Our trip map on the wall of our "bedroom"
We all took advantage of the good showers here at Cabot Beach this morning. Jonathan cooked us a breakfast of PEI potatoes fried up as hash browns with eggs. Yum!! I tried to tap out two more days of blog content to get closer to being caught up.
At 10:45am we were out of the campsite, dumped the Sani and filled the fresh water and in half an hour we were on the road heading along the Hwy 20 towards Cavendish. Anne of Green Gables, here we come!
With Stompin’ Tom on the stereo, it was only a 15 minute drive to the Anne of Green Gables Museum @ Campbell Pond where we could see the “Lake of Shining Waters”. Beautiful countryside on sloping hills with the shimmering lake at the bottom of the hill. They had “Matthew’s Wagon Ride” that would take you around the countryside and to the beach that looked neat as it was in an old carriage. We looked around the property and popped in the gift shop to buy some postcards and bought an early reader copy of Anne of Green Gables for Amelia. Had a lovely chat with a cousin of Lucy Maud Montgomery who was there signing copies of the original first edition copy versions of AGG printed here on PEI by his publishing company Kindred Spirits Publishing. It has the original publication design on the cover and was the first time it’s every been published on PEI.
We enjoyed a little walk through the whispering birch trees at the back of the property and peered into the real-deal well. I think it’s the first time our kids have looked into a well and it’s actually be real - not a “wishing well”. They learned about how it works.
We hopped back in the rig and drove into Cavendish… which was way more of a tourist trap than we anticipated. I had visions of walking around the quaint little town, but it was very busy and touristy, and had crazy amusement park stuff in all directions! Not what I thought! We drove right through! Kids weren’t really even paying attention out the window and missed all the alluring go-karts/coasters/etc. Whew.
We ended up at North Rustico Harbour around 1pm. A much more pleasant place to hang out. (We ended up staying for 5 hours!)
We pulled up at the wharf in the decent sized parking lot right at the water’s edge. You could hop out of the rig and walk about 50ft and have your toes in the water (which we did). We chatted with two lovely local ladies who were bringing in their paddle boards. We could swim and snorkel around that area close to the wharf, but the boats come through a narrow swath of water close by and you’d have to keep an eye out. There was White Sands beach on the opposite side of the parking area beyond some big rocks.
We got our swim stuff on because Ollie was keen to snorkel and look for lobsters around the base of the wharf. I brought my goggles to help look around underwater. I saw a lobster a few inches away from my foot and told Ollie. He was pretty excited, and he also had seen some kind of flat fish swim by. Jonathan stayed with Oliver, and Amelia and I walked over the huge rocks to the other side where it was knee high water for about 20ft or more and nice and clear for swimming. We had a lovely time swimming and splashing in the deeper zone while Ollie “hunted” lobster under dad’s watch. After quite some time, Meems and I decided to go find O & J and tell them to come swim at “our beach”… we got to the rig at the same time as the boys and heard the tales of the lobster Oliver caught in his net! He’d gone back to the RV to get his little dip net, and Jonathan got his phone to take photos. Ollie was able to pick up the lobster by it’s back and hold it up out of the net. Then, it flipped it’s tail super fast and forcefully and flung itself out of Oliver’s grip back into the water. Pretty neat experience. It was a decent sized lobster too!
They came and swam at the other nice clear beach with us for awhile. The kids liked the cool “fluffy” seaweed there. It’s slimy when you pull it out of the water, and the took turns draping it across each other’s feet. When you put it back in the water, it blooms like a fluffy pom pom. Neat stuff. We also saw a plain tern dive into the water like a rocket not too far from us! So cool. We had our fill of Atlantic swimming for the day and went to the rig to dry off and change.
We walked up the short road past the big gift shop and lobster traps stacked high to go check out “The Dock” that the two ladies earlier were planning to go to and recommended. There was a long wait, and so we went next door to the Blue Mussel Cafe and put our name down for the 1/2 hour wait. Definitely a fancier restaurant, and seemed popular. Apparently they were switching over to their dinner menu and service and filtered guests in so they could keep the kitchen from getting overwhelmed. We walked back to the gift shop and had a look around for a PEI sticker for the rig. Kids picked out a neat one… kinda big, with a lighthouse on it. They didn’t have any smaller ones, just the bumpersticker kind. The cashier was a super lovely and kind blonde woman who chatted with us and asked about our travels. She was also a librarian at four local libraries and recommended using libraries as resources for our home schooling along our travels. It has definitely been on my mind as an option for some reading, exploring, wifi, and other resources. Eventually, I think I will need to get dropped off at a library so I can upload all these photos and notes into the Blog!! I’m so behind. Sigh. (For reference, I’m typing up this blog section from my notes of the day and it’s currently Sept 13th).
