RVing in PEI Canada: Lobster Rolls, Lighthouses & Red Dirt Roads | Episode 65

This summer we finally made it to the Island—and Episode 65 is all about our RV trip to Prince Edward Island! From crossing the iconic Confederation Bridge to taking the ferry, we’re diving into the best ways to arrive, what to watch for on those famous red dirt roads, and why driving PEI takes a little extra care. 

We’ll share our foodie highlights (Handpie Company, Sunny’s Dairy Bar, Leonard’s Lobster Rolls—yes, we ate well!), lighthouse spotting adventures, and why PEI’s provincial parks may just be the best in the country. Plus, we’ll talk about how many days you really need to get a true feel for the island. And, as a special bonus, we’re also celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary on this trip! 

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TRANSCRIPT

0 (1s): Hello everybody. Welcome back to the RV Canucks podcast. This week we’re taking you all the way to the east coast of Canada where we share our summer trip through Prince Edward Island. Think red sand, beaches, seafood, winding coastal drives. A few surprises along the way. So whether you’re planning your first trek out east or just daydreaming about that island vibe, we’ve got stories and tips to help you make the most of it. 0 (43s): So grab your favorite road trip snack and let’s dive in to our PEI Adventure. But of course, as always, we need to talk about our amazing, incredible, very supportive show sponsors for season five. And that is Niagara Trailers. Of course this episode and all of the other ones this season are brought to you by Niagara Trailers. We are in September. We know that the end of RVing season is rolling in for everybody, probably a lot sooner here in Ontario than we would like and that sort of singles in the end of camping season. But this is actually one of the best times to visit Niagara Trailers. So let’s talk about why fall is when you can really take your time shopping. 0 (1m 25s): The summer crowds have eased off the lot is still full of incredible options though from couples, trailers or bunkhouse models or that unit that you want to upgrade to because this camping season just seemed a little bit maybe too small for you. Or you just wanna look at what next model years are going to bring. That’s when you take it to Niagara trailers with pre-orders and end of season deals that mean you can lock in the exact unit you want. And here’s the thing, we know best camping memories don’t just happen in July and August. Some of the most underrated weekends are those crisp fall mornings with a hot coffee in your hand and no bugs in sight. And come winter, it’s the perfect time to plan and dream about where your RV will take you next. 0 (2m 7s): So don’t think of September as the end. Think of it as the beginning of your next adventure. Head down to Niagara Trailers where they’ve been helping Canadian families hit the road since 1972 2 (2m 18s): And tell them that the RV Canucks sent you. 0 (2m 21s): Thanks Dan. 2 (2m 23s): Nailed 0 (2m 23s): It. So speaking of crisp fall mornings, I would say this morning was probably one of those for us. We are coming to you live. If you are watching us on video, you can literally see that we are in our trailer. If you are just listening to us on audio, first of all, apologies if the quality’s a little sketch. We have our, our portable mics on us and we’ll get back into the studio with some better quality soon. But we are at one of our favorite provincial parks this weekend in Ver Huron Provincial Park on Lake Huron. And tell the folks why we’re here. 2 (2m 55s): We’re here for our 23rd wedding anniversary and so tomorrow’s a Sunday. Hopefully it’s Sunday, wherever you are too. Who knows what day of the week you’re listening to this. But that’s the actual day of our anniversary. So we’ll wake up on the trailer on the day that we were married 0 (3m 11s): 23 long years ago. I 2 (3m 15s): Was gonna say 23 lovely years. 0 (3m 17s): Okay, we’ll go through that. Our children are not with us. They are busy working and hockey practice and et cetera, et cetera. So we’re, I don’t know, we’re, we’re kind of getting into this like just couples. We’ve had a couple couples trips this year. Well 2 (3m 33s): There was a scare that they were gonna come this weekend. Not really a scare. We would’ve been really happy if they came. I think like we’re happy to be away by ourselves, but a little bit secretly dis disappointed that they couldn’t make it work. Yeah. And they’re a little bit upset with us that 0 (3m 48s): We’re here. 2 (3m 48s): That we’re here. ’cause this is their favorite park too. Yeah, 0 (3m 51s): This is a place that’s very, very special to our family. Dan’s second home growing up as he likes to say. 2 (3m 59s): Yes. I described it this morning at breakfast as my backup hometown, 0 (4m 4s): Which is true. And then we talked about all the street cred. Long story short, his grandma was the president of the Rate Payers