Spain and Beyond

Biking Day 5:
32.42 mi., 1204 ft. ascent, 5 hrs. 4 min.
Daily Drena: Homemade deliciousness

This morning’s breakfast was, again, pancakes … I wonder why the Canadians like their pancakes so much. It was very filling this time, however, as there was a fruit bowl of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, two large fluffy pancakes with real syrup, half a grilled peach, and three sausage links. They even had little brown bags with fruit and muffins to go. Excellent hosts.

We started off the day by heading up to St. Peter’s Harbour proper, which is where the old harbour used to be but the dunes inexorably took over year after year. The old lighthouse had just been excavated recently as the dunes had almost completely buried it in sand and they are finishing up renovations so visitors can walk inside up to the top. The beach here, Plover Beach, was amazing, as it was soft sand for as far as the eye can see and, even better, only two other people on the whole stretch. The old pier pilings made for great photos as well, down at the bend of the river inlet.

As we left the beach and got back on the bikes, I wanted one last photo as we were heading off, but promptly pitched off the side of my back as my right cleat wouldn’t release. After some tugging, I managed to dislodge it and noticed that I was missing one of my two cleat screws. Uh oh – I didn’t pack any extras … After a lengthy look along the trail we just came from with no luck in finding it, we decided to head back onto the Confederation Trail and make a quick little stop in Morell to see if we couldn’t find one somewhere. We were lucky enough in that they had a bike rental stand, but of course, they didn’t have any. He mentioned that the next town over had a larger bike rental shop so we got back on the bikes and kept on pedaling.

Now, we had mentioned before that the Confederation Trail was extremely boring as it was just a trail surrounded by trees. Finally, we had interesting views along the trail as we pedaled along from Morell to St. Peter’s Bay. This part of the trail is the only really interesting and beautiful part as it meanders along the shoreline of the bay the entire way. Wide open vistas with farmland on the right and waterside on the left – this is what we were expecting! Arriving in the town of St. Peter’s Bay, we stopped at the Black & White Cafe and Bakery for a bite to eat. At this point, my shoe wouldn’t even come off the pedal, so I simply went triathlon style and left it on the bike and walked around in a flip flop instead. After some struggles getting back on the bike (it’s really hard getting your shoe on with 30 pounds of panniers on the back of a bike…), we biked up the street and found the bike rental shop. Alas, no luck there either. They mentioned that the nearest bike shop was in Charlottetown (the main city), but there was a hardware store in Souris, which we were planning on visiting tomorrow. So, roll up some duct tape into a cylindrical form, stuff it through the cleat and shoe holes, then duct tape over it and voila, something that at least holds the cleat mostly in position such that I can at least get my shoe off the bike and dismount. We’ll see if we have any luck at the hardware store tomorrow (I doubt it). For an island with a bike trail across the length of it, you’d figure they would at least have more than one proper bike store on the island …

Back on the road again, our next stop was Naufrage, a quiet old fishing village with a nice little beach. We stopped and ate some of our snacks that we’ve been lugging around the whole ride while enjoying the ocean breeze.

Another 7.5 miles on the road and we were at our final destination for the day, “Hermanville”, a.k.a. a glorified intersection of two roads, according to locals. We jumped off the main road onto a dirt lane and went a little less than a mile down to the cliff’s edge, where the Johnson Shore Inn stood majestically over the waters. As there weren’t many guests, the hosts, Mell and Dave, upgraded us to a second floor east facing room with an amazing view. After some rest and recuperation we headed off for a walk down the cliff line to visit a beach about 15 minutes walk away. But, promptly turned around barely after we made it out of their yard as we had forgotten the sage advice of Mell of dousing yourself in bug spray, then dousing yourself again. Dave’s pets, as he jokingly refers to them, a.k.a. merciless little black flies, take chunks of you when they bite that itch for days. We were covered in lumps and our hands were bloody from smashing the little critters by the time we made it back in the house. After a liberal dosing of the stuff, we headed out again. It was better, but the bugs were still an annoying inconvenience to an otherwise beautiful walk. Jonesy, the inn’s dog, came along as well as he escorts all the guests on walks about the area.

We headed back for a dinner home cooked by Mell and found we were the only folks eating that evening, so had the place to ourselves. It was a delicious three course meal, all homemade, of a bountiful salad with sourdough bread, followed by meatballs and noodles, and finishing up with strawberries over vanilla ice cream. Yum! Sunset was next on the list as it dipped into the ocean and Lorena suffered more black flies for the beautiful pictures you see.