New Brunswick, PEI Summary

A few notes on the trip to Canada:

This is a good time to travel to this area. Around July 1 school ends in these areas. In NB it was the week before July 1. In PEI it was July 1. There are bugs as you would expect but during the day it was fine for the most part. In the woods, for example mountain biking at Kouchibuoguac, there were some mosquitos but you could stay ahead of them on the bikes for the most part. Temperatures were mostly high of 60 and low of 50 but we had 3 warm days where it went up to 80 with lows of 65. Similar weather to VT this time of year and long days with sunset at 9:00 or after.

PEI has a lot of bike paths. The 270KM Confederation trail with many bike trails going off this main route. Kouchibuoguac was very good also but much smaller so one day of riding there. Lots of hiking trail options in NB. PEI has the three sections of National Park but beyond that hiking is more limited. You can walk on the bike trails but not as interesting as NB ocean trails.

All places we stayed were very good except Parc Daigle Park:

Sunset Point RV, Lubec ME. Nice place on the ocean. Great location to access the town and the trails in the area.

Kouchibouguac. Don't go back to Parc Daigle Park. Buggy and too big and not well kept up. If we return to this area stay at the campground in the provincial park itself.

Shining Waters Cottages, central PEI. Nice clean small cottage. Kitchen with everything you need to cook. Very close to PEI National Park.

All Points East Campground, eastern PEI. Nice campground on water. Clean. Sites are RV sites so not as nice as typical tent sites but OK. May be busy later in the season?

Kiwanis Oceanfront camping, St Andrews NB. This is a good one. Tent sites are nice and great location.

A few highlight pictures:

St Andrews

 No rain today but fog all day and about 60 degrees. Nice for walking around but tough to see very far. St Andrews is a great walking town. We walked around town right from the campground. The highlight here was a tour of the court house and jail. Tough jail! Tiny rooms, tiny windows, narrow doors with foot high stumble blocks at the bottom. The tour guide was a young man from the archive society. Charlotte County Archives Courthouse and Jail (1842). Very good talk on the jail and the court room.

Then off to Kingsbrae Gardens. This is a little overwhelming! All kinds of perennials, trees, grasses, sculptures. All outside on a very well done trail system. The founder lives in a house next door and next to that is another impressive building that is used by an art in residence program. 

More town touring at the end of the day.

Court house and jail:

Kingsbrae Gardens:

Back to town:

Ministers Island. The road is under water except for a few hours on either side of low tide. Surprising the road can work in these conditions! The island has walking trails and a mansion to check out. We didn't go as we didn't have enough time. Another day perhaps.