Prince Edward Island

    To get onto Prince Edward Island you must drive over the Confederation Bridge with spans
12.9 kilometers across the Northumberland Strait. It is an enginerring marvel! The 12 minute drive takes you high above the deep water below with a slight elevation in the center for ship traffic.

 About half way across the bridge I tossed my message in a bottle over the sides in hopes of someone far away finding it. Back in Edmonton I had purchased a cheap little watch, called a 'tube watch' and it had come in a perfect sealed glass tube. I had held onto it for the perfect opportunity to throw it in the ocean to be taken out to sea. I included a small message and my email address, so who knows, maybe I will have a new pen pal one day!

    We drove about an hour to the western side of the island to a campsite called Twin Shores Park. It is about as far from rustic as you can get! My best description for this campground was an RV city! This does not make it a bad campground in any way, but just to note that it is not a rustic campground tucked in the wilderness. The showers unfortuantly were pay showers so I made good use of the water taps instead. We got settled in and poured some wine, taking a moment to relax in the sun when the strangest thing happened. Think for moment to yourself...what is the oddest thing you could imagine seeing on a hot July evening from your campground? How about a full on Christmas Parade!!! I couldn't believe my eyes! There was a santa, a Mrs. Clause and even a rudolph. First Halloween and now Christmas? We did all we could do in that situation...laugh hysterically while sitting and watching the show with the most confused look on our faces.

    After that very odd experience we decided to head down to the beach. It was a spectacular beach with golden sand and rusty red sand dunes. We played in the water until the sun went down, scanning the bottom of the ocean for crabs and shells. It really is a beach to see on the East coast, and the campground is situated perfectly on it. The red sand is like nothing I have seen before and truly is unique to Prince Edward Island.

        The following morning we drove about an hour again to Charolottetown. The drive across P.E.I is pretty with glimpses of the ocean and fields of corn. The island is quite small and you could drive across the entire length of the province in 4 hours (256 km) tip to tip. This was a nice break to have short drives instead of long 10 hour journeys. Charlottetown was a nice town with some shops and restaurants. There was a small market that day along the main road with people selling things such as, button rings, homemade inukshuks and beautiful wooden bowls. We wandered through the downtown area briefly then headed down towards the water. There were some beautiful old houses in the residential area to stop and admire like the Beaconsfield Historic House. It was a mansion built in 1877 and was considered P.E.I's most elegant home.

 

                              (Downtown Charlottetown)

        The boardwalk along the water was my favourite part of Charlottetown, and had the wonderful salty ocean smell in the air. You get a nice view of the ocean and if you're there when the tide is low you can see peoples boats sitting out of the water on the sand. It's funny becasue I find myself posting more pictures than words for P.E.I but there are some places that are better to show visually rather than to write about. I think sometimes you can get the feel for a place even better through pictures, when there isn't necessarly particular sights you saw to write about.

    We discovered a fantastic little restaurant at the end of town called Seatreat. After reading a few menus in the downtown area and not seeing anything that caught our attention, we were excited to of found it. Inside was packed with locals talking loudly among eachother and we were lucky enough to grab a booth. They offered a bit of everything for very affordable prices. I went for the mixed seafood chowder, and it was the BEST chowder I've had in my life! For around $5.00, you were served a huge bowl of creamy goodness packed full of chunks of lobster, scallops, crab and fish. It was how a chowder should be!

    After filling up on delectable chowder we piled back in the van and drove to our campsite for the night, located in the north of the island. The campground was called Cymbria Campground and was run privataly with good nightly rents.  We were assigned a nice site surrounded by trees and near the comfort station (showers/washrooms). My goal for the remainder of the afternoon was to do nothing...just read and write. So I sat in my hammock and read for a couple of hours enjoying the light breeze rocking my hammock...that's what a holiday is right there. My friend had went to relax at the beach across the street (turned out to be marsh) and when she came back later that afternoon she mentioned that there were people digging with buckets. I was so excited when we heard this! I had always wanted to go clamming but never had had the opportunity. Within minutes we had grabbed our camping pot, watched a quick tutorial on UTube and ran down to the shore. It was such a great evening in the mud, getting messy and not caring. We dug so many holes, found so many clams and had many scrapes to prove it.

 

    I had completly forgotten how awesome it was to get messy...to feel the dirt under your fingernails and have dirt stained knees....it brought the kids out in all of us.

   I steamed them later on that night as our appetizer before Barbequed pizza, in butter and they were fantastic. I think they tasted even better becasue of all of our hard work finding them. When preparing the clams make sure to leave them in clean OCEAN water for an hour (2-3 if you can spare the time) to allow them to siphon out the sand. Do not use fresh water or home-made salt water as this will kill them, and you never want to leave dead shellfish laying around. Once doing this you will ensure not to have the sandy pockets inside which is not pleasant to bite into.

    I truly loved our 3 days on Prince Edward Island and am so happy to of seen the rolling hills, the signiture red sand and the beautiful beaches. P.E.I seems to provide something for everyone whether thats lounging on the beach, camping, sipping a coffee in a trendy cafe or clamming.

*Confederation Bridge cost us $44 for 1 van+3 passengers