Association here in the what? Early nineties. Early 2 (4m 13s): Nineties. Yeah. 0 (4m 14s): So you’ve got street cred honey, don’t worry. But we’re actually not here to talk about in Huron. We’re here to talk about PEI. So it’s been a few weeks since we talked about our trip out east And I think we touched on it on our episode where we talked about harvest hosts. And So we thought we would just go through and break down the trip. We’ve talked a little bit about Alma New Brunswick and the Bay of Fundee and we’ve talked about harvest hosts. But we’re gonna talk specifically just about our experience in PEI this summer in July. It was three days, which I think is an important number, but we’ll talk about that later when we kind of get into it. But I know you wanted to start with the Confederation Bridge, taking the bridge over. 2 (4m 57s): So I was really excited to take the bridge And I think somehow in my mind I thought this was gonna be like driving all the little bridges that take you down to Key West and big scenic views. And the bridge is impressive but it’s not Key West. And I, I think it’s, it’s a safe bridge, which I, I raised because sometimes you go across those big bridges and you’re worried about wind and getting blown around and I’m sure they get their fair share of storms certainly felt very safe. But I don’t think you get the same views or the same like vibe on this bridge that you do on, you know, say a bridging key West for example. 0 (5m 35s): Yeah. So I drove across and Dan had his camera out because he was really excited to take the video, but the walls on the side of the bridge are pretty, they’re like mid window height, like they’re very tall so you really don’t get a huge view. Yeah. Which wind wasn’t a problem So it was like a breeze to drive over. But yeah, you, you don’t really kind of get those sweeping vistas that we’re used to with the seven mile bridge as Dan mentioned in Key West. 2 (5m 60s): And I think they probably had to build this with a different kind of storm in mind, like ice storms and ice flows underneath the bridge. And I know they get hurricanes in Florida and all, but I, I think like they’ve had to engineer something different. So like the nerdy side of me did look at like how this thing’s built, but no, but it was still interesting and that kind of got us onto the island. 0 (6m 23s): So cost, so the bridge is a toll bridge. We have talked about this before the episode where we, before we left we talked about the, the cost of kind of getting on and off the island. So you technically you pay to get off the island, not to get on the island from the bridge, but the, the fee that they charge you to get off the island is the round trip fee. So if you, if you enter and leave via the bridge you’re paying on your way back out. But it is, you’re paying for the round trip cost. So we drove to PEI on the bridge So We did not pay to get on and we chose to leave via ferry and of course there was a cost for the ferry. 2 (6m 59s): Yeah. So I think it was good to have done both of them, like just to mix up the trip and do a bit of a loop. I would recommend that for anybody ’cause the ferry, I think we’ll talk about it at the end but the ferry was super smooth. Yeah. As well. 0 (7m 12s): Yeah. So let’s talk about the island itself. So PEI is not a large island, it’s quite small, however, there’s a lot of different things to see and they all seem to be kind of on the other outer edges of the island at all different points. So we decided to stay sort of as close to the middle of PEI as we can and if you’re sort of looking at the map, PE i’s almost like, it looks like a little bit of a crescent. And So we chose to stay kind of in the northernmost point kind of in the middle of the island if you were looking at it, a map from left to right. So we chose to stay just outside Cavendish at Cabot Beach Provincial Park, which was right on the water. We had beautiful water views from our site. 0 (7m 56s): One thing I will say about PEI, provincial parks, dirt cheap compared to Ontario and you get I guess more bang for your buck in terms of the amenities at the campsite. So traditionally speaking at most provincial parks you’re gonna have electric sites and you’re gonna fill up at the, at the freshwater station. You know Selkirk has water but that’s like an anomaly. Like it’s very rare at a provincial park in Ontario that you would find water also at your site. And most of the provincial parks and PEI seem to have your choice of you know, unserviced electric only or full service sites, which they called like two-way and three-way. So we booked a three-way site at the provincial park. 0 (8m 38s): It was $48 a night And I think, what are we at in Ontario now? Like $69, $67 some somewhere around there just for an electric site. So I was very impressed at the value for money. Yeah, 2 (8m 51s): Value for money. The sites, there are a few private sites, a few few sites in the woods, but largely I think many of the sites, especially on the whole trip. But at this place as well were like wide open kind of a grid almost in a field and you might not be favorable to that. The advantage to that is even if you weren’t at the water’s edge, you had a view of the water, which I think is is good and it’s just a function of the landscape and the geography of PEI more than anything. It wasn’t like they came in and clear cut the thing to put in lots of campsites. It it still had a good ambiance is what I’m trying to say. 0 (9m 26s): Yeah. As sort of the natural vista that you would expect kind of at a cliff’s edge on, on the water. Right. So beautiful views, beautiful sunset, really nice place to stay. Nice beach, very large beach. 