Joe and I are on the bikes again after three days sightseeing. The plan is to take the Confederation Trail all the way to Charlottetown where Joe's journey will end as he flies home.
We pick up the trail two minutes from the hotel and start heading east. It is a very well maintained path of crushed red stone through lovely farm country.
However, it intersects many roads along the way where gates have been installed to prevent motorized vehicles from accessing the trail.
A nice concept except the gates are quite close together and overlap slightly so with panniers on the bikes it is quite the slow, frustrating, slalom job to get around them, which detracts from the enjoyment of the trail.
The wind is behind us and we quickly get to Kensington.
It's a bit early for lunch so we carry on, planning to stop at one of the small villages on the trail for something to eat.
Except we roll through Freetown and then Emerald with nothing but farms and a few houses in sight. And while there are rest stops along the trail, we did not come across anyplace to get water until we got to Beadalbane where there was a sign for washrooms directing us to an old railway station.
In Quebec, these buildings are often found along rail trails so we stop for a break. However, the door has a friendly sign telling us to go to the Community Centre across the road for washrooms and to fill our bottles except we see nothing but houses across the street.
Not in the mood to go searching for the mythical CC and with Joe's knee starting to act up again we decide to take the 231 to Highway 2, which should cut a few kilometers off the trip and make for easier riding on the paved shoulder compared to the crushed stone on the trail.
The idea is good but we do have to contend with the highway traffic and the rolling hills.
Surprisingly, there isn't much on the highway for services except one closed restaurant until we get to Hunter River where we spy a sign for a Pastry Shop.
Seeing that it is a German shop, we decide to stop and give it a try.
What a smart move!
The shop doesn't sell sandwiches, but it does sell bread and the very nice German lady, Angelika, offers to make us a couple of sandwiches from what she has in her own kitchen.
We gratefully accept and as we pass the display case of delicious looking desserts we are already imagining what we will select post-sandwich.
There is a picnic table on a little terrace in front of the shop and we wait while she brings out the various items from her fridge to decide on what kind of sandwiches to have. We settle on a beef and edam cheese along with a smoked salmon and creamed cheese sprinkled with capers.
You can probably guess that, when the sandwiches came out a few minutes later on thick cut German bread, they were absolutely delicious and disappeared in moments.
We quickly set about choosing our desserts. Also on offer was cappuccino, which we readily added to this wonderful eating experience.
As we sat back down at the table watching the cars and trucks speed by at 70 kph in this 50 zone, we laughed at our good fortune at having left the trail at the right moment to have chanced upon this oasis of culinary wonder in the middle of PEI and we laughed at all those motorists speeding by to the next Timmie's oblivious to what they are passing just on the road beside them.
Oh yes, that cake and strudel met the same fate as the sandwiches though we did our best to savour them as our forks kept automatically returning to the plates. There was also a rhubarb coffee cake hidden behind the chocolate cake that we had planned to take with us but it didn't survive the onslaught of our forks.
We thanked Angelika and her elfin helper profusely for our Wagnerian meal and, as they kindly filled our water bottles, we steeled ourselves for the task of biking the remaining 20 kilometers to Charlottetown.
Needless to say, we got there eventually, with visions of Rhinemaidens covered in Bavarian cream lingering in our thoughts and the Confederated Gates of Hell all but forgotten.
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