K & L's Travel Blog

We started our day with fresh scrambled eggs followed by a farm tour. Joyce explained how their family split the chores. They have one son who loves mowing, and keeps the entire place immaculate. Another boy tends the bull (“Miss Fergie”), while the other takes care of the three (nameless) pigs. The daughter is in charge of the chickens and hens. Tyson (the father) told me that he still uses the horse-drawn tiller (made in Charlottetown) to work the fields, though his primary business is fencing. They use a wood-burning furnace to heat their water and home and go through 9-10 cords of wood annually. The intensity of their labor reminds me of the TV series on Edwardian farming.

We start our exploration of the PEI National Park with Brackley’s Beach and Robinson’s Island. As has been our experience, these places are largely deserted. The long stretches of sand remind us of Ocracoke, our favorite NC spot, only these spaces are much more expansive. All the facilities here are immaculately kept, there’s ample signage and the trails are well-marked.

The trees still show signs of damage from Hurricane Dorian with lots of evergreens down. The woods are still lovely: filled with birdsong and with wildflowers and expansive stands of lupine.

We bought parking passes to get access to the parabolic dunes at the Greenwich Interpretive Center. A system of floating boardwalks stretches across the water through this otherworldly landscape. Redwing Blackbirds guard territories on either side of the walkways. We’d been dodging a seventh-grade school trip through our morning, but caught up with them on the boardwalks. We sat and let them exit past us, alternately full of enthusiasm and/or annoyed with their shoes of sand from the beach. The teachers look exhausted. When they leave, we once again have the place almost entirely to ourselves.

We meet one couple from Washington state. The woman is a kindergarten teacher and spoke of how terrible these past two years have been on her given family losses from COVID and the stresses of her job. She and her husband are avid travelers, and we speak of the choice to return to familiar places or try out new ones. They are all about newness.

We get home for a late lunch at the cottage about 3:00. Once again, we’ve walked ourselves silly. I nap through the late afternoon. The weather has turned cooler and rainy, but we are cozy and dry.