Island Adventures

Amazing, and incredibly long, day today.   Combine that with the fact that I haven’t really slept in days so am somewhat incoherent and definitely incapable of writing concise prose, and imagine how long this blog post might be as a result.  Consider yourself forewarned.

So we started off in the historic part of Charlottetown, which I absolutely loved.  Couldn’t get past the colours of the houses (most of which have plaques with who lived there way back when...) - just stunning, esp with the sun hitting it just right.  Got some amazing photos that someday will get shared.  Today is not that day.  

So we started the day with a scavenger hunt. This was SO much fun.  It gave us a picture of what we were looking for, some info, and the general direction.  Then when we found it, would ask some questions about it that could be answered by looking at the object in question (eg no trivia knowledge required), give us some more info, then send us on the way to the next one.  Occasionally with random challenges like “take a photo of X”. 

So one of my favourite examples - find hotel X, with pic of building.  Okay great.  Once there it asked about the two troublemakers sitting - and sure enough a fun statue.  First was what was interesting about their names; well the informational plaque said they had the same name.  Okay.   So then it said, there’s a party - what time is it and who’s not invited.   Lol so the plaque said who wasn’t invited, but no sign of what time the party started. Mum found that part carved on a slip of paper one of the characters was holding (as part of the statue).   Very creative.

A friend from uni lives not far from Charlottetown so he, his wife, and their very smiley little person were going to meet us for coffee.  Well our scavenger hunt took us right past the coffee shop we were going to meet at about 10 mins before we were going to meet.  Fairly ideal really.   Had a really nice coffee break and catch up chat at Receiver Coffee and then continued on the quest.  There was one building closed for renos but somehow we managed to get the right answer with a “best guess”.  And at least once I asked a random stranger to point us in the right direction.   But all in, tons of fun and just about the right length (it tells you what percentage complete after each one).  Lol in the end we finished with about 15000 points and a new high score!   Now to be fair, I’m not sure how many people have done this one but hey - still good :)

Afterwards we wandered around the touristy area for a while (I got my trip picture frame - those who know will be pleased to hear ;) and then was off to the land of the green gables.

This was a gorgeous drive!  Some really stunning homes and farms.  At one point I commented “Wow that’s gorgeous.  It kinda reminds me of what the views were like in Scotland.” Then not 10 seconds later we drove by a sign for New Glasgow.  Lol guess I wasn’t the only one who thought that!

Anne of Green Gables House itself was as you’d expect - little early 1900s farm house with ALL the floral prints (walls, ceiling, everything) lol. But what they’ve also done is created some really nice walking trails through the areas described in the books so those were great to hike along.   There was of course also the obligatory gift shop, which we browsed but didn’t feel the need to bring anything home with us.   Also lots of photos/historical details/etc to help tell the story - along the trails, in the barn, and in an information centre they’ve built between the parking area and the house.  So all kinds of info if you wanted it :).  We skipped the info centre as it was busy but read most of the rest...

We followed this with a trip to the nearby Cavendish Beach.  This was...  disappointing.   A nice enough beach for sure, but not really the famed “red sand”.  The dunes were stunning and I was overly fascinated w them lol.  There was a moderately interesting looking hike, but it didn’t seem to overlook the beach and we didn’t have time (or tbh inclination) to do the whole thing so we skipped it.  Also everything surrounding the beach was unbelievably touristy and *packed*!  I honestly didn’t think there were that many people on the whole island, not to mention all in one place.

However, since we shorted that, we had some extra daylight left, so we took one of the suggestions from coffee friends and took the scenic route home (which again was stunning) and through Victoria.  This was the most random experience.  A tiny little town with very little in it - pretty but really nothing there, that had a ton of people for no apparent reason.  Lol we poked around some shops, went for a bit of a walk, and had some ice cream.  I also had fun playing with my camera for a bit.  All good.

Eventually drove ourselves back to the city part of Charlottetown (historic part is cool old buildings, waterfront, no chain stores, etc - we even saw a market there today; the rest is a very typical modern city with everything you’d expect) - had a nice dinner and now just sorting out tomorrow’s adventure.

I really loved it here.  Also - extremely jealous of real estate prices.  But pretty sure they don’t get amazon prime ;).  Lol and if the do don’t disabuse me of that notion as it’s keeping me balanced right now.

Seriously though - was an absolutely amazing day.  Still smiling :)