July 17,18 – Cavendish Beach

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Yesterday we made the move to central PEI near the main part of PEI National Park at Cavendish. It was only about a 2 hour drive as we took the back way to avoid driving on roads we had already used.

I do have one comment on their road numbering. In most places, for the regular highways, the larger the number the more rural or rugged. A 1 series highway is usually more major and in better shape than a 10 series which are better than the 100 series. When moving in the RV I use this as a guide to tell me which roads I should let the GPS use. Not so here. Other than highways 1 and 2 all the rest are pretty much indistinguishable; OK but not great.  Lets just say some portions today were a bit of a rough ride.

We are at a huge campground called Marco Polo Campground. It has 527 sites. We are in number 526, in the new section made from what was recently just a field. They have everything from tenting in the woods to sites for very large RVs. Quite the place.

Guess what sound we woke up to this morning. Lawn mowers. Mowing grass that I wouldn’t consider mowing for weeks,

We got here around noon and just decided to hang around the RV. Jennie got the itch and did a stem to stern cleaning. What a difference.

It was really windy here as well. The forecast called for 35 kph from the south which just happens to be right across that nice big open field. I couldn’t even put the dish up for fear that the gusts might damage the motors and gears. The wind lasted most of the night, rocking the RV.

Today, as we are here for a week,  we were just going to go over to the park, get acquainted and do a short hike. We ended up walking the entire length of Cavendish beach for a round trip of just under 10 km.

We got to the park at about 10:30 We were amazed at how few people there were.

We started at Oceanview Lookout.

We were just going to walk to the main are of Cavendish beach which is near the buildings in the center of the picture below.

We quickly found a way down to shore.

Jennie almost let her curiosity lead here into the splash zone.

Soon we were on the endless beach.

This was supposed to be the busiest part of the busiest beach in the park.

Since we had only gone about 1 km and we saw another supervised swimming section we decided to continue.

We eventually found a shallow spot to get across this creek.

We are wearing our shoes because we found our feet got very sore after doing that long beach walk the other day in bare feet.

The second swimming area was at the campground. They had some very nice nice sites overlooking the ocean. A lot were empty. We probably should have stayed here at least a few days (no hookups). We just used the table at an empty site and had lunch.

We looked at the map on the GPS and saw that the beach continued out a long spit.

We decided to go as far as our energy would take us,

There were two other guys doing the same walk. Eventually they came back and we were quite alone.

I walked over one dune and found what I assume is an old road that has been eaten by the sand.

One section had this tiny cliff in the sand.

Every once in a while a section would break off and be washed away. I couldn’t understand how this could last any length of time.

Eventually we got to a sign saying that the rest of the spit was off limits due to endangered piping plover nesting sites.

Right here was a large break in the dunes to the other side of the spit.

The entire break was covered in very evenly spaced rocks. Not a pile anywhere. It looked like they had been mechanically spread.

Our guess was that at really high tides the area must get washed over by the waves to spread everything so well.

Of course Jennie went off exploring on the other side.

We sat and had a rest and a snack before starting back.

Some sand slides on the dunes.

Part way back I noticed we were being followed.

Jennie is always checking out the beach.

When we got back to the main swimming area it was busier but still not too bad.

Some of the lifeguards were in training.

We headed up the boardwalk to see what was in the buildings. As luck would have it they sold ice cream.

We decided to take a trail that ran behind the dunes back the short distance to the car.

We should have stayed on the beach. Back here it was sheltered from the wind and hot.

Some nice orange daylilies.

Some not so nice poison ivy.

Back at the overlook to see where we had gone.

From the other end.

I was surprised to look at the GPS track. I was sure that we were much farther down the spit when we turned around.