2 (9m 39s): Beach is actually really cool. So there’s a bit of a green space park area there. So if you had kids you needed to let them burn off some energy that would be good. As you get down to the beach, there’s this like rubber mat and it’s wide and, And I think what it’s there for is to make it easy if you have like a mobility device, like a wheelchair or 0 (9m 57s): Accessibility mat. 2 (9m 58s): Yeah, an accessibility. Yeah it’s an accessibility map but it’s there if you have a wheelchair or a walker or maybe even a wagon or a stroller, it gets you down to the beach. Like don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t get you to the water’s edge, it just, it probably takes the hardest part of the trip and gets you close to the water’s edge. You would still have to I think dismount your device and if you wanted to get into the water. But I think that’s a really neat, a really neat touch that really just kind of blends itself into the, into the landscape. 0 (10m 26s): Yeah, there was a neat plaque there as well that we looked at when we were riding our bikes around. So there was like some kind of famous shipwreck there and like just a really storied area of the provinc and really neat, very, I would say like the nearest town was like 15 minutes away. So you’re you’re generally, you know in rural PEI which is nice. It was beautiful, it was quiet. 2 (10m 49s): Yeah, you’re right near a wharf. So there’s a government wharf with a bunch of different fishing boats down there And I think that’s one of the things of PEI, it felt like you were never more than 10 or 15 minutes away from a little wharf or a little stand and you, there would be too many for us to include in this podcast of where we stop. But more than once we just kind of pulled over and took a picture and poked around and looked and stretched your legs and it was kind of cool that way. 0 (11m 14s): One of the things that I really liked about this park And I, I meant to pull it ’cause I think I saved it And I hope they never ever change. It was the map to our, to our campsite that looked like somebody drew it in like 1984 and it has just been photocopied since then. It’s adorable. It’s a hand drawn map of the campground to get you to your site, which is very different from what we’re used to seeing. But I actually loved it. It was like this is, we’re a laid back people, we’ll hand draw the map at the provincial park and just show you how to get to your site and it was perfect. 2 (11m 45s): Yeah, even like the check-in process was pretty laid back. Like there wasn’t a lot of room for big rigs but it wasn’t jammed up either. You just kind of go with the flow and they’ll tell you how to get to your site. Washrooms, I don’t think they’ve changed since when the map was printed. That being said, in terms of cleanliness, I’ll give them a 10 out of 10. The inside is probably the original building to like the 1990s, but it was completely painted super clean functionality. I’ll give them an eight outta 10 only because like I think things like the faucet should be upgraded where you’re gonna have a shower. But I’m kind of nitpicking all that to say like we’re a hundred feet from a washroom right now. 2 (12m 26s): One of them’s missing the faucet and the other faucet isn’t screwed down. So they are doing pretty good. But like point of all this is like washrooms are good if you’re gonna use the washroom and not use the one inside your trailer. 0 (12m 38s): So for us I would say location was probably like nine out of 10. I think the only thing that would’ve made it better for the way we were traveling and what we were doing is we were there to sightsee So we were always on the move would to be to have a park or a place to stay maybe a little further south towards like the dead center of the provinc. Again, we didn’t pre-plan this right? Like we booked all of these sites a week and a half, two weeks out. So we got what we could get and I’m super happy with the location because if we’re going kind of from Tni on the west side to like East Point on the right side of the provinc or on the east side of the Provinc, you’re about an hour to an hour and a half both ways. 0 (13m 19s): So for us to get up, grab some breakfast, get in the truck and go do sightseeing, we could basically kind of circle the