Charlottetown, Wed, 14-Jun-2023
/For our first full day on Prince Edward Island, we again went east to see the Greenwich Dunes in Prince Edward Island National Park. After a relaxing afternoon, we went to a lobster dinner in New Glasgow.
During breakfast, we were chatting with the hostel owner. She worked for quite a while several years ago, then purchased it in 2019, expecting to have guests in 2020, but of course the didn't happen. She did have a few last year who were longer-term rentals, and this year is her first with short-term guests. In fact, she opened June 1st, so it's only been a couple of weeks.
While Tuesday was quite warm, the weather was a lot cooler today. In fact, rain was in the forecast, so we wanted to see the Greenwich Dunes in the morning before the rain started.
Greenwich Dunes
The Greenwich Dunes are part of the Prince Edward Island National Park. The trail starts on the south side of the spit, near St. Peters Bay, but heads north to Greenwich Beach along the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Along the way, we saw fire cherry trees (young and old) trembling (quaking) aspens, as well as birch and maple trees.
Soon after we took the cutoff to go to Greenwich Beach, we were on a boardwalk. After wandering through trees for a bit, it started going over a marsh. The marsh was pretty big, so we were on the boardwalk for quite a while. At one point, a red-winged blackbird flew onto the railing, so we paused to watch it. Eventually, it flew away and we continued.
After we got off the boardwalk, we went up steps to crest a dune, then down other steps to reach the beach. It was pretty close to low tide, so we went towards the water to walk a bit on the hard sand. Walking a little bit to the west, there was a break in the dune behind us, so we went up to a viewpoint where we could look back at the marsh.
We worked our way back until the fork in the trail and began the Tiaqatik trail, where we started getting a good view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We found a bench that wasn't too windy and had our lunch, then continued on the trail.
Not long after that, we came upon access to the beach, so we went out to take a quick look. We finished the loop, then started working back on the Greenwich Dunes Trail. Near the end was a short loop, the Havre Saint Pierre Trail, so we took that one too. While there was no beach access, we still got a good view of the Bay of St. Lawrence, as well as a big grassy plain.
When we were just about at the parking lot, I took a closer look at a Mi'kmaq wigwam made out of birch bark.
During the whole hike, we had no rain. However, the rain began just as we were getting into the car. There was quite a bit of rain the whole drive back, but it reduced to a light sprinkle when we arrived at the hostel.
New Glasgow Lobster Supper
The rain started to pick up while we were lounging in the hostel. Eventually, it turned into a thunderstorm. We had read that the place we were planning on having dinner sometimes had a line of people waiting to get into the door. We weren't too thrilled with the idea of doing that in the rain, so we decided to try to arrive early.
The rain let up again to a sprinkle as we got in the car, then picked up again as we started driving. As we pulled into the parking lot, the rain all but stopped, and there was no visible line.
As we walked into the New Glasgow Lobster Supper, there was also no line inside; we were quickly seated.
The meal is a four-course dinner. First comes appetizers; we chose clam chowder, tomato soup, and mussels. The soups were in a normal cup, but we were brought a huge bucket of mussels and managed to get through about a third of them. Looking at other tables with two people, they were getting a bucket about half the size of ours.
After the appetizers, we got served salads: a green salad, potato salad, and coleslaw.
For entrees, we got lobster (the one-pound one; they also have larger ones) and scallops with vegetables and potatoes. The lobster comes cracked and split, making it easy to work through with just a lobster fork. It was really good, as were the scallops.
Last was the dessert course. There was a large selection, so we got a coconut cream pie and a cherry pie with ice cream.
Other than the entree, you can get as many appetizers, salads, and desserts as you want. We didn't get seconds on anything, and were able to mostly finish our meals, but we had also eaten less for the past day.
We didn't get any rain on the way home, so it seems we had good luck staying dry all day.
