Our big trip for the year was a 17 day trip to Prince Edward Island.  Our travel partners this time were Wendy's parents, Tom & Thelma.  We spent two nights in Quebec City, two nights at the Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, five nights at the Linkletter Provincial Park on the west side of PEI, five nights at the Brudenell Provincial Park on the east side of PEI, and then two and a half days to get home.

Although we drove in and out out of rain on our first travel day, it was no big deal and the following day in Quebec City was fabulous weather.   We took a bus tour of the old city of Quebec in the morning for a few hours and got to see all of the usual highlights and then we spent the afternoon walking around the old city.  What a fabulous place !  With all of the tourists and outdoor cafes you easily imagine that you were in any number of European cities.  We had a great time !  

While we were walking around, we came across this small square with some benches and several local artists and musicians.  Obviously, there used to be a building standing on the site that has been torn down, which left a huge blank wall of the next building bordering this small square.  So a bunch of local artists have gone to work and painted a HUGE mural on the side of this building.  It got to be one hundred feet long and five stories high.  It was just amazing !  

Then we moved on to New Brunswick.  We drove most of the day from Quebec City, south through New Brunswick and arrive in Fundy National Park (near Moncton NB) in the late afternoon.  The next day we toured around the shore of the Bay of Fundy.   One of the places we went to was Hopewell Rocks where the tide has eroded away the red rock of the cliffs along the shore.  The tide is amazing in this area.  Early in the afternoon, we were walking around on the gravel shore looking up at these rocky cliffs.  Four hours later, the water level had come up over twenty feet and there was no shore at all !  Did you know that the water level up at the narrow end of the Bay of Fundy is about 56 feet above sea level ?!?

The next day was short travel day, across the Confederation Bridge and then west to the Linkletter Provincial Park, just outside of Summerside PEI.  It's a very nice park managed by some really nice people.  The day was a sunny but REALLY windy day.  We went touring up to North Cape on the northwest tip of PEI.  There's a huge windmill farm up there that I thought was VERY cool. 

On the way back to the park, we went into the community of Skinner's Pond.  Their main claim to fame is being the place that Stompin Tom Connors grew up.  They built a very cool harbour there that protects the Pond.  But the Gulf of St. Lawrence was reall rough that day and we watched a couple of the lobster fishing boats coming in.  What a trip !  They come blazing in from the open water surfing in on one of the big waves, then at the last second they firewall these boats so they can steer them and come roaring down this skinny little channel into the harbour !

This is just a really nice sunset photo that Wendy took from the campgrounds at Linkletter Provincial Park looking out over the water of the Northumberland Strait.

After touring around for a couple of days we decided to get some exercise so we went bike-riding. PEI has created a magnificent walking / hiking / biking trail on the old national railway bed.  This trail is really cool ...  you can go from one tip of the island to the other via the Confederation Trail ...  and as biking trails go, this one's great ...  no big sudden hills, just nice gradual incline and decines and a really well maintained surface.  So we packed a picnic lunch and off we went.  Muggins loved it !  Wendy chaufferred her around for the day and it was really funny to see her ears flapping away in the breeze !

After bike-riding in the morning, we decided to wander around Summerside.  It's a nice little city with a very nice waterfront that's been cleaned up in recent years.  This is the old train station that has been renovated and is now the municipal information office and the library.  Even better, it's a public Internet access point ...  and it's free !

On our last day on the west end of the island, we went touring up on the north shore to Cavendish.  What visit to PEI would be complete without a visit to the farm from Anne of Green Gables ?  It's actually a pretty neat museum.

The north shore of PEI is really interesting.  The red rock is relatively soft and has been eroded by the wave action of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Then we moved to the east end of the island to the Brudenell Provincial Park about 45 minutes east of Charlottetown near Georgetown.  It's another nice provincial park but the mosquitoes were terrible during the day.  Fortunately, they went to bed early and left us alone so we could have campfires after dark.

The first day at Brudenell was kind of drizzly, so we decided to go touring up to East Point.  When we were working our way along the north shore, we ended up in a place called Shipwreck Point.  It a neat little fishing village with a small natural harbour, but you should have seen the little wooden bridge over the harbour entrance.  It was just barely wide enough for the mirrors on the truck !

We spent one whole day just wandering around in Charlottetown, sightseeing and shopping.  What a nice city !  They've redeveloped the entire waterfront and there is an 8 km walk that's all mapped out with coloured lines painted on the sidewalks and although I didn't get proper credit for it, we had perfect weather - blue skies and a light breeze.

This is a picture of one of the many lighthouses along the Gulf shore of the island, north of Charlottetown.  The coast of the island really changes a lot as move from one end to the other and the north shore is much different than the south shore.  I guess it has to do with the weather that the area is exposed to. 

On our last night in Prince Edward Island, we went into Montague and found a very nice restaurant overlooking the small harbour there - Windows on the Water.

Then we started the long trek home - one long day from Georgetown PEI to Edmunston NB, followed by another long day from Edmunston through Quebec (with a very cool detour around a major collision on Hwy 20) to Kingston ON, and then a relatively short day from Kingston to home - 4,800 km in total.