provinc in a number of hours. So location-wise I was super happy with it. 2 (13m 30s): Yeah. And our daughter, she went on a trip earlier in the summer and they stayed just off the bridge at the KOA and they had a great time. I think the trade off to your comment is like we’re right on the water beside a meadow. You could look out and you’d see a fishing trawler go by or different boat. So there’s a bit of a trade off And I think to be on the water was good but you’re never really far from anything, which I think is the point of it and there’s not a traffic jam to be had. Yeah, 0 (13m 53s): So timings, we were on the provinc or on the island of PEI for three nights. We stayed two nights at Cabo Beach Provincial Park and then we stayed the third night. As you know, if you listen to us at Double Hill Cidery, that was one of our harvest host days directly before getting on the ferry. Why I mention that is, you know, with two nights we really had to really just go around and do a lot of sightseeing. I think timing wise for me, I feel like probably five nights would be perfect on PDII feel like we were a little bit rushed. There was a few things that we wanted to see that we didn’t get to see. But again, the whole point of this trip was basically to take note of where you wanted to go back and spend some time. 0 (14m 35s): But I think if we, if we had an extra night like just at Cait Beach, we probably would’ve been able to check off most of what we had and then adding a fourth or fifth night elsewhere would get you to the rest of the provinc. 2 (14m 47s): Yeah, I think if you were going to stay longer in the Provinc it would be about staying and enjoying just being on the beach and going for swims and just the nature aspect of it as opposed to like trying to check off more things to see. Yeah, I think you could go for that four five day duration that you talk about and see everything not be rushed, but I think to stay longer than that would just be to just chill out. Which is okay too. Yeah. 0 (15m 10s): Which maybe brings us to the next point is that generally speaking when we’re traveling and we don’t have a lot of nights in a place, we will go ahead and hook up our trailer and say, oh well we’ll just see X, Y or Z because it’s along the way from this spot to the next spot. I would say we ran into a situation where if we had attempted to do that with our trailer on PEI, we would’ve been in dire circumstances. So we went one morning, it was our first stop of the day, we went to a lighthouse that I wanted to see, which was right near the campground. It was called Cape Tryon Lighthouse, beautiful vista right on the edge of a cliff. It’s not like a lighthouse that has like a museum or anything that you can visit, you can’t go up inside it. 0 (15m 51s): But the vistas were absolutely stunning and it felt like you were on the edge of the world. There was nobody around like no other buildings that you could see beautiful. And when you look at the maps it just boom, you go up this road, you take a left, you take another left and the lighthouse is at the end of the road. Well we found out pretty quick and we have a four wheel drive pickup truck that the road is very like just red, PEI, dirt, very lots of rus, lots of potholes. I would say if it was wet at all, if it was raining, like even we might have had trouble traversing this road in, We did see a couple of other cars, a couple of other, what would you call ’em? Like the, the the 15 seater like passenger vans. 0 (16m 33s): They struggled a little bit getting down the road. You can definitely do it in dry weather And I definitely recommend going like, don’t dissuade you the the road is passable. But if we had hooked up our trailer and thought, oh well we’ll just scoot down this road, it wasn’t sort of evident until after you had turned that corner that this would not be a road that that you could travel. Yeah, because it was like also narrow one one vehicle with 2 (16m 55s): The Yeah, so I think the lesson is if there’s a few things you wanna see along the way, doing a little bit of route planning the day of would be good to make sure that the road you’re going down is like the kind of road that you’re expecting you, you’re not going to get, you’re not going to get a class a motor home to this place. Even though the road might suggest it on a map. You might get a smaller class C to it as long as it’s not raining and not washed out. But keep in mind it was kind of a one, one and a half lane road at the best, which meant if you met somebody you were both gonna have to shift right to let the other fellow pass. So doing a little bit of root reconnaissance in advance would be well advised if you’re gonna swing off to that little thing by the side of the road, that’s not kind of staffed as an official attraction, although it is an official attraction, there’s just nobody there. 