After Fort Louisbourg, we drove across Nova Scotia to catch the ferry to Prince Edward Island. We drove for four hours and just made it with 10 minutes to spare for the 12:30pm ferry.
There are two ways to get onto PEI. You can either catch the ferry or drive across the Confederation Bridge (a further 100km away). If you are going to use both methods, we were told the ferry is the best way to get to the island since it is cheaper this way. We didn’t know why this was so, but everyone else knew this and the ferry was already full when we arrived. The next ferry left two hours later so we were going to turn around and go back into town for lunch, but the attendant told us that if we left now we would most probably miss the next ferry as well so we parked the car and waited. The ferry costs $68 but you only pay when you leave the island, so this trip is effectively free, which is why it is so popular.
We again found accommodation a bit expensive so we decided to stay in Holland College and we not disapointed. We had a two room apartment with full cooking facilities and were in easy walking distance to Charllotte Town.
The next day we drove across the island (it isn’t very large, about 100km across) to visit Anne of Green Gables house. It was a nice drive, though it didn’t have any of the scenery that we were used to seeing in Nova Scotia. There were lots of golf courses and farmland.
Green Gables was quite interesting, though none of us had read the book, and the walks were charming. After our visit we bought a copy of the book and Bruce has since read it, Liam is half way through it. Once you read the book it brings the whole Island into a different perspective, which is good. The series was one of Bruce’s mothers favorite books and she was very happy that we had remembered (as if!!).
Charlotte Town was very lively, it wasn’t much bigger than Mandurah but there was live entertainment every evening at the wharf and other venues. The first night we went to a Chinese Restaurant and was amazed to find out that they stayed open till 3am. They told us that their busiest time was when the theatre finished and the pubs closed, unbelievable.
Every night there was an amazing light show put on where they projected images of PEI onto the Parliment building. This lasted for 30 minutes and went through a bit of history leading up to modern times. The photos don’t really do it justice, but the images were excellent, Anne of Green Gables is shown above and is very important to their tourism industry.
The wharf area was very vibrant in the evening, with great Irish music and lots of Icecream. One of the popular stores was “COWS” and we took a few photos for Vicki W at home to contemplate for her “Candy Cow” shop.
On the second evening, we went to an Italian restaurant in the centre of town. The weather was great and we sat outside listening to the live jazz music being played on the street.
After three days in PEI,we moved on to go visit the Bay of Fundy (which we had seen from several places already, but had not actually put in the effort to observe the huge tides that it is famous for.
To exit PEI we had to cross the Confederation Bridge, which is the 13km long and connects the island to New Brunswick. It is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water. It cost $41.50 to leave the island, which now explains why it is cheaper. We are yet to find out the relationship between the bridge and the ferry to balance out the costs.
Hopewell Rocks was fascinating and also some of our best planning. Bruce determined that we could just make it in time to catch the last of the low tide and after a 4 hour drive we had an hour to walk around the rocks and see the effects of the huge tides. On this day, low tide was 9m and high tide was 42m. The rock Liam is standing front of looked just like the head of a Velociraptor.
Other rocks looked like the Faces on Easter Island and other looked like the Thumb Men from “Spy Kids”. We also felt that we could see Mt Rushmore with teh Presidents faces on it. We had great fun using our imagination to name each of the different formations as we walked around. If the natural formations were not enough, one of the Park Guides amused himself by making his own formations and then seeing how long they would last before the tide knocked them over (his best was 9 days).
The whole scene was made even more eerie by the massive thunder storm that descended upon us causing everyone to huddle under the bridge formation nearby. We felt that we should rename the area “Thundy Bay”.
Three hours after low tide, the whole area is closed off and the Park Guides ensure that everyone leaves. We used this time to have a bit of lunch while we waited for high tide, which occurs three hours later. We were not disappointed when we returned, the beach was no longer visible and the water had reached the top of the arch of the bridge that we previously used to protect us from the rain.
It was all very impressive and quite amazing given the relatively short time frame. Where we had walked two hours previously, people were now preparing to kayak around to get a completely different perspective.
The next day we arrived in Quebec City, where we booked into a hotel within walking distance of the old city. It had to have a pool, of course, so that Liam would be happy, hence his parents would be happy.
Once you are in Quebec everything is in French and there is little recognition that Canada is supposed to be bilingual. We stopped at a little roadside cafe for lunch on the way here and had to muddle our way through our order, which we did quite well at until the lady tried to ask us if we wanted fries with our order. We were completely lost with this.
Quebec City is truelly beautiful and is about the closest you can get to Europe without actually being there. It is really easy to walk around (so long as you are a mountain goat) and everything is in close proximity. As you walk along the cobblestone streets there are hundreds of cafes and restaurants to entice you. The buildings are extremely impressive, yet there is quite a lot of modern art interspersed in parkland areas.
In the many squares in the old city you will find street performers putting on very entertaining shows, with large crowds sitting around taking in the atmosphere and the sunshine (yes, it was sunny at times).
We all went for walks in the middle of the day, taking in a lunch at a restaurant or bakery. We then went back to the hotel for a swim before venturing out again for an evening stroll to see some of many attractions that were in our area.
You enter the walled city by passing under John’s Gate and you are immediately immersed in the French culture. Quebec is funny in that as you approach it from east you start to encounter more and more totally french speaking people.
In the middle of old town we came across this play area which immediately peaked Liam’s interest.
He played here for half an hour while we just looked around and took in the atmosphere, it was great. Below you have an interesting mix of modern art with 1800’s buildings.
Liam particularly liked the living statues who would site perfectly still until someone put some money in their collection. They would then come to life for a minute before resuming their next pose waiting patiently for another donation.
