Working for an airline certainly has its advantages and cheap travel is one of them. Take for instance our honeymoon. Most newlyweds would have taken off to enjoy a sandy beach but we chose to see a little bit of our home country. Besides, we’d done the Caribbean only a couple of months before and staying in a country where we felt safe was weighing on my mind.

Early that morning Sharie and I boarded the WestJet flight in Calgary for the start of our five hour flight to Charlottetown. As we waited in Toronto for our brief layover we discovered ours was the inaugural flight into Charlottetown. We were given bags of PEI potato chips, maps and PEI jam. The best gift was a guide to hotels, bed and breakfasts and restaurants throughout the province. We quickly dove into that guide looking for a place to stay. As we arrived in Charlottetown our jet was greeted with a water salute, a bagpiper and actors representing Sir John A. MacDonald and Anne of Green Gables. It was certainly a festive atmosphere.

Being in Canada was a nice touch as we jumped into our rental car and took off down quaint country highways. When compared to the death race tour we participated in on the island of Tortola, BVI I knew we were safe. Within a few minutes of leaving the airport both Sharie and I were enjoying ourselves, looking at the green fields and beautiful countryside as it passed by.

Following about 50 minutes of driving, Sharie and I pulled (unannounced) into the driveway of the Raspberry Inn. Neither of us had used bed-and-breakfasts before but the owner was friendly and glad that we’d dropped in. For about $75/night we stayed in a nicely furnished room, with a double bed and enough fluffy covers for Sharie to disappear beneath. If you’re thinking the Ritz Carlton then forget it. This was a 120 year old farm house (built in 1885) and while it had all the amenities, little things like the planked wood floors gave our room its character.

The Raspberry Inn, our first bed & breakfast

PEI's famous red dirt

Fishermen

Sharie and our PT Cruiser rental car

Our whole honeymoon was planned as an ‘unplanned vacation.’ We had no real idea of what to do, where to go or what to see, so we basically got in our car and drove. We quickly discovered that it was enjoyable to simply watch the scenery. The roadsides were covered in flowers, which we later found out were lupines (there’s a whole Monty Python skit about that), every small town had a monstrous church, the soil was a vibrant red and everything else was bright green. Even the houses were well kept and attractive.

It seems that every town has a huge church

Newly married Sharie McTavish

Rustic and scenic towns abound

The whole province is covered in lupins

On the second day we reached the southwest corner and the West Point lighthouse at Cedar Dunes Provincial Park. There’s a bed-and-breakfast there too, but it had already been booked for months. We had to be content just walking along the red beach. It was just after we left that we hit one of the hardest rainfalls I’d ever seen. It poured buckets. Luckily most of the local traffic was off the road so we weren’t concerned about traffic, no, my focus was on avoiding the puddles – any one of which could have hidden a tire popping pothole.

The West Point lighthouse

Sharie on the red sand beach

Trevor, the lighthouse and a red sand beach

Even the water was red

By dinnertime we were in the town of Kensington. That bed-and-breakfast was less than spectacular; although the room was clean and the bathroom massive, the lady was rather uninterested in our existence. Breakfast comprised of a coupon which wouldn’t have been very filling had we not gone down the street to another bed-and-breakfast where they redeemed it for eggs and toast.

Our Kensington bed & breakfast...

...and its massive bed

From there, we headed up to see the island’s northwest, which has modern windmills and much of the same red and green scenery that we’d become accustomed to.

This day was enjoyable for a number of reasons. First, as we drove along the north-central region of the island, or through what’s referred to as ‘Anne’s Land’ because of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables character. Amongst the rolling hills, green fields and red soil, we dropped by the Lucy Maude Montgomery museum, which is really the author’s uncle’s property. While we weren’t interested in Montgomery’s life, the property does include a pond that featured prominently in the Green Gables story (or so I’m told).

The rugged and beautiful North Coast

The rugged and beautiful North Coast

Sharie in the gale force winds

Crazy fishermen tackled the waves

Trevor

The famous pond from Anne of Green Gables

The rugged and beautiful North Coast

Enjoying the North Coast

Sharie

Among the plants and trees

Sharie

Fishing docks with a great restaurant next door

Rolling along, we came to the city of Cavendish and to the PEI National Park. This is the smallest National Park I’ve ever visited and it reminded me of Heritage Park back home. What was interesting was when we walked through the farmhouse. Basically the doorway was 2 feet wide and a shade over 6 feet in height. While Sharie didn’t notice at first, I did when my hair brushed the doorframe.

Sharie reaches her goal...

...where the doors were tall enough for Sharie...

...the quiet and romantic trail...

...which Trevor rested on...

A small creek in amongst the trees

...the tiny Green Gables National Park...

...but where Trevor hit his head...

...its many bridges...

...and the both of us posed on

And more lupins near New Glasgow

For the evening of June 30 we stopped just outside the town of New Glasgow which is famous for its lobster suppers. With not a word of a lie, this was the highlight of the trip. I ordered a 1-1/2 lb lobster (Sharie went for the 1 lb) then we were off to our table. The whole atmosphere was that of a church luncheon or community picnic. The tables might have been covered in red and white plastic but the pop was free, the salad and bread were fresh, as were the locally farmed mussels. Did I forget to mention these were all unlimited? All the salad, buns and mussels you wanted, plus a lobster and fresh baked desserts (unlimited too) for $35. Out of curiosity I asked how big the 4 pound lobster was that I’d seen on the menu. Without hesitation our server, a young local girl led me to the farm tanks in the basement and had someone show me. The thing was the size of a cat!

The bed & breakfast near New Glasgow

Trevor and his dinner...

Check out that 4lb lobster

...and Sharie with hers

How better than to spend Canada Day in the birthplace of confederation. On July 1 we booked into a bed-and-breakfast within walking distance of downtown Charlottetown. Charlottetown isn’t very big, maybe the size of Medicine Hat, so finding things to occupy us proved difficult. Our solution was to crawl into bed and enjoy a mid-afternoon snooze. Towards dinner time we headed downtown, towards the carnival grounds on the waterfront in search of food and a spot to watch the evening’s entertainment. Every restaurant was booked solid with long lines out the doors. We did find one restaurant on the waterfront that still had seats, but after waiting 20 minutes without so much as a glimpse of a server we left. It was Subway sandwiches for us.

Downtown Charlottetown

Church steeple

Entertainment included some local musicians, but with the hosts advertising “a bigger fireworks show than our nation’s capital” we sought out our spot and waited. The start of the show involved a spaceship shaped object raised into the air by a large construction crane. From there small rockets were occasionally shot off while a trapeze artist swung from a bungee cord. Months later, I still didn’t know what that was all about. But when the real fireworks were supposed to start, they started not in front of us, but behind. The whole crowd, partly surprised and partially pissed off that they’d been standing in the wrong spot began moving off trying to find a new view. Then the real fireworks started – right where we expected them to. With balls of red, white, purple and green bursting overhead I kept asking myself, why didn’t they bother to lower that crane? The same construction crane that held the spacecraft/trapeze was now perfectly silhouetted by the explosions. All in all, another fireworks display, but less than I would have expected from the birthplace of our country.

We watched the Canada Day celebrations...

...in the birthplace of confederation

Looking back at our honeymoon on Prince Edward Island both Sharie and I still had nice memories. What surprised us the most was that postcards just didn’t do justice to the island’s beauty. When we were in the Caribbean it would have taken us hours to find the same beautiful beaches shown in their pictures. On PEI everywhere we went looked suitable for photos.

Just a scenic turn down an unmarked country road

One last lighthouse near Charlottetown