A free day to explore Prince Edward Island.  Navy Car has a sticking throttle and needs a bit of attention.  We’ve been carrying around a new set of throttle shafts since Lima in 2015 and haven’t been long enough in one place to get around to it. I pull the carbs off and remove the worn shaft only to find the new shafts are standard size and the car has oversized shafts from an earlier rebuild by the previous owner.  Just then a nicely restored MGC rolls up driven by a local lawyer, Danny….. After a bit of a chat he suggests I talk to Peter Noakes, an expat Australian who is also a member of their Prince Edward British Car Club and the local expert on SU carburettors.  An hour or so later, what appears to be a 3 litre Bentley rolls up.  Peter bought a Vanden Plas fabric body and interior from the UK then built from scratch a new chassis to suit a Jaguar motor and Ford pick up suspension.  It even sports power steering from an Australian Falcon GT so despite its 1920s appearance and vintage tyres it is actually fun to drive.  Peter has brought over a few boxes of SU spares but alas no oversize shafts so the old ones go back in until another day.

Time to explore Prince Edward Island and first stop is Cavendish on the north coast, famous for being the location of the house with green gables which inspired the author Lucy Montgomery to write the series of books which has sold 50 million copies and translated into 20 languages according to wiki.  There is even an Ann of Green Gables golf course, presumably to amuse the blokes who like chasing little white balls around while their partners live out their childhood memories exploring the house and gardens.

Another lobster roll for lunch – this one at the Blue Mussel Café right on the water in North Antico and the best one yet.  Prince Edward and the other Maritime Provinces are known as the have-nots compared with the resource rich Canadian Provinces and rely heavily on subsidies from Ottawa to survive.  The lobster fishermen and potato farmers are very well off but there is not much else apart from tourism to sustain their economy.  Around a million tourists visit PE each year so we guess that the hospitality industry does pretty well too, at least from May to September.