On Red Mud Island

The oldest bank in PEI.

















The Barachois Inn. Our room is on the top floor.















The catholic church accross from the inn

Arriving at Wood Island PEI. Looks like a biker, not a sailor.

I took the ferry from Caribou to Wood Island at 11:15 yesterday and then spent the better part of the sfternoon riding around the northeastern part of PEI and then making my way to the Barachois Inn in North Rustico where I will sleep for next three nights. On the ferry I introduced myself to two very nice Québec bikers, Guillaume and Sylvie, that I had spoken to at my Forteress of Louisbourg stop. The skies were overcast all day and when I was riding back to the inn from a seafood dinner at the relatively new Lobster House in Charlottetown the rain started and continued on and off for the next 24 hours.

Jane and I had decided that given the weather forecast we would rent a car at the Charlottetown airport. As it turns out this was a good idea since the skies really opened up shortly after we returned from picking her up at the airport and having a lunch of oysters and mussels, followed by Cows ice cream cones. Having a small car meant that we were not stuck in the inn, as nice as it is, for the rest of the afternoon and evening. And it did rain; torrents of red water washed accross the roads at places and red dirt roads quicklly became red mud paths, no places for a motorcycle, particularly a BMW touring bike loaded with two passengers and their gear. We drove around, happily catching up on what had happened in our lives over the last three weeks, much of which we had, thanks to technology, already been able to share by phone or email already.

We had a lovely, but not overwhelmingly good, dinner at The Pearl, a restaurant just outside of Rustico that won the best of PEI award for 2010.

Today we are planning to tour a small museum a few meters from the inn that is set up in the first farmers bank established on PEI, here in North Rustico, that some claim is the birthplace of the coop movement. Then it's off to visit Jeff and Laurie, their children Annie and Gavin, and Laurie's parents Art and Shirley who have a lovely summer home overlooking the water about a kilometre from the inn.