Charlottetown, PEI
Trip Start
Jul 05, 2008
1
3
25
Trip End
Aug 17, 2008
Charlottetown,
Prince Edward Island,
Canada
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Sunday 13/7/08 - Tuesday 15/7/08
An interesting journey from Calgary-Toronto-Charlottetown - we had right engine fuel troubles over Ontario, and so the pilot had to make an unscheduled landing in Winnipeg! The engineers on the ground couldn't find the problem within the first half-hour, so AirCanada took us into the terminal and tried to fit us on their existing flights. When they discovered they had 37 people with connections, they got a little Dash aeroplane to take us the rest of the way. However, the break and the much slower speed of this aircraft meant that I missed my connection!
They got me onto a later flight and so I finally arrived in Charlottetown about 11pm local time. My luggage didn't (heaven knows which of the four airports it went to), but luckily arrived next morning
Breakfast @ Charlottetown, PEI
! This was the part of the trip I had been dreading; and hoping to 'wing' at the same time. I had - rather stupidly - considered but decided against taking my drivers licence because I thought I'd lose it. However, I'd forgotten that you need a drivers licence to rent a car - which I was doing in PEI! My brother Andrew was a total star and sent it express from Australia, which was meant to arrive 2-4 days after he posted it (Thursday afternoon Canada-time). Unfortunately, Canadian Customs took a liking to my little parcel and kept it there for a few more days. Which meant I didn't physically have a licence on me on Sunday night!
But my luck suddenly changed (it must have clocked midnight), as the rental car company accepted plan B that Mum and Andrew concocted: a copy of my licence. So now I am proud to have driven a left-hand-drive car - and on the RIGHT HAND SIDE of the road!! It's a Chrysler PT Cruiser, auto, grey, nice little thing (and only 6000-odd miles on the odometer).
Prince Edward Island is lovely... today didn't really show it off to best advantage as it was overcast and the little bit of rain made it a bit humid
One of the Charlottetown piers @ PEI
. However, the people are warm (the lady next to me on the plane gave me her phone number just in case - isn't that lovely?) and the fulfillment of my dream to visit here is just delicious.Speaking of delicious, Island strawberries are in season here, so for breakfast I had a massive punnet of them (I couldn't eat them all) - for $2.99 (Canadian dollars, which are close to parity with Australian dollars)
Charlottetown is also the 'birthplace of Canadian Confederation', with its shipbuilding industry from 1820s to 1870s making it a province with much more clout than it has now. Even having said that, the contributions that this particular meeting of founding fathers made to Confederation was
a) it was the first meeting; and
b) they agreed to meet a month later in Ottawa.
Oh, and they had a ball. Everyone had a great time, apparently - it was like the "courtship" stage of the provinces considering national unity.
I went to see "Anne of Green Gables - the Musical" at the Confederation Centre of the Arts
Unscheduled stop in Winnipeg
. Absolutely fantastic, sympathetic to the original storyline but perhaps a little overacted (which I guess comes with the 'Musical' part). Afterwards I went to have dinner (a PEI-beef cheeseburger) afterwards in Victoria Row, where the waitress correctly picked my accent and gave me some recommendations on good beaches to go!Tomorrow I'll go to the museum where some of Lucy Maud Montgomery's manuscripts are displayed, then I will meander North to Cavendish (aka Avonlea, for the Anne of Green Gables fans playing along at home).
More soon...
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