Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Day 71 – Distance: 135.57 km
Grand-Barachois, NB to Charlottetown, PEI
It was a grand day for cycling, and my grin stretched from ear to ear many times, especially on the fair isle of Prince Edward.
It was a busy morning at the Leblanc-Libotte household, as Chloe started school again, and Christian and Monique both went back to work after a long weekend. It was just as well they had to rush off, or I might have got a bit emotional saying goodbye to Monique; as it was, we were able to keep things fairly light. We had planned I wouldn’t start biking until after 9:00 a.m., to give Cam time to take the camper down and get to the PEI bridge by noon, so he could shuttle me across. I had a lovely ride, taking Hwy 133 to Hwy 15, then later taking Hwy 955 to Murray Corner, from where I could see the bridge (even though there was another 10 km to go). The country roads were great; little traffic and gentle hills. I arrived at the information centre near the bridge about 11:30, and had some lunch while I waited for Cam, who arrived about 12:20 p.m. The building is an eco-centre, with composting toilets etc, and there were interpretive trails around it was well. It would have been fun to have more time to spend there.
After we loaded the bike into the station wagon, and took some photos of the bridge from the excellent vantage point, we headed across, parked, and walked over to the PEI information centre. Who should be having lunch at a picnic table there but Nory and Robin! We hadn’t planned to meet until supper time at our campsite, so this was an unexpected pleasure. Cam and I got information and maps; I shared an ice cream cone with Nory, and then Robin came back to the “welcome to PEI” sign so that I could be in one of my border crossing photos (it’s only been Carpe Momentum in the last few).
The staff at the Info centre advised me to take the scenic route to Charlottetown, which I proceeded to do. It was really lovely, much of it along water, although it was about 15 km longer, and I was starting to get a little anxious to reach the campsite by 5:00 p.m. I didn’t get in until 6:00, which is a little later than I like; however, I did have a 2 ½ hour lunch break, so I guess I can’t complain. Nory and Robin arrived not much before I did, and after a much needed shower (for me), we had a little drink before heading out for dinner on the waterfront in Charlottetown.
Nory and Robin will be heading out tomorrow, while Cam and I take an extra day on PEI. We did our mileage calculations, and I have an extra two days to put in before the ferry crossing date I booked. If we had checked this out at Monique’s house I might have left a day earlier from there and tried to change my ferry reservation to this Friday; that was my original target date but I was persuaded by Albert that I should give myself extra time in case I was delayed for some reason. In any event, we’ll do some touristy things, and I may try to get in some more biking to make up for lost mileage before Sault Ste Marie.
Grand-Barachois, NB to Charlottetown, PEI
It was a grand day for cycling, and my grin stretched from ear to ear many times, especially on the fair isle of Prince Edward.
It was a busy morning at the Leblanc-Libotte household, as Chloe started school again, and Christian and Monique both went back to work after a long weekend. It was just as well they had to rush off, or I might have got a bit emotional saying goodbye to Monique; as it was, we were able to keep things fairly light. We had planned I wouldn’t start biking until after 9:00 a.m., to give Cam time to take the camper down and get to the PEI bridge by noon, so he could shuttle me across. I had a lovely ride, taking Hwy 133 to Hwy 15, then later taking Hwy 955 to Murray Corner, from where I could see the bridge (even though there was another 10 km to go). The country roads were great; little traffic and gentle hills. I arrived at the information centre near the bridge about 11:30, and had some lunch while I waited for Cam, who arrived about 12:20 p.m. The building is an eco-centre, with composting toilets etc, and there were interpretive trails around it was well. It would have been fun to have more time to spend there.
After we loaded the bike into the station wagon, and took some photos of the bridge from the excellent vantage point, we headed across, parked, and walked over to the PEI information centre. Who should be having lunch at a picnic table there but Nory and Robin! We hadn’t planned to meet until supper time at our campsite, so this was an unexpected pleasure. Cam and I got information and maps; I shared an ice cream cone with Nory, and then Robin came back to the “welcome to PEI” sign so that I could be in one of my border crossing photos (it’s only been Carpe Momentum in the last few).
The staff at the Info centre advised me to take the scenic route to Charlottetown, which I proceeded to do. It was really lovely, much of it along water, although it was about 15 km longer, and I was starting to get a little anxious to reach the campsite by 5:00 p.m. I didn’t get in until 6:00, which is a little later than I like; however, I did have a 2 ½ hour lunch break, so I guess I can’t complain. Nory and Robin arrived not much before I did, and after a much needed shower (for me), we had a little drink before heading out for dinner on the waterfront in Charlottetown.
Nory and Robin will be heading out tomorrow, while Cam and I take an extra day on PEI. We did our mileage calculations, and I have an extra two days to put in before the ferry crossing date I booked. If we had checked this out at Monique’s house I might have left a day earlier from there and tried to change my ferry reservation to this Friday; that was my original target date but I was persuaded by Albert that I should give myself extra time in case I was delayed for some reason. In any event, we’ll do some touristy things, and I may try to get in some more biking to make up for lost mileage before Sault Ste Marie.
posted by BikingBabe at 2:06 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home