After the lovely spot by the sail museum we’re excited to head to Joggins, one of the best fossil records in the world and particularly for the “coal age” Carboniferous period. We’re lucky it’s open and there’s a tour going so we potter round the lovely museum and wait to get down to the beach.
Joggins is famous for discovering fossil creatures in hollow logs, huge fossil trees and one of the first amphibians to walk (also molluscs, land snails, spiders and scorpionids, flying insects, millipedes, amphibian tetrapods and the earliest known reptiles).
Waylon the guide has an autistic son and is immediately lovely and kind to Alex who immediately finds a giant piece of stigmaria tree root on the beach and some cordaites leaves.
It’s a bit different to home where access to the cliffs is controlled via the museum and it’s illegal to take anything from the site. We see more trails of creatures and huge pieces of fossilised tree. We take some bits and pieces back for Waylon to help identify and he is so kind he actually goes home to get a piece of stigmaria from his personal collection to give to Alex as he’s not allowed to take anything home he found!
It’s then time to head to leave Nova Scotia (which we’ve loved) and head to Prince Edward Island, a province it’s own right. The massive confederation bridge to get there is incredible the 12.9 kilometre (8 mile) long bridge is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water, and continues to endure as one of Canada's top engineering achievements of the 20th century.
After a long drive we arrive at the eastward point to stay with another boondocker host - but he’s nowhere to be found! We settle in guy cooks some of his amazing homemade pizzas and Alex and I walk to the dunes not far away. This is a gorgeous place with red sand beach and dunes reminiscent of home.
Mac and his wife arrive home after playing “pickle ball” we learn is the usa’s fastest growing sport a bit like tennis but more fun and have a lovely chat over a glass of wine. Mac has driven some of the pan am highway and sailed half way around the world - quite the adventurer!
We’re woken to the sound of fishing boats moving about and walk along the dunes to the little north lake harbour where there is a huge lobster and tuna industry. We find a little cafe where the chap who caught the worlds largest tuna used to live and pictures of his achievement adorn the walls. He caught a 1496lb tuna nearby in 1979 and the record still hasn’t been broken! After a stunning brekkie or eggs Benedict with lobster we head to the harbour to watch the fishing boats return.
We’re lucky to see some of the boats out catching lobster come back in. Chatting with the fisherman we learn that they are bringing on average 15-18 cases of lobster back each day (it’s the start of the season) and there are about 70lb of lobster in each and there’s 94 boats - that’s a lotta lobster!
We get taking to some of the ladies at the sea foods intermediary who are so kind to Alex and get a lobster out for him to hold and teach him how to identify the females. They are so lovely with Alex and when one of their boats comes in they let him watch and grab a huge 3lb lobster for him to hold - he loves it!
After a quick stop at the east point lighthouse and seeing the famed “singing sands” (the grains of which have a high silica and quartz content causing them to squeak or sing when they run over each other) we head to the opposite end of the little PEI island.
We just manage to arrive at moth lane brewery at the West Point of the island before closing time and sample some of the lush beers with great names - including our favourite “motor boater” we buy some of. Sadly there’s no food but we manage to find a Vietnamese (literally in the middle of no where and wholly unexpected) and have a nice dinner before we settle down to our first family movie of our trip and indulge in some of the nice choccies we bought on the Cabot trail. But one of them is Caramel - caramels and crowns don’t mix and one of Guy’s comes out!
We’d planned to cycle some of the confederation trail that spans PEI but now we need to find a dentist!
Luckily after a couple of stops and enquiries a dentist in summerside kindly fits Guy in and sorts out his tooth. We prepare for a massive bill but are pleasantly surprised when he’s charged $80 - £50!!
We also manage to sort out some of the chores like sourcing adblu and filling up our lpg.
Our next stop is shediac (proclaimed lobster capital of the world) where we pop on some laundry at a gas station and find an amazing little restaurant called seaside grazing and have the most delicious cheese fondue and seafood chowder with some yummy local magnetic hill winery rose. Alex is spoiled and has lobster ravioli which he loves and moves up to 2nd favourite food after toad in the hole on his list - high praise indeed!!
After picking up the laundry and managing to mysteriously lose 2 pillowcases (how??) we head to the magnetic hill winery (inspired by our taste at dinner) try a few wines including a blueberry one and bed down for the night amongst the vines.
Emma
Its like having a Geography, Paleontology and Socioligy lessons in every read, I look forward to the next one. but now I must eat as you`ve made me hungry. Its great to see Alex with a smile on his face, thanks for sharing and taking the time.
Great descriptions, really interesting. Thank you.