August 27, 2008 North Cape Coastal Drive, PEI
We set off at 9 am for this long 300 km drive of the north coast of PEI. Terry used ?Hilda?, our GPS to find a McDonalds to fortify us with egg Mac Muffins. We followed the route and the first mentionable stop was the ?Bottle House.? This was a hobby of a regular kind of guy before recycling. He found his bottles in the dump. His set up is a display of bottles, gardens and fun. The buildings have been redone and are still wonderful. His gardens are beautiful as is his coastal view. We traveled up through Acadian territory evidenced by their flags flying and the French language we heard while inside magnificent Catholic Church in Mont Carmel. The coastal drive was spectacular with red cliffs, red sand beaches and white waves crashing on red water gave quite a contract to the colors I am used to seeing at the beach. The scenery was open fields and we could see lots of neatly planted green rows of potatoes. In O?Leary we spent some time in the Potato Museum. I never knew there were so many types of potatoes. We have been seeing signs along the road for Irish Cobbler. I thought it was a PEI kind of dessert but I learned it is a variety of potato that mature early. It is not sold commercially as it does not store well. PEI produces lots of potatoes. We learned some of the big Processing plants we see along the road make potato chips. The don?t give tours nor samples. Darn?.
Following the suggestions by Jeff and Sue we stopped at the Seaweed Caf? for lunch. I had mussels and seaweed pie. OK Jim Johnson, I know you told us about pickle pie and pinto bean pie. Now I can tell you about Sea weed pie. It was a greenish flavored cream on top of what appeared to be angel food cake. It was dolloped with whipped cream and drizzled in fresh raspberry sauce. Yum. I did not taste any seaweed. Seems anything we have with a thickened consistency may well have seaweed extract in it. We watched a video on the harvesting of seaweed, kelp beds done here in PEI for years. Horses used to drag rakes around the ocean floor during storms to harvest the washed up sea weed. I sampled the hand lotion thickened with the seaweed. It was very nice. I leaned ice cream also has it. So there you go.
We drove on up the coast to the North Cape. This beautiful day awarded us with a tremendous vista of the seas at the end point. The lighthouse was not memorable but the water was cold as I just had to dip my foot in water from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Northumberland Strait as it converges on the longest rock reef in North America. There is an interesting Interpretive Center on the Wind mill farm there. They advertise having the largest wind mill in North America, curious so does the one in Quebec claim to be the largest in North America. Does not matter to me. Terry got his first souvenir of the trip, a very nice t shirt. On our way back down the coast we came to the city of Alberton with numerous murals painted all over the city. It sure dresses up a city to see what their history looks like painted on the sides of buildings. We finally hit home at 7:30 pm. Whew what a day. I vote NOT to have such long driving days again. We will stay another night here near the Confederation Bridge and hit the road in the morning for New Brunswick. We hope to connect some time with Forum friends Ed and Donna during our 4 day stay in Shediac.