Cycling PEI’s Confederation Trail - Part 1
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One of the many reasons we were excited about visiting Prince Edward Island was a chance to ride the Confederation Trail. We’d read about the trail and the island walk last year in a New York Times travel article and thought it’d be an awesome ride. And it was!
From Wiki and assorted PEI websites, I learned that construction of the Prince Edward Island Railway (PEIR) was completed in the mid-1880s and ran tip-to-tip from Tignish in the west to Elmira in the east. Like many railroads, it was heavily used for many years, but during the 1970s its use dwindled until it was officially closed in 1989. With local support and encouragement,the provincial government purchased the railway properties in 1994 and repurposed it into a recreational, shared-use rail-trail… walking and cycling during the summer months, snowmobiling and cross-country skiing in the winter. Great idea!
There are 28 designated legs to the trail with varying distances between them. Since it’s a rail-trail, there are no grades greater than 2%, so basically, it’s a flat trail over the decommissioned railroad roadbed with a ‘rolled stone dust surface’. Easy-peasy, right? When we’d ridden the C&O and GAP trails a few years ago, we usually did about 40 miles a day, so David planned our days accordingly. One challenge… with only one vehicle, we needed to park Blanche someplace and ride the designated distance in both directions, essentially riding the trail twice… 20 miles out, 20 miles return.
Day 1 - Elmira to Selkirk - 40.2 miles RT
We parked at the Elmira Railway Museum at the eastern terminus of the trail and started out enthusiastically, knocking off the first three legs of the trail. The day was hot and humid (90F - 32C).
Elmira Railway Museum
We started at the eastern terminus of the Confederation Trail... 273 km or 169 miles away
What we did not account for was the toll the heat and humidity would take on us and our tender butts. We hadn’t ridden in months and at the end of the first day, we returned to Blanche exhausted and very, very sore in the nether regions.
We ate a late lunch at the North Lake Boathouse Eatery and then visited the East Point Lighthouse on our way back to our campground. We’d moved to the Red Point Provincial Park after our hotel check-out and made our way back there for showers and rest. After some Tylenol PM, it didn’t take long to fall asleep that night.
The East Point Lighthouse was a must-see on our way back to the campground.
Day 2 - Selkirk to Morrell - 29 miles RT
The St. Peters Visitor Center was welcoming and helpful.
We parked at the St. Peters Visitor Center directly adjacent to the trail. As soon as we mounted our bikes again, our butts began complaining. We backtracked to Selkirk to our last stopping point, then turned around. En route, David got a bee in his bonnet! A bee flew in through one of the vents in his helmet and stung him. In his effort to get rid of the stinging bugger, the bee fell out of his helmet and down his shirt. Ouch! David survived the attack (the bee did not) and we continued on.
This section of the trail hugs the shore of St. Peter’s Bay and is absolutely beautiful. Lined with fireweed (yup, there’s fireweed in PEI), butterflies and bees were busy at work. Fortunately, we traveled through unscathed… no more bee episodes.
Returning to the campground, we had leftovers for dinner, did laundry, had showers and bemoaned our aching asses.
Day 3 - Morrell to Tracadie - 29 miles RT
We packed up and left the campground, then headed to Mt. Stewart, our half-way parking spot for the day. Today’s pathway was lined in fireweed, daisies, wild roses and black-eyed Susans. The wildflower display took my mind off my butt for a short while.
We passed through big expanses of marshland with thickets of cattails swaying in the breeze. There was a significant number of street and dirt road crossings, but traffic was almost non-existent.
Wetlands and Marshlands were frequent sights on this part of the trail.
Mt. Stewart is an old PEI Railroad station repurposed as an Eco-Centre with a small bakery/cafe. We cycled back to Morrell returned to Mt. Stewart, then biked on to Tracadie and returned. We splurged on blueberry scones at the bakery after finishing up our mileage for the day.
Mt. Stewart offered a good place to park, restrooms, an eco-centre and very good scones!
We headed to Prince Edward Island National Park at Cavendish… our new campground. En route we stopped briefly at Stanhope Light, a little lighthouse midst big sand dunes.
Stanhope Light
Just beyond Stanhope, we saw great blue herons… scores of them lined up along the shore, wading in the water. At one point, we counted 15! What a sight.
So many herons!
