PEI 4 - Tourist or Cyclist?

Day 3
Thursday, July 21, 2016

Bicycle touring. It's a trick to be both a tourist and a cyclist in the same day. When the tourist wins, the cyclist pays.

In the morning, when the day stretches out ahead of you, 50 or 60 miles is no big deal. No hurry to get started, and when you do, why not stop for any tourist attraction that catches your eye? After all, it's summer and the days are long.

Wood Islands Lighthouse

Just a couple miles down the road from where we camped was a historic lighthouse, the Wood Islands Lighthouse. We arrived before it opened at 9:30 and wandered through it at a leisurely pace until 11. Then some fast and smooth riding for about 20 miles. We passed a winery and stopped to taste a couple wines. Rob picked a strawberry wine which we both enjoyed - very light and summery.

Who wouldn't be happy after stopping to try a few wines?

Then it got hot. We arrived at our lunch destination well into the afternoon - King's Castle Provincial Park. The tourism book praised its storybook sculptures scattered throughout the park. I was thinking bronze works of art, but these were really just slapped together replicas of the three pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, and the rest of the crew. I was probably not the audience the creators had in mind. But we did enjoy a swim and a rest under some trees on the lawn. 

And it was free. The wonderful thing about the provincial parks in PEI is that they are all free, so we could pop into any one of them for just a short bit and not have to worry about getting our money's worth. I love Canada.

By late afternoon we arrived at Panmure Island Provincial Park with its beach and campground. The campground looked tempting. So did the beach. But with all our dilly-dallying we'd only ridden 40 miles. We could make another 20 miles or so to the next campground before dark. 

But first we stopped at The Sandbar & Grill, a beachside restaurant with outdoor patio seating. Rob stepped up to the window and ordered beer and fries. Those fries, made with fresh PEI potatoes, had to be the best I've ever had. The beer sure tasted good, too.

A random picture I took that day.
Everything on PEI, even the harbors, are tidy.

We arrived at Brudenhall River Provincial Park just as it was getting dark and the bugs were coming out. We had a campsite in the woods, nothing great. This was more of a resort than a park, with a swimming pool, hotel, and restaurant, as well as walks along the river, but we were too tired to explore any of it. We'd played the tourist all day and now all we wanted was a shower, dinner, and sleep. And, thankfully, the bugs were not as bad as the previous night.

Day 3 - 64 miles averaging 10.87 mph

I do wish we could have stopped for the night at Panmure Island. It would have been fun to set up camp when it was still early enough to go for a long walk along the beach. But when the next day unfolded so seamlessly, we were glad for having ridden those extra miles.

PEI 3: Selective Inattention Pays Off

Wednesday night (July 20, 2017): 

Between dillydallying in Charlottetown and sampling the Confederation Trail, we arrived at Northumberland Provincial Park shortly before dark. Even arriving late we never had any worries about having a place to stay. The provincial park people had assured us that they always make room somewhere for cyclists. But this one wasn't even close to full. Maybe only half. Hard to believe, as beautiful as it was. Then again...

While checking in, we started swatting at flies, black flies like the kind we get in New Hampshire during the first warm days of spring, the kind that go right for your hairline, on the back of your neck, drawing blood and leaving big welts. The woman who was checking us in offered us some bug spray, but we didn't want to take the time for it.

"They're usually only bad for a couple hours, at dawn and at dusk," she said. 

She showed us a map with the available campsites. We picked out one on the water.

She asked again. "You sure you don't want any bug spray?"

I said, "Oh, no, we'll be fine. We're just going to shower anyway."

We were not fine. We walked through a cluster of trees to our campsite that sat on bluffs overlooking the ocean. Before we could congratulate ourselves on having found such a choice piece of real estate, the flies descended on us, attacking in a swarm, our faces, hands, arms, neck, behind our ears. We alternated between swatting them and tearing into our panniers, throwing everything on the picnic table as we searched for fresh clothes, soap, and towel. Grabbing insect repellent, we walked as quickly as possible to the showers.

There were no bugs in the shower. Thank god. Dressing, I pulled my socks over the cuffs of my pants, put on a long-sleeve shirt, sprayed my baseball cap generously with insect repellent, and sprayed a bandanna, too, which I tied around my neck.

We noticed a small pile of kindling at the campsite. A fire might be just the thing to keep the bugs away. But we'd need more wood. And there, right in the empty campsite next door, sat a neatly stacked pile of wood. While Rob set up the tent I worked quickly to get a fire going in the little campfire ring in the grass. 

The woman at the office had said that the bugs were only bad until dark. She didn't say anything about the mosquitoes that came out to take their place. Fortunately, the smoke did work to keep them at bay and we enjoyed sitting around the fire - in the smoke - for a couple hours, watching the sun set and the stars come out.

Just before going to bed, Rob came back from the bathroom and said he'd seen a sign saying campfires were prohibited due to dry conditions. Yup, I had noticed it too, right there in plain view. I wondered if the other campfires belonged to people who didn't see the signs, or chose to ignore them. I'm just thankful that we both conveniently didn't notice it before.

I took these pictures the following morning. Above is the view from our campsite. Below is Rob packing up for the next day's ride. You can see our little campfire ring, where we enjoyed our illegal fire.