It was time to hit the road again! It was sad to leave the cottage because we had such a great time! But, as is the nature of this trip, we continually have to leave places before we're ready to see the next cool thing!
We had a late start because Michael was hard to wake up, and had to shower and fix his bike (he had a broken spoke). The conditions looked ideal, where it seems as though we would have a tail wind our entire cycle (we started off the day with a cross-tail, which was still pretty good!). Yvon made us a wicked breakfast of peameal bacon, eggs, and toast! It was so good and a great dietary start to our day (and to Agnes' day, who will be doing her first big day with us, as her first day was only about 50km).
Finally, we were ready to hit the road at 9:30! The winds were ideal, and the sun was shining! It was a big day (not kilometre wise) because we were cycling through 3 provinces in one day! We cycled from the cottage in Nova Scotia, into New Brunswick, then finished New Brunswick for good, and cycled into Prince Edward Island!
We arrived at the shuttle (as we aren't allowed to cycle on the Confederation Bridge) at the perfect time! It was there, loaded up with bikes, with four more spots available! We loaded our bikes and headed across the wicked bridge (it's a pretty bad-ass bridge!). On the shuttle, Michael and Agnes met a guy James (who I met after we got off the shuttle) who was cycling across Canada alone (his friend stopped a while back). He was an engineer who graduated from Queens and who is now in Law school. Michael asked if he wanted to join us for lunch, and he did. He was so annoying (Agnes and I thought so, Michael didn't mind him. That's the problem. Michael is around too many engineers these days that he is no longer able to pick out the annoying ones!). He was socially awkward and kind of weird, but the biggest problem was he was clingy and asked if he could join on for our trip (he initially was doing a different route through P.E.I., so we thought we were safe, but I guess he decided to abort his plans and just join on to ours). We were all awkward with an "I guess" reply. The thing is, I feel bad for saying no because it's mean, but it's our trip and we don't want to not enjoy ourselves for the sake of someone else, doing their own independent trip, who we don't know, and really don't like. So it was kind of awkward, and when we took off (after lunch and some ice cream, of course), he didn't keep up (we're not sure if it's because he's much slower, or because he got the hint we didn't really want him along and so held back), and so we continued our trip.
There was no direct road straight to Cavendish, so we zig zagged up different roads, changing our direction from North to East to West and back again continually. The good thing with this system was that it all seemed to go by really quickly, as we were never on one road for longer than 10km or so! And for the most part we had a tail wind (or at worst, a cross). It was good it was a quick ride as we lingered a little too long at lunch.
Our first stop after hitting the road in P.E.I. was at the Anne of Green Gables house (which was free with our parks pass!!). We got there JUST as it was closing, so we only got to QUICKLY run through the actual house, but we got to walk around the grounds quite a bit! It was really pretty, and really well-kept grounds! It was cool to see the place that inspired the books (which are wicked! I really liked them when I was younger).
From the house, we cycled into P.E.I. National Park. It was a really pretty ride, which followed the water, with its red sand/rock beaches. It was so colourful (with the bright blue sky, the dark blue ocean, the bright green grass, and the red shore). It was so pretty that we decided to set up camp early and found a really nice spot overlooking the ocean! It was a bit tough to get to, and we had to wheel our bikes through some rough, thorny bushes, but it was worth it! Agnes went for a swim, but Michael and I couldn't be bothered (you had to descend a small sand cliff, which was really dirty, and I didn't want to get stuff in my cut (which kept opening up), and it was windy and a bit cold). Agnes said the water was gorgeous! But we'll go in next time!