Friday October 20th
Heather had friends, who had also been friends of my Mum’s, and they were keen to see me. They were living in Montague, and so Crystal and I set off to visit them in the morning.
It was a beautiful sunny day, and we returned to Caledonia and picked up Caroline, to go and visit some autumn foliage. There was what was called a heritage trail not far from there, a dirt lane with trees lined thickly on each side, bursting with colour. We went in my hired car as Crystal’s had some issue with the fan for the car heater.
We started about half past twelve, and it took us an hour and a half to travel the few kilometres of road, because we kept stopping and taking photos all the time! There were a couple of small lakes too, which added to the beauty. Mum had had a poster of a dirt road in Prince Edward Island with these colours, and I wondered if it had been taken from here.
The road finished in what looked like a tunnel exit made out of trees. There was a small lake at the end, where we enjoyed the reflections of the trees, and then kept going to some blueberry fields which Crystal wanted to show me.
The blueberry plants all turn to autumn colours as well, making for a beautiful sight. We got to a big expanse of them – they were very low growing, and some parts were starting to go red, and others not so much yet. It was a lovely sight with the stretch covered with different colours, then autumn trees in the background.
We returned to Caledonia for a late lunch, and about five, Crystal and I visited King’s Castle Provincial Park, where Crystal knew of some more red beaches. This was only about 10km from Caledonia, and was on an inlet which looked like a lake. It had a park in front of the beach, which had quite a few painted life-size or larger than life models of animals and people from fairy tales, like the goose that laid the golden egg, the three bears, the Wizard of Oz and the three little pigs. There was also a little lighthouse model, and a huge pumpkin with holes where you could poke your head out, and Crystal and I took turns photographing each other.
The beach was indeed pretty red, more red than I’d remembered seeing anywhere else. It was quite placid, like a lake. It was a little distance from the ocean, and I think it was protected from the sea by a string of islands. It was sunny, towards the end of the day, and the spot was picturesque with forest growing right down to the sandy clay.
Not far from there, on the south-facing coast, was another beach that Crystal knew about, with red rocks and sand, and a ladder going down to it. We drove there, seeing replacement of power poles along the way. They had moved the existing power poles, and wires, so that they were at an angle, and put new power poles in straight, prior to moving the wires across. It looked very strange!
We found the beach, which was at the end of a road, and then a little track leading down to the edge. We weren’t able to go down the ladder to the little cove, because someone was working on something there, and using the ladder. But it was still pretty standing on the top looking at the last light shining on the red cliffs, with the rocks beneath. We had a chat with the man working there, it seemed he and Crystal knew some of the same people – this is PEI after all, where lots of people seem to know lots of other people!
We finished up by going a little further along to Northumberland Provincial Park again, near where the ferries came and went, and a bit after six we walked along the beach as it was starting to get dark. We saw a ferry coming in, lit up, and little solar lights someone had put on the path down to the beach were pretty as the light faded. Across the water were some lights in the far distance, and we were trying to work out if they were on the Nova Scotia coast, or boats in between. Some of them disappeared when the ferry went by, so it seemed like they were boats. It was a lovely peaceful finish to my tours of PEI.
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