We Made It to Prince Edward Island!

We made it to Prince Edward Island! This was one of our goals for this trip, and we did it. We arrived Saturday afternoon to the KOA at Borden, which is right off the bridge onto the island. But before we tell you about PEI, we should tell you about our two Harvest Host nights beforehand.

Thursday night we stayed at the Vignoble Domaine L’Ange Gardien winery outside Quebec City, where we could see the St. Laurence River. After traveling 260 miles, we had a lovely wine tasting, and were able to walk the vineyard and apple orchard.

I loved this tree that stood beside their wine tasting porch. Its flowers changed from white to pink the further each branch extended.

Then we said good bye to Quebec and traveled 350 miles into New Brunswick on Friday. We stayed at the Big Axe Brewery in Nackawic. We were one of ten RVs that arrived for the night. Thankfully their parking lot was so large we had no issues with space or quiet. Our parking area overlooked the St. John River, which is quite wide at that point. In the morning it had wisps of fog rising from it. We enjoyed their beer also, but their internet was down so we were restricted to the Canadian cash we had. (Slowed down our drinking which was probably a good thing.)

We left early on Saturday for the 230 mile drive onto Prince Edward Island. We got setup in our site, which was none too level, and discovered that our slideout on the trailer is totally broken. We’re now evaluating when and how to get it worked on. Darn! Canada and the US have some pretty rough roads. Even going slowly, the trailer gets knocked around.

To drown our woes, we decided to go out for dinner. Lobster had to be on the menu. How did we do?

Since we can live in the trailer with the slide not deployed, we figured Sunday would be a great triking day. We went from Borden-Carleton to Kensington on the Confederation Trail. This trail’s total length is 449 km or 279 miles. Round trip we logged about 45 miles. We were plenty tired and hungry when we returned. We used all four batteries on the ride, because the surface is crushed stone. Here are a few photos:

Yesterday we triked from Royalty Junction to Mt. Stewart, a total of 35 miles but with a nasty headwind all the way back. You’d think that wouldn’t be too much of a problem for recumbents, but it was so forceful and persistent, it tired us out. You should have seen the upright (upwrong?) cyclists struggling with it!

This area had several bogs. We learned that quaking aspens are one of the first species to take hold after logging or fire as they can tolerate a wide variety of adverse conditions including boggy peat soil. So, when aspens are logged from an area like this, they must be trucked away, as they don’t float on water — too much water in them. The other tree found in the bog is the tamarack, a deciduous conifer. This unusual tree thrives in marshy ground in symbiosis with certain fungi around their root system that help them replenish the nutrients lost when they shed their needles.  

These two churches drew our attention. The left one was rather new and Catholic, and the right one was much older and United Church.

We’ll post more news as it happens…

Camping Chutes aux Iroquios

 We traveled 109 miles from the Wilkridge Farm to arrive at Camping Chutes aux Iroquois. We booked four nights here so we could trike on the P’Tit Train du Nord trail which is over 200 km long, ie approximately 125 miles. 

The campground sits next to the river, and has a waterfall in it, and another one within viewing distance.

We got all set up on Sunday, so that we could ride on Monday. We got in a 40 mile bike ride, which made us decide that this trail could rank up in our top five favorite trails. There was lots of forest to enjoy, good paved surface, and very few people to navigate around. Check out our photos of the day:

Paula learned that there are tourist services that will cart your luggage from stop to stop on the trail. We figured this luggage was for one of the tours we saw.

Each rest area along the trail had this motif, that was decorated just a bit differently each time. Sometimes the rail just created a bench for people, other times it was more elaborate.

On Tuesday we had planned to ride, but the weather didn’t cooperate. It rained from 3:00AM through the evening hours. So we took a ride in the truck to check out the ski areas near by. We were hoping for tourist t-shirts or bike jerseys, but no luck. We did see this friend along the roadway though:

Overnight the sky cleared, so that we could ride today. We opted to go the other direction on the trail. The first 15 km were packed dirt, but with the rain to tamp down the dust, we had no problems. After the 15 km, we traveled on extremely smooth pavement in the forest and beside lakes. This section of the trail was more crowded with cyclists, but that was probably due to the wonderful trail conditions. It was great to see the families out with their small children. Most had pretty good bike handling skills. We also saw a mom who was rollerblading while pushing her baby stroller. Whew! Was she getting a workout!

Here’s some photos:

Tomorrow morning we head out to our next Harvest Host stop — a winery. The next day we say, “au revoir” to Quebec and overnight at a Harvest Host brewery in New Brunswick. Sunday we arrive at Prince Edward Island. More later…

Travel into Canada

We completed all our registration requirements for traveling into Canada three days ago. We traveled 210 miles from the Rambling Rose Studios to the KOA at Sault St. Marie.