2 (17m 45s): I think as well we followed Google and we all hear the, you know so and so followed Google and drove their boat down the boat launch into the harbor. We didn’t do that. We missed a turn. Google rerouted us and it took us down a similar kind of road, which was really kind of the back lane to a bunch of cottages, which, which was interesting in and of itself. But like, just beware the Google I think. I think, well 0 (18m 5s): These were official roads with street signs. So like I think it was just the caliber of road in that area. This is a separate, this was like on our way back that day. Yeah. Like so separate situation, separate area of the provinc. And so yes there, there’s street signs but it’s just, it’s very ruddy. Again, if we had had the trailer on, we would’ve been ure. 2 (18m 24s): We would’ve been having to like just pause and take five minutes to figure another way to where we were going 0 (18m 28s): Pause and take five minutes for somebody to stop yelling is what Dan is really saying. 2 (18m 33s): 23 lovely years. 0 (18m 36s): Yeah. Okay, well let’s talk about, okay, so some of that seems negative. Beautiful provinc just you’re, if you’re gonna be doing sightseeing, you’re gonna be doing it in your vehicle, like not necessarily with your trailer in tow. And I think you’re gonna enjoy it more that way anyway. And the provinc is small enough is the point we’re making that you can start in wherever you’re staying, do a big loop, come back and like the next day you could do a loop in the other direction and come back and it’s not overly like you’re not gonna be on the road for six or seven hours. Like you could do a loop in three hours and be back and see some things, 2 (19m 8s): But it is adventurous and kind of makes you feel like an explorer to go down these roads. So that, that’s super cool. The fact that you maybe don’t travel around with your trailer to see some of this stuff is also good because there’s so much stuff that just pops up and you’re like, Hey, I wanna take a picture here. I just wanna pull in there and have a look at this little shop. That makes it so easy to do if you can just do that without having, you know, a big rig with you. Yeah. Which I think kind of is u it’s not unique to Prince Edward Island, but I think they have more of that than other places we’ve been to. Yeah, 0 (19m 39s): For sure. Well let’s talk about food because Prince Edward Island has great food ton. If you love seafood, obviously it’s going to be very, very fresh. And you know, we had some really unique dishes. Well like let’s talk about the hand pie company because there’s this place in PEI called the hand pie company and they’re almost like I would call, what are those little 2 (20m 5s): Like a pizza pocket? 0 (20m 7s): I was gonna say, I’m not gonna say pizza pocket ’cause that makes me sound like a Yoel. I’m thinking more of like Cornish pasties. Thank you. They’re like, but yes a pizza pocket. But inside they’re very savory. There’s like taco flavored one, there’s a curry flavored one and the hand pie company is in PEI and they make these amazing, like they’re probably like two pounds a piece. These things that you cook in the oven and they’re so delicious. And we brought a few home in the freezer, but highly recommend. We also stopped at this really cute place called Sonny’s Dairy Bar. And it’s like a ice cream place that’s kind of like a round shack, kind of a painted bright yellow. It was near those warplane, that war plane. 0 (20m 48s): What was it like? It was a open air museum. Open air museum, yeah. With military planes and right around the corner from that was Sunny’s and they had excellent ice cream, a lot of flavors. And then we had of course Lobster Rolls. You cannot go to PEI and not have Lobster Rolls. And we chose Richards, which apparently is the best place in PEI to get Lobster Rolls. There are two locations of Richard’s. We went to the one in Victoria by the sea. I am so, so glad that We did. But maybe you can talk about the vibe, the setup of a restaurant. 2 (21m 19s): So the restaurant you gonna kind of step onto like a patio or a, or a deck really. Molina went and placed the order for a couple of local brews and the Lobster Rolls and then I went to go find a spot for us to sit. This is a little bit different in that there isn’t, there’s long tables really kind of bigger than a picnic table stools, but you don’t really just sit by yourself if, if there’s a long table that sits eight and there’s four people at one end you just kind of jump on the other end and it’s almost 0 (21m 53s): Communal seating, 2 (21m 54s): Communal kind of seating. Which is neat because you never know who you’re gonna talk to or who you’re gonna bump into. And I think maybe that, I don’t know that that’s why they designed it that way, but I certainly know that it was happening at more than just our table. 0 (22m 7s): Yeah, we, this is, I know we talked about this before but this is where we actually met people from like 20 minutes away from us as well in PEI. They live in Guelph just around the corner of us. So I actually like that idea where you just kind of, you go, you find a spot, you start chatting with the people next to you and you end up meeting some really neat people. 