Trip 45 — Prince Edward Island Walk

Day 13: Kensington to North Rustico
Monday, 11 August 2025

Today: 41555 steps/33.11 km/20.57 mi/5h 38m
Total: 627046 steps/443.82 km/275.78 mi/82h 50m

Liz is staying until Sunday, but she's not walking with me. She'll continue her sessions as a psychotherapist, taking a rented car from town to town, and I'll meet her at the end of each walking day, ideally with a mutual lunch stop.

This results in daily math problems of the type that terrify students. If Liz drives 70 kilometers per hour, and Seth walks 5½ kilometers per hour, how much earlier does Seth have to leave so that they both complete 15 kilometers at the same time?

And at what time do they need to meet for lunch so that Liz can travel another 15 kilometers in time to start working at 2:00?

And do any of the calculations change if they each have exactly one cocktail?

What all this means is that, on yesterday's rest day, I rode in the car with Liz to the beach at French River. Now, Rule 2 of the Abecedarian Walks Keen Wayfinding and Routing Document makes it very clear that the only vehicles I take should be for emergencies (such as the second day in Aruba, with the snarling dogs), and that applies even on resting days. But Rules 2A (an exception to accept the invitation of Ronald's banana-plantation foreman from the 1960s to show me around on Tenerife) and 2B (a necessary ride to join a cave tour on Réunion) have already been issued as amendments, so I called an emergency meeting of the AWKWARD Development Team to invoke Rule 2C (I'd be an awful jerk to refuse to join Liz at the beach when a dip in the sea was all we could think about somewhere around kilometer 31 on Saturday).

The beach was breezy, and sand blew quickly on the towels that we laid down. The water was clear and cool, the kind that seems unbearably cold at first but is soon delightful. The water was shallow for a couple of meters but then dropped off steeply, so that it was possible to sit facing outward as if on a long bench. There was a current, but it wasn't enough to take us where we didn't want to be, and the only waves were from boats.

Before the beach excursion, we visited the Haunted Mansion, the current use of a Tudor-style building designed and inhabited in the 1890s by one of Kensington's first surgeons, Dr. Jack. The place has long been one of mystery, ever since the unsolved disappearance of one of Dr. Jack's assistants in about 1930.

The $20 admission ticket set the bar high, and the place delivered. The half-hour exploration had just the right amount of suspense, corny jokes, surprises, and gory fun: a sink with blood gushing from the faucet; skeletons as dinner guests; a fake village with foreboding storefronts replete with puns; a moving wall that threatened to knock us off a ledge; a "vortex" to walk through, in which the floor started to spin upward. Or did it?

I left the Victoria Inn at 9:22 this morning, carrying only the bug spray and water in my backpack. Liz could take all my clothing in the car. I paid the AWKWARD judges a small bribe to allow that, as I should have had all my provisions with me, but it seemed pedantic to take more weight than necessary.

The plan was to meet Liz at noon at Carr's Oyster Bar, 15 kilometers away. The road northeast out of Kensington was Route 6, Route 2 having veered southeast. Two schools and two sunflower fields later and it was back to the cattle and potato farms, with giant irrigation machines. Lots of up-and-down on the road, lots of little creeks and rivers.

I paused for a couple of minutes in New London for a peek at Lucy Maud Montgomery's birthplace. From here to Cavendish the road was going to be busier, with all of the tourist infrastructure built around the various Green Gables hotspots. There were antique stores, gift shops, and houses turned into cafes.

A horn from behind: Liz found me on the road, and I caught a glimpse of her black Hyundai Venue before an oil tanker blocked the view. Half an hour later, I made out her figure approaching on the other side of the street, and she joined me for the last half-kilometer to Carr's.

The restaurant had an excellent view of the Route 6 bridge over the Stanley River, and a popular activity is jumping from the bridge. Satiated by scallops and a shrimp-and-lobster taco (and a tequila-hibiscus-prosecco cocktail called The Day Before Yesterday), Liz joined the ranks of the jumpers.

We continued to North Rustico at our respective paces. Cavendish, which inspired the Green Gables novels, is still fueled by their popularity. The area includes numerous casual seafood restaurants, two amusement parks, museums on the subject, and a branch of Cows, where I joined the throngs for a couple of scoops and then hurried back to the road to get away from the crowds. It's hard to be in your head — or with a companion — for most of the day and then suddenly be amidst hundreds of people all angling for the same treats on the same patch of boardwalk.

It was here that I decided to lengthen the journey. Route 6 would take me into North Rustico, but if I headed into the coastal park, I could walk along a bikeway by the sea instead. It would take a half-hour longer, but it would be much more pleasant.

Except for the heat. Today was my first on PEI with scorching, direct sunlight. I'd reapplied sunscreen after lunch, but it streamed down my face, leaving my forehead hot and vulnerable. I drank from the plastic water bottles and it might as well have been tea.

The view of the sea was mostly obscured by shrubs, with only occasional glimpses of the popular beaches and the red-dirt cliffs. The bikeway followed the shore for eight kilometers to North Rustico Beach, where it ended and I took the road into town.

The North Rustico Motel & Cottages Inn B&B (Google Maps wants all of that; otherwise it won't find it) is a hilly property just south of the main stretch. The room had a roaring air conditioner and sliding doors leading to the console-like shower and to the toilet and sink. It was sufficiently appointed, with a chair, two little tables, and a dresser, and yet there seemed to be nowhere to put anything.

But the property had just what I wanted after the fierce heat: a pool. I got there just as Liz had to dry off to resume her sessions — we're still working on that timing.

Go on to day 14