After buying a sticker and some postcards and a book called Skunks for Breakfast for Amelia, we walked back up to the Blue Mussel in time for our name to be called on the wait list and we were seated in an outdoor covered dining section. Very neat vibe… rustic chic? Friendly staff and yummy food. Jonathan ordered a local beer and I got the Shuckin’ Casear… a delicious caesar with an oyster on a half shell on top. We ordered 1/2 dozen Rustico Bay oysters - super yummy! (Kids did not try any, in case you were wondering… and unfortunately, they were very off-putting to Amelia it turned out, and she had trouble eating her fish, poor kid). We ordered the haddock and potato wedges for the kids to share (no kids menu here), and it was nice, but maybe a little too fancy in the breading style. Ollie liked it, but Meems was struggling with it and the oyster combo. She kept asking if her fish had oysters cooked in the batter somewhere. We assured her it had ZERO oysters, but she was too put off. She did her best to eat what she could but definitely didn’t enjoy her meal.
Jonathan and I ordered the seafood chowder and it was DELICIOUS. So, so good. And it came with a fresh baked biscuit on the side. Definitely a pricier meal than we’d normally dine out for with the family on this trip, but well worth it.
After our dinner, Oliver wanted to look for lobsters in the water again by the wharf. So he donned his shorty wetsuit and snorkel/mask and in he went. Jonathan realized he should be fishing off the wharf and ran to get his rod from the RV while I supervised Oliver with his lobster catching. Ollie did catch another one, a smaller one that had moulted and had a soft body. Ollie let it slip out of the net after we looked at it, because he didn’t want hurt it. Jay attempted some fishing but realized it was pretty much just the lobsters eating all his bait off the hooks, so it was short lived.
Got Oliver dried off and we tumbled back into the RV around 6pm and hit the road again heading for Charlottetown! 45 minutes driving and we parked in an overflow type lot beside the Tourism Info building and market food hall right in town down by the waterfront. It was marked our I-Overlander app as a place to park overnight for free. There were a few other RV’s there, so we parked (for free) and had a walk around Charlottetown (4km according to my Strava) for a couple hours. We walked up Queen Street and saw a dragon statue outside a Book Emporium used book store. We went inside and the lovely older gentleman at the front desk invited us in warmly and showed us where the kids section was. They had a couch in that area and some chairs for kids to sit on while they explored the books. We found some more Goosebumps books for Oliver, and a compilation treasury of favourite stories for Amelia. While the kids were sat on the couch reading, the bookstore clerk came over with a rather large dog stuffy and asked if he could offer it to Amelia to take home with her. It was the bookstore dog, but it took up too much room on the couch. Oh boy! The man was so sweet, I couldn’t say no. So now we have a large (I think, retro Pound Puppy?) in our RV. The kids carried it around for the evening, but I wound’t let them put it in their bunk until we had a chance to wash it in Antigonish.
We walked further up and found the COWS ice cream store (I vaguely recollect buying a COWS t-shirt some 20 odd years ago when I took the train across Canada with my buddy, Jeff, for a month). Kids and I got delicious ice cream cones and shared with Jonathan. We walked back down towards Water Street and checked out a cool vibe in one of the side streets that was pedestrian only and had some live music set up with nice lights strung across the street. When we got to the water, I took the Kids’ photo at the huge 2022 sign and then we walked back to the RV to settle in for the night.
Got inside, locked the doors and got ready for bed. Read two chapters of Anne of Green Gables to the kiddos… they are loving it, and I’m getting really good at my “Marilla” voice, I must say.
Around midnight or so, Jonathan and I woke to hear a car roll up on the gravel beside us. It was in between us and the rig next to us which was only a couple parking spaces over. We had pulled forward into the lot, so our front end was up against a grassy hill/barricade. This black Honda had full black tinted windows and windscreen. Super weird. It sat there for quite awhile and we wondered the people inside wanted to try and steal something? Our fishing rods had been put just underneath the rig because Jonathan had them strapped at the back with the bikes instead of dismantling them after our last fishing attempt. No one got out of the car. Then it backed behind us on an angle, right under the back of our rig’s bike rack, etc. and blocked us in. We could see it out our bedroom back window. It was SO creepy. It sat for awhile with the engine running then turned it off. We shone a strong flashlight at it from our back window but couldn’t see inside the tinted windows. They eventually turned the car back on and slowly drove away. Licence plate BAJWA01. So so weird. Maybe just weirdos trying to scare us? Or assessing if the rig had anyone inside to come and steal our stuff? Or sending someone back to steal our bikes if they hadn’t been locked? Who knows. It was rattling for sure and super confusing. Gave us a very bad taste to Charlottetown after a nice day. Jonathan and I slept very lightly the rest of the night. No one came back after that.
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