2 (22m 26s): Yeah. So I think it was really good. I think we would recommend going to that place whether you’re gonna have a Lobster Rolls or something else. 0 (22m 32s): Yeah. But Victoria by the Sea, beautiful, really, really historic vil, like village Hamlet, like it’s not even a village. Like they have a few stores, a lighthouse that you can walk up, a decommissioned lighthouse that you can walk up. They have a beautiful little theater where they have live plays. Like it reminds me of probably what like Niagara on the Lake, if you’re familiar with Ontario, was probably 40 years ago in that it was, you know, very busy with tourists but very small, very quaint. It’s the type of place that you know is completely dead in the winter. Like there’s, I think we saw a plaque that said how many locals live there and it’s like 200 people live there year round. But what a stunning place to walk around. 2 (23m 12s): Yeah, there’s a little wharf, a couple of other restaurants you could check out independent shops. There’s no real chain shop. So everything is unique. The buildings themselves are historic parking was really easy. We parked like maybe two blocks from downtown at a public parking lot And you know, we’re not gonna give you directions here because if you don’t find it when you drive in, just drive around the block and you’ll find it. This place is not that big. I think I’d probably give the town maybe like two, three hours budget, budget, two or three hours to see everything including stopping for a bit of food and to sit, sit down in some pictures. And I think that’s about the right amount of time. I remember there was a couple of kids jumping off the wharf into the water as as teenagers do. 2 (23m 53s): And you took pictures for them ’cause they were trying to 0 (23m 56s): Do back 2 (23m 56s): Flips. Yeah, do back flips and review their technique. So that was kind of, that’s the flavor of the town. It’s not super packed. So if you’re thinking like Niagara on the lake or allo these days, it’s not super packed. There’s enough to have an ambiance enough to meet people that you know, live 20 hours away and sit at your table to have a Lobster Rolls but you’re not gonna be bumping into people on the street. 0 (24m 18s): Yeah, no I re I really, that was probably one of the highlights of the trip for me was to go there. I thought it 2 (24m 22s): Was really great and there was a cool little, I think there was a cool little museum and another lighthouse. Yeah. To check out Feels like maybe if you’re listening to the podcast, we check out a lot of Lighthouses love. I don’t know why that is. I, but I don’t think, 0 (24m 34s): ’cause I love 2 (24m 34s): Lighthouses. Well you love Lighthouses but I don’t think we like sit down and plan out where all the Lighthouses are. We just kind of gravitate towards them. 0 (24m 40s): I maybe sat down and looked at the map. Okay. Because I actually wanted to hit as many Lighthouses as we could on that trip. And I’m sad because there was two that I, we didn’t get to. One was Point Prim, point Prim Lighthouse and the other one was East Point Lighthouse. But We did go to West Point Lighthouse and that was after going to Victoria by the Sea. This is all in one day we drove over to West Point Lighthouse. 2 (25m 4s): Yeah. We drove over there, we paid to get in and we took, there’s kind of like a self-guided tour of this museum with well of this lighthouse and you’re gonna climb up several flights of stairs and it explains the history of the area and it gives you like a super great panoramic view if you’re gonna take pictures. We were there at the end of the day, I think it was, yeah 0 (25m 24s): It was about six o’clock, which was amazing ’cause it was kind of that golden hour, perfect time to get photos. We were running late because We did stop to see the planes and then we got ice cream and then we thought, okay well this museum has gonna, it’s gonna be closed by the time we get there. But I think it was open into the evening. And So we got there towards the end of the day. Beautiful, cool nighttime, like just the vibe was perfect and there’s an inn there as well. And yeah I think the time of day, I’m actually glad that We did it later ’cause we were the only people in the museum at that time. And so we’re used to kind of circular staircases that spiral staircases that go up Lighthouses. 0 (26m 8s): This one had a series of ladders which was like my legs were shaking going up to the very top. ’cause they’re very narrow, they’re open string. So it’s not for the faint of heart. If you don’t love heights, if you don’t love climbing like ladders effectively you might have a little bit of trouble. But I highly recommend that you do, even if you’re a little bit scared because the view at the top is just stunning. 