Day 4 - Tracadie to Milton - 30.4 miles RT
We took a day off due to heavy rain (read that… we gave our tender, sore butts a break), so when we rejoined the trail, we were actually feeling significantly less sore. It was a gorgeous day, dry, much cooler with bright sunshine and a gentle breeze. With permission, we parked at BJ’s Trucking Centre adjacent to the trail.
There are lots of stopping places along the trail as well as at many of the road crossings. Some even have bicycle repair stations… very handy for quick repairs and adding air to tires.
There were multiple road crossings each day. all were gated to keep motorized vehicles off the trail. The gates, depending on how wide they were open, sometimes proved a challenge for cyclists to get through.
A few stops had basic bicycle repair/maintenance stations available.
Day 5 - Milton to Fredericton - 30.2 miles RT
We parked at Hunter River, halfway between our two destinations. Another gorgeous sunny day awaited us on the trail. This is farm country now, field after field after field of agricultural land… some corn, some potatoes, some hay.
Farming country... field after field after field
We saw so many bunnies on the path. We learned that, other than escaped domestic varieties, there are no rabbits native to Prince Edward Island. Rather, we probably saw snowshoe hares in their brown summer fur.
We also surprised a mama and two baby raccoons crossing our path. Mama hurried her kits along, but peeked out of the bush to check us out.
Butterflies were in abundance on this portion of the trail as well, especially clouded sulphurs that seemed to be in a dating/mating mode. It’s that time of year for short-lived insects.
Clouded Sulphur butterflies were abundant along the trail.
We spent the night at the Prince County Guest House in Miscouche. Jing and Mark were our hosts in this old Victorian house in the center of town across from the impressive St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. The room was small, but comfy and a nice change of pace from camping. We met a couple from Ontario there and spent hours chatting with them. It’s always interesting to get a Canadian perspective on American life and politics and vice versa.
The Prince County Guest House
The impressive ST John the Baptist church in Miscouche
Day 6 - Fredericton to Kensington - 30.7 miles RT
The day began somewhat overcast which made it cool for riding, but soon became yet another beautiful, warm day. Cows, potatoes, corn and hayfields abounded once again. I finally got a chance to take some close-up photos of potato blossoms. They’re quite pretty!
Purple potato blossoms
Along the route, we met Ryan, an editor for the local newspaper, The Saltwire. We had a long chat and wished we could have spent more time with this interesting fellow. He invited us back to his home for coffee, in fact, but we were intent on finishing our day’s ride and regretfully declined. There’s no dearth of friendly, hospitable people on Prince Edward Island.
We rode to Kensington to complete the day’s ride, then on Ryan’s suggestion, we returned to this charming little town for lunch at the Island Stone Pub, located in the old train station.
Island Stone Pub was located in the old train station.
There was plenty to keep us entertained as we walked along the trail in Kensington.
There was even a Haunted Mansion on the trailside.
At day’s end, we returned to Linkletter Provincial Park and snagged our previous campsite. We cooked out and enjoyed the cool evening with views of the Confederation Bridge in the far distance.
Day 7 - Kensington to Miscouche - 25.3 miles RT
Windy, windy, windy… 20-25 mph sustained winds throughout the day. On a beam reach on Nine of Cups, this would have been lovely. As a headwind, riding a bike, it was less than optimal. We debated whether to take a day off or deal with the winds and in the end, decided to give it a go.
We got to the parking lot all set to go and had a mechanical problem with the bike axle which David was unable to repair. We found a bike shop/bakery (???) in nearby Kensington, Knead-a-Brake. Rafael found time to assess the problem immediately, made a quick repair and got us on our way. We’ll need to order a part when we return to Las Vegas, but for now, we were good to go.
The trail took us through downtown Summerside, the busiest section of the entire trail.
The trail took us through the busy downtown area of the resort town of Summerside. This was probably the only congested section of the entire trail with lots of busy street crossings. I concentrated more on the trail and took no pictures. The good news… no mishaps! We finally ended up in Miscouche and headed back to the campground for the night.
We were feeling a bit pressed for time now. Riding the trail was taking much longer than we anticipated and there was so much more of Atlantic Canada to see. There were still 64 miles left to ride and if we did both directions, 128 miles… several more days of riding, a minimum of four. We decided to take a lay day and give it some thought. Finish the trail or call it good enough here? What’s your take?
Stay tuned for Part 2 of the Confederation Trail.