Green & Red

The weather has beeen holding up, with long sunny days since I left Toronto. It's cooler here than it was at the start of the trip, which is welcome, and amkes for easier days riding.

Today's plan was to leave Halifax and ride up to Prince Edward Island, specifically the town of Cavendish. I'd wanted to see the island anyway, but since I have a friend mad on the Anne of Green Gables story I figured I'd go up there and take some pictures.

To get there I was riding back into New Brunswick, then over the Conferderation bridge onto PEI. I had no idea how long the bridge was before I got to it, but it turns out it's the longest bridge in the world over ice covered water. It's not icy all the time, so I guess that just means there is alonger bridge out there somewhere.

The roads are slower here and more windy, plus there is a lot of roadworks going on. The roadworks has been the same all the way up, I just haven't mentioned them before, I guess as there is only a short season to repair everything before the next winter.

After the extravagance of Halifax I'd decided to camp tonight in Cavendish. There are a few campsites around, but I opted for the National Park site as it's right on the beach.

The water isn't very warm, but it's ok for splashing about in. The area is famous for it's red sand, with protected beaches all over. There was a famous beach about an hour or so away, but you can't actually walk on the sand, so I abandonded the idea of going to see it, and went for an ok, very expensive steak instead.

Here as in Nova Scotia there are a lot of place names from Scotland, New Glasgow, Dingwall, Inverness etc. Doesn't make me homesick, but it's nice to see how deeply the heritage is rooted.

This is the farmhouse upon which Anne of Green Gables was based, complete with the famous buggy. The book was Lucy Maud Montgomery's first, though she had worked as a reporter and had numerous stories published before that. Maud as she was known lived with her grandparents as her mother died when she was a toddler.

You can wander about inside the house, and in the barn that feature in the books, along with walks in the haunted woods and lovers lane.

The Island makes a huge amount of her legacy, and there's a model village based on the sequal Anne of Avonlea where actors walk around in period dress.

The book itself has been translated into numerous languages, and I believe it's been on the Japanese school curriculum since the 50's. I was fairly unaware of it, but I maintain that if anyone had told me that it was about a red head with pigtails I would have given it a look.


From there I rode back through the capital of the island, Charlottetown. That felt like a mistake as it was busy and hot, so I ended up just passing through and heading for the ferry back to Nova Scotia.

Unless it's a very short journey you need to tie the bikes down on a ferry. Each time so far there have been different types of straps, so it can take 10 minutes or more to get the bike sorted, by which time all the car passengers are settled.

This journey was only about an hour, so I opted for food rather than updating the blog. I've been trying to eat twice a day, but with the heat and need to munch miles I don't always manage it.




The ferries carry anything and everything. This trailer witht he buggies on top was carrying racing horses. They seemed a bit distressed by the end of the journey, kicking out a bit. We need to be fairly careful around them with the bikes, particulalry the loud Harleys, but fortunately everyone was sensible and waited until the trailer had moved before firing up the engines.

Once off the ferry I had hoped to get to Cheticamp on Cape Breton, but the slow roads meant I only made it to Baddeck for the night. The campsite this time was a commercial one, and the pitches had power and water as well as wi-fi, so one of the blog updates came from here.

There were a lot of bikers in the campsite, most here to ride the Cabot Trail, a 180 odd mile loop around the coast through a national park.

I'd planned for an early night and more blog updates in the morning, but just as I'd got into my sleeping bag the two guys at the next pitch came over and invited me to their campfire for a chat and cigars.

Azar and Ralph were doing a similar trip to mine, but in less time and not going as far north. They lived near my Uncle in Brampton, and invited me to the their group rides when I got back. I explained the bike wouldn't be going back there, and even so it would be harder to keep up with their BMW road bike and modern Yamaha cruiser.

Ralph had suffered a few problems with the roads, the brace haolding on his pannier had shed it's bolt, and he'd lost one of the bolts on his number plate too, so it was barely hanging on. Easy fixes though, but reminds me to keep an eye on the bike.