Biking the Confederation Trail on PEI

Wow!  Our first day on Prince Edward Island!  The weather reached a balmy 69F this afternoon - a record for our trip so far.  Because it was due to be windy, we decided to start with a bike ride.

Our campground manager strongly recommended that we bicycle a section of the Confederation Trail, which is a rails-to-trails path that crosses PEI from northwest tip to northeast tip.  Not coincidentally, the Confederation Trail also is the PEI section of the International Appalachian Trail, so we would be getting a twofer:  a chance to BICYCLE the International Appalachian Trail.  On top of that, our campground host said that this is by far the most scenic section of the trail on PEI.  Done deal.

Off we drove from our campground in Cornwall toward the little town of Morell on the north shore of PEI.  It was about noon, so we decided to start with lunch at a nearby lighthouse, the St. Peter's Harbour Lighthouse.  The lighthouse is said to be the oldest lighthouse on Prince Edward Island.  The station was established in 1865 and the lighthouse itself was built in 1881. It has been inactive since spring 2008.  We weren't sure what we would find, but we were up for an adventure.

And an adventure it was.  Our last couple miles involved a sandy road drive out to a point near Morell:

As we approached the shoreline, we spotted the lighthouse, across an estuary:

We parked in a postage-stamp-sized, sandy parking lot and and started climbing some large dunes toward the light:

Beyond the light, the Gulf of St. Lawrence spread out like a bright blue blanket beyond soft, orange sand:

We found a suitable spot on the sand and ate our sandwiches, talking about all the unexpected features of PEI:  the colorfulness of the island (red soil, yellow dandelions everywhere, neon green grass, brilliant blue sky, benign white clouds), the large expanses of soft sandy beaches, the Scotland-like moors, the beautiful farms everywhere.

But it was time to move on, so we drove into Morell to start our 24 km bike ride:

A beautiful green country lane spread out before us as we started our ride:

But there were many surprises.  Look at the textures and colors of this cove of St. Peters Bay:

The path crosses four rivers between Morell and our destination, St. Peters.  The first river, the Morell River, boasted these oyster fishermen, plucking their shellfish up with long poles and offering commentary to Kathy on their activity:

The bridge itself is built on the pilings of the original railroad bridge, which had been a turnstile bridge, and the original pilings and some of the mechanism are still visible under the west end of the bridge, which Kathy is examining in this photo:

Onward our path led, along the shore of the bay:

The second river we crossed was the Midgell River, which offered wild, scenic beauty:

After each river, we pedalled out of the cove created by the river, to a point, and then back into the next cove and crossed the next river.  In general, the railroad whose bed was the site of the trail had laid its tracks across PEI to avoid the expense of crossing rivers, but for some unrecorded reason, the founders chose to lay their tracks in this section across three rivers.   This photo looks out to the point from the Marie River, the third of our rivers:

Eventually, the pretty little church on the hill over St. Peters introduced itself to us:

Our fourth river!  St. Peters River empties into St. Peters Bay at St. Peters (is that redundant?).  This view up the river shows a pedestrian boardwalk and bridge that gave us a beautiful view of the river and the village:

As in Morell, St. Peters has converted the original railroad station into a tourist information agency as well as the point of access for the Confederation Trail in this community.  This was the far point of our ride.  Below, Kathy has dismounted and is preparing to enter the old station to get more information on the area in anticipation of the next several days of touring Prince Edward Island.

That's about it for this section of the Confederation Trail, which is said to be the most beautiful section.  After a stretch of the legs and a rest, we hopped back on our bikes and peddled that 12 km back to our Jeep in Morell.  By the time we got home, we were tired, hungry and thirsty!