2 (26m 29s): It’s not as bad as the Tommmy Fire Tower. No. Or the Brock Monument. Yeah. In Niagara Falls if you’ve done any of those. So I think that was okay. But it was, it was really interesting. It’s, it’s interesting to walk through it and learn the history. It was also interesting to just kind of walk down the hallway and know that somebody’s hotel in room was just right off the hallway. And I can only imagine what it must be like when it’s there after hours and you’re just a guest. That might be an interesting experience too. 0 (26m 59s): Yeah. So actually in the lighthouse there’s like the keeper’s room and there was another room that they’re like if the door is closed they have a sign on it that says if this door is closed that means there’s a guest staying in it. But other than that the doors are open and you can see those rooms as well. So I found that kind of neat. Yeah. That you could rent that 2 (27m 15s): And even once you’re done all of that, you go back to the parking lot, we still walk down to the beach ’cause you’re right on the water. And I think that’s the thing about Princess Edward Island is you’re never far from the water ever. Yeah, right. And so you’re, not only do you get to see something cool, you get to stretch your legs and be active and Yeah. Before you move on to the next thing, which I think isn’t really kind of a nice touch. Yeah. 0 (27m 37s): And right beside West Point Lighthouse, there’s Cedar Dunes Provincial Park. So that was the other provincial park we were looking at. But because it’s so far to the west of the island, we decided not to stay there. They did have availability, we wanted to be more central. But what a gorgeous park. So you’re on the other side of the island. So a different vantage point, you know, from, from a water view standpoint. But Dan had said when we drove by you were like, oh man, if I were just coming here to like sit on the beach for a week like this seems like the perfect park. 2 (28m 6s): I think it would be, and keep in mind I’m not giving an official park review here. I’m going from what I saw in the passenger seat and at the top of the lighthouse. But it, again, it was a bit of a more open style park. But you could just tell from the vibe of it that people were barbecuing and kids were playing Frisbee and you’re near the beach if you just wanna take your book and go down and read your book hall afternoon. So I think it would be really good from that aspect. But I would definitely want us to check that out later in the future. 0 (28m 33s): For sure. And I guess to close off, I would say really there’s a co, there’s like, there’s a couple of things we didn’t see that we had planned on seeing. One was the Canadian Potato Museum, which I understand is actually very interesting. But it was closed and that’s sort of closer to West Point Lighthouse, like that side of the island. But it’s okay. Like I was okay missing that because we, we just decided, we’re like, oh there’s a cool antique shop, let’s pull over and look. So we, we kind of planned a few things but then left the rest of the day open to just kind of see what we could see. And I actually preferred that so, but unfortunately we’ll have to go back and do that one again. The other one was Charlottetown. So our initial plan was to see Charlottetown spend a little bit of time there because that was the day we were leaving Cabot Beach and we were going to double Hill side, but we had all day and it was only about a two hour drive. 0 (29m 24s): So originally we thought, okay well let’s see if we can find somewhere good to park the trailer from the, from the satellite views. Like I know they have like a racetrack and all kinds of stuff but there was a lot of construction and So we thought well maybe we could park at like Walmart and we’ll take like an Uber or a Lyft into Charlottetown and just leave, leave the trailer parked. You know, somewhere where there’s like a large parking lot that’s close enough to downtown that we could take an Uber or Lyft only to find out that Uber or Lyft doesn’t operate in the east coast. They have their own rideshare app, which why, I don’t know, but it’s called C or Kari. But they didn’t operate in PEI yet but they operate in other provinces. So it was like that or a taxi. And then by the time we got to Walmart and got some provisions, we thought, you know what, for the couple of hours that we would get in town, like we would probably rather prefer to just go back and spend more time. 0 (30m 15s): ’cause Charlottetown is very historic. There’s a lot of museums there. There’s a, you pro would probably wanna spend a whole day there. So instead what We did was we found a very secluded part of the parking lot which happened to be right beside a retaining wall and like rolled out our awning a little bit, made some beautiful sandwiches and we had a really nice relaxing lunch in a parking lot. It was actually probably nice to just sit down ’cause we had been traveling pretty hard by that point. But I actually really enjoyed that. And then we got to the cidery, you know, with a