Sand, Sea and Rock!

PEI beaches, as good as any in the world!

Prince Edward Island is nothing more than a large sand bar really. Sitting out in the bottom portion of the Gulf of St Lawrence, the Northumberland Strait separating us from the mainland. Spanning

not a whole lot more than 200 miles as the seagull flies, the only 'rock' you find is sandstone, composed of, you guessed it, sand.

By its very nature PEI has some fabulous beaches and let me tell you, having been to some doozies over my life, I'm not stretching the truth.  In fact PEI beaches with their fine sand rival Baja beaches, except of course for the language barrier, the isolation, the Mountain ranges, the plethora of fine fishing, the step back in time, the Baja Mille and the cheap palapa's and beer!

I would be leaving the Island and spending some time on the mainland house sitting for newly transplanted Lisa, Rick and little William, whom I affectionately call, 'Prince William.'

They would be leaving on a Western Canadian trip and I'd volunteered to look after the furry creatures.  Of course this meant I had a week to ride one of my bikes on daily trips to points north and south with some east and west thrown in for good measure.

Downtown Hampton

During my previous life living on the coast, I hadn't had much time to explore what with running three MC shops!  I am determined to make up for that now that I am transplanted (again) and retired.

Life sized lobster!

Don't get me wrong, being retired means I have no income from a job but also am still short of time!

I would be riding my Suzuki V Strom 650 for several reasons.  One it has a very good detachable luggage system consisting of the two hard side bags and the huge rack mounted trunk.  It also has longer travel suspension that the typical street bike and especially "cruiser", a six speed gearbox suitable for virtually anything other than trail riding and I wouldn't be doing any of that, plus a 22 L fuel tank, giving me over 500 km of range.

High tide at Hopewell Rocks surrounded by chocolate syrup.

I mounted the GPS unit inside the windshield and although it is too predictable for accuracy, wanting to take me always to the 'highway' I could fool it sometimes by plotting the nearest town.  This of course is tedious as there are towns every dozen miles it seems, and besides... it dilutes the adventure portion of the trip, not knowing where you are actually going to be in an hour or three.

So with bags packed, I headed to Moncton after a stop at Cape Jourimain  for a NB map.

From Moncton I began taking the back roads and added time not necessarily distance to my ride.

The Swiss Army Knife of MC's

I left mid morning and arrived at their home right around 6 pm that evening.  They left early the next morning and once up and about, I began plotting where I may go during the week.  I had arrived via highway 100 by a circuitous route traversing small towns like Petticodiac, Sussex Norton and Hampton and Quispamsis.

I especially wanted to get down to the Fundy coast, riding the little three digit back roads.  I wanted to take photos of Fundy, find as many covered bridges as I could, ride solid gravel roads (we have clay roads on the Island but NB as the rest of the East Coast, is old Appalachian country where hills are gravel) and take advantage of the many ferry's that span the various arms of the ST John river system.  I wanted to eat at little out of the way restaurants, read road side tourist information boards and wave at passing motorcyclists!

The weather forecast was for hot and sunny days on end and for once, by George, the weatherman/woman was right.  Mid to high twenties and sunny days.

Should have bought a lottery ticket!