bridge - all 12.9 km of it - the longest bridge in the world over ice-covered water (the sea here gets a lot of ice, if you remember back to Labrador!). We stopped at a nature reserve just at the start of the bridge to get picutres (and make tea) and we could barely see PEI across the water. Until the bridge, everything had to cross by ferry - including mail which was a big deal when the straights were frozen and they developed ice-boats with sleigh runners to help haul the boats over the ice!

The bridge was long - so we've sped up the video 16x (no, Hild wasn't really driving that fast!) to get it in reasonable time. The roadworks in the middle were quick though - we weren't waiting very long.

Once on PEI, our first stop was COWS Creamery - which we had been directed to by a number of people who dropped by when we were filming the tide at Hopewell Rocks. This is much more than an ice-cream parlour (although the ice-cream is yummy). It turns out that they started making fun T-shirts for the staff, which got very popular with customers and now the T-shirts are as big a deal as the ice-cream! You can get so many different cow-toons that the company bought their own printing equipment, which you can see in action alongside the ice-cream making machines and the cheese maturing room. A fun stop and we might just go back.....

We got to our campsite not too late (5.30 or so) and got directions to our spot. Remember we said the park wasn't open until today? Well it might have been open for tents or camper-vans, but we wanted to stay in a Bunkie and they were only available from today so here we are. What is a Bunkie I hear you ask (don't worry if you didn't, because we did and found out anyway) - it is a small cabin with room for a queen bed and a table and that's about it! When we saw these we had to try one out - given that we had already done an Oasis and an oTentik, as well as a Yurt and MicroCube last year. Hild even found one with power (they don't all have this) so we aren't even reduced to driving around to re-charge all of our gadgets (and we do have a lot of gadgets!). Anyway, this is where we are for the next three nights - some meetings, some work and probably a lot more sight-seeing!

Coming up: Avonlea

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