The last time we were here the trails were under a foot or two of snow and ice and our feet went numb snowshoeing. Today was a balmy spring day, dry underfoot and a cloudless sky above. We decided to follow the same route as in January to compare times. In snowshoes the 8.6kms had taken us two and a half hours whereas today we hiked it in two hours ten minutes.
Very few people were about despite it being the first really decent weekend of the year. Several newly felled trees lay tossed in the undergrowth to keep the path clear. We saw lots of evidence of melt water run-off.
After crossing the four-lane Trans-Canada Highway, we walked on an access road which petered out into grass with a narrow, central paved strip. Double yellow lines gave the game away. This had been the former route of the Highway before several recent rounds of straightening and re-routing. The landmark radio mast at the top of the hill shows definite signs of a list to the north. At about five hundred feet tall it is held by numerous guy ropes and a fall seems unlikely
On returning to the car we sat and pondered activities for the rest of our day. It was too early to head for home so I suggested a drive to Rocky Point, a small peninsular on the western side of the entrance to Charlottetown Harbour.
Fifteen minutes later we parked and wandered into the tiny Fort Amherst Provincial Park at Port-la Joye. This was declared the seat of government for early settlers to PEI in the 1700s. A sensible decision at the time as its natural port location and elevated position made strategic sense for defending the harbour entrance. Nowadays the buildings’ former positions are only revealed by grassed-over earthworks and the city of Charlottetown, on the land side of the harbour, looks much better positioned, with no threat of invasion, for distribution, transport links and control of the island.
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