Wednesday, August 28, 2004, 31.1 miles: Another no coffee day, but we only had 15 miles to get to Charlottetown where we were sure we could get our caffeine. Rain was threatened for the afternoon, so we broke camp rather early and were on our way at 8.
The ride to Charlottetown was pretty easy and our second experience with the Confederation Trail, which wends along abandoned rail lines through much of PEI. We generally prefer roads to the trail as the roads allow two things, climbing and coasting down hills and generally faster speeds overall. We were happy to jump on this section though as traffic was increasing the closer we got to Charlottetown. We ran into a crew clearing out invasives (in this case wild cucumber) and the woman leading the crew asked if we wanted a map of the trail. She was obviously a trail enthusiast, and we had a long discussion about the trail and wild cucumber (“Is it edible?” They didn’t know, but after the recent Alicia Silverstone incident, I suggested that if they did try it, to post it on Tik Tok!) “Any recommendations for seafood?” At this point the younger woman holding the wild cucs piped in, “the garlic and white wine mussels at John Brown’s Grille are to die for!” We took that advice and the map said, “Thanks!” and continued on.
Because of the pending rain, and the fact that all the warm showers hosts near C-town were busy or not available, and there were no convenient campgrounds, we opted for the Royal Maples Motel & Cottages. Check-in wasn’t until 2, and the rain was supposed to start around 2:30, so we rode into downtown, and found Timothy’s Cafe. We rode around town and eventually crossed the bridge over the harbour which was a navigation error, but a very scenic one.
The bridge and the area had a lot of traffic, jammed up because of construction, so we backtracked and got on another of the many trails in the area and rode through the suburbs and eventually back to the cottages. We checked in at 1:56 and had just gotten the bikes inside before the rain started. Dana had gone for wine, so we toasted our luck and used the time to plan our evening, contact our warm showers host for the next night up in Darnley, and get a little rest.
We decided to take an Uber into town, but quickly learned that PEI has it’s own version of Uber named “Kari.” Other than having to load another app, it worked well and we were left off just a half block from John Brown’s. The mussels were indeed good, and we washed them down with beer and wine, settled our bill and went out to explore the city since the rain had passed and some blue broke through the clouds.
We walked the Victorian era streets of Charlottetown and stopped at an Irish pub for another round before heading home. We walked from downtown to a grocery store to restock our food supplies and took another Kari back to the motel where we had a good rest to prep for the next leg to Darnley.
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