couple hours before they closed and just had a real more relaxing day. So 2 (30m 49s): Yeah, we already had to be at the Walmart anyways because we needed to stock up on groceries. There’s a couple items we needed to, to pick up that we, we were So we had to be there anyways is the point of it. So I don’t think we just stopped in a parking lot for no particular reason we had to be there anyways. I think it’s not saying you shouldn’t go to Charlottetown, it just wasn’t read the right decision for us that day. Yeah, 0 (31m 13s): For sure. So again, with these types of travels, right, we’re, we’ve only got a couple of weeks. We have, you know, vacations from work and then we have to get back home. So a lot of these trips at this stage in our life are like, what do we wanna go and see? What do we wanna make note of for you know, when we can go back when we have more time. And so I’m happy with that. I’m happy with the three days we spent there. Like I said though, I think five would be optimal if you had five days to explore, you would probably see most of what you wanted to see on PEI, if not all of it. But I did enjoy coming by bridge, leaving by Ferry, ferry. I know you gave an overview of the ferry on our, on our last episode, but maybe just give like that, that 32nd review. 2 (31m 53s): So it was really easy. We took the first sailing of the morning, I think it was about eight o’clock, give or take. Don’t if you’re listening to this podcast, go look up their schedule ’cause it’s gonna change anyways. Point being, we took the first sailing in the morning, it was July, it was not busy. We had pre-booked check-in took like what like two minutes topped. You pull up to a booth, the lady makes sure you’ve got a reservation, she reminds you to turn off your propane tanks, tells you to pull up partway, you go park where she says to park and then you wait really? They said I think, was it be there half an hour early? Yep, we got there 40 minutes early and we would’ve been fine. 2 (32m 33s): There’s a bit of a terminal there with a washroom inside it. There’s a kind of a seating area, almost like a really super small air. It’s not an airport lounge but think super small airport lounge type setup. But nothing was open in it. And then somebody told us to pull up a few more feet and then we were on the ferry. Ferry was really interesting. So there was a, I remember this massive crane in front of us. I dunno, I just like this kind of stuff. The way people like railroads. We had breakfast on the ferry, we got eggs. I felt a little bad. They said, what do you want? I said like, we’ll have the eggs and bacon, eggs over easy. I didn’t realize the eggs are actually only supposed to come one way. 2 (33m 13s): And So we kind of held up the line, which I feel bad about. So my apologize to everybody. Pet friendly though. I think that’s an important thing to mention. There’s a lot of spots there for your pet to get out and stretch and drink some water and you can 0 (33m 25s): Pet relief areas, 2 (33m 26s): Pet relief area, you can, this is not a tropical cruise, don’t get me wrong. But there are some areas to go outside and take pictures and yeah, get some fresh air and you’re not far from the shore, you’re always gonna see land. Really? And it was, well 0 (33m 40s): The crossing was only about an hour and a half. 2 (33m 42s): Yeah, hour and a half. Yeah. Like, and it’s super easy on and off, drive on, drive off. No backing up. So I would highly recommend it at least one way. 0 (33m 51s): Yeah, I mean the, the benefit of getting there early is that you’re the first on, so you’re the first off. But I would say the loading and unloading was so efficient that even if you were the last rig on, you would be offloaded pretty darn quick. Like they have it down to a silent. So Northumberland, ferry’s staff and crew really, really know their stuff. Yeah, it was, it was really efficient. Even 2 (34m 12s): Just for making the booking. And I know I talked about this so I won’t belabor it. They’re very friendly just making the booking. So I would recommend like bridge on ferry off or ferry on bridge off because what that lets you do is a loop of the provinc. Now I’m sure you can make a loop and still use both modes of transport, but I would recommend doing one of each. 0 (34m 34s): And that’s PEI really, 2 (34m 35s): That’s PEI like, I think the next stop is Nova Scotia, which has tons of adventures along the way as well. Bit of a different flavor, which is cool. And we can kind of compare that to the rest of the trip. ’cause remember we, we started by our daughter’s dance competition in Ottawa and then We did no New Brunswick and we’ve got the PEI and so the next stop will be New Brunswick, 0 (34m 57s): Nova 2 (34m 58s): Scotia. Nova Scotia. I, my apologies. 0 (35m 2s): 23 wonderful years. Okay, well that’s it for this week I guess. And we’ll be back in a couple more weeks as we round down the season. 2 (35m 12s): Yep. Enjoy your weeks and stay safe. 0 (35m 15s): Bye Bye.