At the border we didn’t have to show anything, beyond our passports, and answer a couple questions. We were surprised at how easy it was. Since we didn’t know how easy or difficult it would be, we opted for staying at a KOA that was very near the crossing point. We had stayed here on our trip four years ago with our Transit van. It was a very short visit then, as we had an issue with our van that we thought would be easier to deal with in the states. 

This time it was uneventful. We got to do some laundry, listened to the evening rain, and got ready to travel to our next Harvest Host stop. We were driving to South River Brewing, 501km away (311 miles).

We arrived to a very quiet town and brewery. We were the only Harvest Host guests for the night, so could park where we liked. Paula and I each enjoyed a flight of their beer selections over numerous Qwirkle games. After dinner we took a walk in the neighborhood before more rain came in.

Next we were on to the Forest Cove Alpacas which was only 140 miles away. We need to space out our driving to reach Camping Chutes aux Iroquois on Sunday, as that’s when we could get a four day stay with them.

We arrived before lunchtime, and got ourselves set up. The alpacas are sooooo cute. They had two babies, called crias. One (grey) was born yesterday, and the other one (white) last week. Other fun facts, the males and females are kept in separate pens. Alpacas are a herd animal that is domesticated to always eliminate in the same spot, which probably makes it easier on the humans who tend them.

Then we went off to see what was happening in the nearby towns since it was Canada Day, July 1. Unfortunately the threat of rain had driven all the festivities inside, so we did a little grocery shopping and headed back to the Alpaca Farm.

On Saturday we headed for the Wilkridge Farm, only 166 miles away. This is a fully automated dairy farm. More on that in a minute.

We arrived early enough to take a bike ride for a nice 20 mile loop. Check out the photos; they’re all taken from the phone mount on my trike. Not too bad, if you tilt your head just right.

Paula passing the tractor; thankfully the driver was quite polite!

Then it was back to the dairy farm for our personalized tour with owners Ken and Peggy. Ken showed us historic pictures of how the farm had changed over time. Next, he explained Canada’s supply-managed dairy market. Farmers are only allowed to produce up to a set amount. This prevents overproduction and resulting price drops. The farmer’s income is protected without the need for government subsidy. Interesting concept.

They automated the dairy operation five years ago when they thought they would be selling it to allow them to retire. Their two daughters and a son didn’t appear interested in the family business. Luckily their son completed his civil engineering degree and found the day to day work too monotonous. He worked the farm while his parents took a two week vacation, and decided he would carry on the family tradition. He will make the sixth generation who has run the farm! Amazing!

So the farm was different than any dairy operation I’d seen. The cows live in a barn that has rubber mat floors for them to walk on, pads to lie down on, automated waste removal and milking machines that they can queue up for every 3.5 hours. The barn is climate-controlled and actually feels air conditioned. We asked if their 80 head of cows went outside, and they said they used to give them a choice, but none chose to go outside. Also by having them inside, they can better monitor their health, and less issues seem to arise. The human work is monitoring the milk production, mixing their feed, and delivering it to them.

When the cow wants to be milked, it enters the milking stall. Once the doors close, the robotic arms with the milking cups attach to the cow’s teats using a 3D camera for positioning. The teats are washed, milking is done, and then the teats are coated with iodine. When the milking is complete, the cow is given a treat, and the doors open, allowing it to leave. There is a little training needed for cows who have not experienced this milking style, but once they’re trained, there is no more hands on needed. The  electronic tag in the cow’s ear allows each cow’s production to be monitored, as well as its health. If a cow shouldn’t be milked, the automation will not take its milk, and the gates open to encourage it to move on. A big change for dairy production; it eliminates the low paying and hard work of milking each cow by hand, or connecting each cow to an automatic milking device.

This morning we tried to do another trike ride, but we miscalculated where we wanted to start. We got a bit too far afield, and didn’t find a well surfaced trail. Check out this railroad bridge trail crossing:

It looks like they just picked up the rail, and never really surfaced the bridge for bicycles. It had ATV signs, so maybe this isn’t a big deal to them. It was to us, so we gave up. Darn.

We returned to the farm to get our trailer. Then we tackled the 109 miles to Camping Chutes aux Iroquois. The miles weren’t far, but the roads and traffic were terrible. Too many people completing their Canada Day weekend made the roads clogged. Some were rather narrow also, which always makes me nervous. It requires even more concentration when pulling the trailer.

We made it. We’ll be here for four days, exploring le P’tit Train du Nord bike trails in this area. Can’t wait!