Category: Photo of the Day

Did you know that if you visit both the East Point lighthouse and the North Cape lighthouse on Prince Edward Island, you earn a “tip to tip” certificate? I wasn’t entirely sure that a certificate alone would be enough to induce the boys into agreeing to the 2.5 hour drive across the province, but I was pretty sure that the water slides at Mill River, not too far from North Cape, would be enough to seal the deal. (How much do I love that you can drive across an ENTIRE PROVINCE in the time it takes to finish an extra large takeout coffee?)

The East Point lighthouse is not too far from where we are staying, so we popped over there a few days ago to get our East Point ribbons. We packed a picnic lunch, stopped for some Robin’s Eggs (our favourite Island road-trip treat) and headed out early.

If you’re looking for a scenic drive that will make your inner photographer weep with covetousness of the shots not taken because if you stopped the car its occupants would throw you off the nearest seaside cliff, you could do worse than the rolling, pastoral countryside around Kensington, PEI. Beautiful farmland bordered by careful lines of towering pines, rolling off into the distance. (The hills, not the pines.) As we drove, the morning fog burned off, rolled back in, burned off again. By the time we reached Mill River Park and its water slides, it was just before noon and fully fogged in again. We made the executive decision to push on through Tignish and to the North Cape in order to circle back to the water park after the day warmed up a bit.

The fog was breaking up again 25 or so minutes later when we pulled into the parking lot at the North Cape lighthouse, on the most north-western point of the Island.

Don’t they look full of the victory of having driven the full breadth of the Island? Trophy photo acquired, we were about to go into the gift shop and collect our certificates when Lucas saw something he wanted to explore.

That’s how we stumbled upon one of the most beautiful open secrets on PEI: dozens and dozens of Inuksuit built on the seaside.

It’s an enchanting sight that took our breath away. So! Many! Inuksuk! (Did you know the plural of Inuksuk is Inuksuit? Now you do!)

So of course, we were on a mission. I had to photograph them, and the boys had to make them. The fog burned off, the sun came out, and everyone was happy!

Tristan is like a cat in more ways than one. He likes to find his way to the highest perch to survey the world.

And when I saw how amazing the light was with that red sand cliff against a bright blue sky, I needed to get everyone else in the photo, too.

And when I say everyone needed to be in the photo, I mean EVERYONE! Here’s to makeshift tripods made out of rocks and a purse, and a mad dash across the rocks while the self-timer counts down. My bum had barely landed on the rock when the shutter clicked on this one!

I was not expecting the cape itself to be such an interesting destination, and I could have spent another couple of hours there just playing among the rocks. Promises had been made, though, so we enjoyed our picnic lunch at the base of the lighthouse and headed back to the water park.

Pretty sure the boys thought it was worth the drive, too!

It’s a crazy wooden water slide. You sit on a sled thingy and shoot down the ridiculously steep slope and pretty much skip across the pond at the bottom. Wicked fun for kids and moms alike! Also fun, not pictured – bumper boats!

So if you’re looking for an unexpectedly delightful adventure on PEI, I’d say the trek out to the North Cape is well worth the drive. And now we can say that we’ve seen the Island from tip to tip. We’ve even got the certificates to prove it!

I have a spreadsheet of things we can do while we’re on PEI, with events and ideas and links that I’ve collected over a couple of years of relentless PEI research. It’s a little bit hard to admit that I’m the sort of person who has a spreadsheet to plan her vacation, but then again, 20 years ago I was the only backpacker in Europe following a pre-planned and carefully printed itinerary. It’s mired in some weird sort of FOMO: in the moment, with my family looking expectantly at me for ideas, it’s a way to stave off the “what are we going to do today?” panic.

The most important part about having a spreadsheet full of vacation inspiration, though, is knowing when to ignore it. We’d had vague plans of packing up and heading to one of our favourite beaches, when I realized that we were having a lovely beachy sort of day on the amazing kilometer or so of beach adjacent to our cottage: poking around looking for sea glass (I’m sure we’re working on our second pound by now) or building inuksuks out of PEI sandstone or clambering up and over the massive boulders at either end of the beach. Um hello, perfect beach day — and literally steps away from the cottage with its clean bathrooms and cold drinks and, ahem, wifi.

I’m sitting on the wooden steps with my coffee, Beloved is beachcombing for sea glass, and Lucas is building an inuksuk – in his jammies. Hello, perfect morning at the cottage!

I love this photo because it’s a perfect moment in a lovely day. Beloved is holding up a piece of blue sea glass, because the blue ones are my favourite. Simon is photobombing, because Simon. Tristan is busily on task, hunting for treasure. And Lucas is not wearing pants, because when you’re treasure hunting on your perfect little private beach and your shorts are too long and keep getting wet, you just leave them on the sand somewhere to dry out.

I kid you not, we found more than a pound of sea glass just today. Here’s most, but not all of it.

We did make one small excursion. One of our favourite PEI discoveries from our first PEI trip in 2014 was Peter Llewellyn’s Shoreline Design workshop and studio. We found Peter charming and informative, and we came away with beautiful hammered silver rings for the boys and a cuff bracelet for me. Earlier this year, Simon’s ring broke when he got his hand caught in the car door (cringe) and the ring took the brunt of it. We brought it back to its maker, hoping it could be repaired. To our delight, it was an easy fix, and we found Peter to be as personable as ever. Since he wouldn’t take payment to repair the ring, we supported his business by purchasing a beautiful (and affordable) set of sea glass stud earrings (blue, of course!) for me, and a silver ring with a red stone inset that echoes my own white-gold-with-ruby ring.

And if a little rain must fall into every vacation, it’s still better than two solid weeks of rain – and even better when the Island gives you a pretty little rainbow over your private sea view to end a perfectly lovely, perfectly unscheduled day.

We’ve returned for our third annual trip to Prince Edward Island. This year, we’ve chosen a cottage with direct beach access and water views from almost every room in the cottage – quite an improvement from our cottage last year, where “water views” meant a postage-stamp-sized glimpse through some trees and a walk most of a kilometer through scrub and other cottages.

This is us discovering our semi-private beach after two long, hot days in the car.

Lucas at the top of the stairs leading from the beach to our wee cottage. You can’t quite see the cottage, but it’s just behind the flagpole up there. There are only three or four other cottages in the area, so this kilometer or so of heaven is pretty much our own private beach. Seriously amazing location!

Within the first 15 minutes on our little beach, I’d checked off more than half of my PEI to-do list: red sand, blue sea, toes in the water, rocks to climb on — and sea glass!

A photo posted by Danielle Donders (@dani_girl) on Jul 14, 2016 at 3:22pm PDT

We’re so close to the sea that we could hear the waves crashing on the shore all night long, and though we’ve woken to rain this morning, the forecast is for an amazing week!