Today’s ride has two segments, interrupted in the middle by a ferry ride from Caribou to Wood Islanda on Prince Edward Island. Once on island we follow the southern coast westerly to begin an anticlockwise circumnavigation.
As we wandered around Tatamagouch yesterday we happened across a gallery called The Ice House. We popped in and ended up talking to the guy who runs it for about an hour. I've never been big on galleries but there were photographs rural Russians by Halifax photographer Anne Lancelott that absolutely caught my imagination. The Ice House gallery website it here: https://www.theicehousegallery.com/past/sightlines and the one photo that completely gobsmacked me is called Bus Stop Rybinsk; scroll down and you will see it. The tiny photo on the website does not do the print justice, but it is just striking.
We've been watching the weather closely because there is some rain and more wind on the way. The ferry landing at Caribou is about 65 km from our Caboose at Tatamagouch, and the ferry departs at 1115. We can usually make it 65 km in plenty of time, but if the wind is on our nose it could be touch. The weather pages said that the wind would be at our back from about 0700 to 0930, then miraculously back 180 degrees and be on our nose.
So we left kind of early, just ahead of 0700. It was mild and the wind was at our back and we had a great ride on very quiet roads. We were at the ferry landing over an hour early.
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| An early start on a beautiful morning |
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| With the wind at our backs! |
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| Lashing the bike down in the ferry |
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| The bow of the ferry opens its maw to let us in and out |
But the weather predictions were right: the rain came in buckets and the wind raged. But we were safely tucked into a waiting area and got little of it.
The ferry ride took about 75 minutes and it was so rainy and windy that we couldn't really see much. Too bad, because I'm sure it is very pretty. We did buy a couple of sandwiches on the ferry because there is nothing open on PEI (Prince Edward Island) on this Holiday (Victoria Day). Finding food and stores that are open has been a bit of a chore. Very few restaurants are open yet because the tourism season doesn't really open until mid to late June. There are groceries in the bigger towns, but we've only been to one town that could be described as "bigger" (Antigonish). So we are creative with what we eat.
Once on PEI we stopped in a bus kiosk and put on all of our rain gear. It was still raining pretty hard and we were nice and warm in our rain kits. We rode about 15 km to the only vineyard / winery on PEI, Rossignol Winery (I of course asked Mr. Rossignol of he skis. He laughed and said that only skiers ask him that, but the answer is no). We were pleased to find it open today. We were the only visitors (no surprise there...) and we had a delightful time chatting with the owner and tasting his wines. He planted the vines 26 years ago and chose varieties that were suited to the cool climate here. The wines were super nice, albeit different from the "bigs" that we are used to (cabernet, pinot noir, tempranillo, etc.). Sometimes the wines made from these little-used grape varieties and just wonderful. We bought two bottles. I'm not sure where we are going to put them, as we are loaded to the top. We didn't buy a small bottle of the cassis, but I would have liked to because it was awesome.
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| Looking south toward the Northumberland Strait and Nova Scotia |
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| The Rossignol Vinyard |
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| Tasting wine while secretly warming up and drying off. |
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| At the winery |
From the winery we road to the BnB where we are staying. It is a cool place right on the edge of the Northumberland Strait, looking south toward Nova Scotia. The clouds have risen a bit and the view is amazing. PEI is a gorgeous place and we're looking forward to exploring it. Tomorrow we ride in an anticlockwise direction along the coastline. As I am writing this blog post the clouds have parted and the sun has taken over. Wow! We're looking forward to a sunny ride.
