Abbey at Saint-Mathieu...

From Camaret-sur-Mer, we had an hour's drive to get to our next destination, going around the Rade de Brest, a huge inlet from the Atlantic Ocean, and through the port city of Brest which, we could see from the Pointe des Espagnoles, hosts a substantial navy base. We didn't stop in Brest, but to approach it we had to cross two major bridges, come in from the east on a motorway, then leave to the west via crowded old town streets and around an old fort or castle. We saw that Brest has a brand new looking lightrail system running. Brest is the second biggest city in Brittany.

Spectacular bridge over an upper reach of the Bay of Brest at Terenez.

Our destination was at the extreme west of Brittany, the Pointe de St-Mathieu on the edge of the town of Plougonvelin. We came here to see the derelict abbey, but more importantly, maybe, to stay in the luxurious accommodation at the Hostellerie de St-Mathieu which is literally on the opposite side of the road to the abbey. In fact, we left our Corolla in the abbey car park.

The glory of the lighthouse at Saint Mathieu.

The Hostellerie was exquisite, selected to give us a really comfortable place to relax for a few days. Our room was at the top end of their range, so it was uber-spacious and modern, with a fabulous bathroom, and included a huge lighthouse mural on the wall. The Hostellerie claimed to be an "eco" establishment: we found that what this means is that room heating (hot water radiators) turn off during the day, and during the night, a minor irritation really, but we couldn't get past thinking it was really no more than a cost saving measure. The bar and restaurant at the Hostellerie were both stylish and great, and we partook in the pleasures of both (there being virtually no competition nearby).

The Hostellerie at Pointe de Saint Mathieu.

Interior of our amazing room at the Hostellerie.

This was not the view we had from our window, but we could see the beam sweeping by all night.

Directly opposite the hotel was the Pointe which was cluttered not only with the abbey, but also a military semaphore station (photography prohibited) and a grand lighthouse, all ridiculously close to each other. We read a comment that it was a "bizarre juxtaposition"! And within 25m or so, a war memorial. A tower in the abbey, derelict anyway, had to be part demolished to give the lighthouse full rotation, so we too are a bit bemused as to why it (the lighthouse) was built so close.

Pointe de St-Mathieu and the tight juxtaposition of the semaphore station, the lighthouse, the abbey and a chapel.

Same view at night with the beam showing.

The abbey, Saint-Mathieu-de-Fine-Terre is named after Saint Matthew the Evangelist. The first abbey here was built before 555AD by Saint Tanguy on land he had inherited (so goes the story), the site deliberately chosen for its isolation. That abbey is gone. The current ruins are of a Benedictine monastery from the 11thC and modified later, but it was abandoned after the French Revolution. Monks sold off what had not already been looted, it seems. The ruins are amazing abd overwhelming - the abbey is large and some of the roof is still in place.

Ornate archway near a chapel near the abbey at Saint-Mathieu.

Solitary stone cross near the abbey.

Cove and another point near Pointe du Saint Mathieu.

The lighhouse peeks into the old abbey.

Fine detail in an abbey column.

The part of the abbey roof still in position.

The lighthouse was built in 1835 among the ruins when it could have been located 50m away on a site now occupied by the war memorial. It's distinctive decoration is to have the words "Saint Mathieu" painted on it in huge letters. This is a big lighthouse in the Brittany portfolio, and can be seen 55km away. From our bedroom, we could see the beam flashing by every few seconds. Within the lighthouse structure is a separate navigational beacon which at first we thought would be a historical artifact, but at night flashes red or green to specific adjacent directions as part of the very complicated navigational aid system in part of Brittany.

Both a lighthouse and a duplex navigation beacon on the same site.

Another very impressive war memorial on the Brittany coast, this dedicated to sailors.

We didn't relax as much as planned. We did laundry at Plouzaine, and had a look around Plougonvelin finding a great protected beach (looks like it is blighted by jet skis in summer) and yet another old fort (this one rebirthed as an exercise park operating in summer). And we drove to Le Conquet which we read is the westernmost town on mainland France, and a beautiful one at that, with an unnavigable maze of tiny twisty streets around the port area. One claimed touch with fame - Henry VII apparently unintentially landed at Le Conquet in a storm when he was escaping exile from Wales!

The Fort de Bertheaume has been fitted with zip lines and converted to an adventure park. At Plougonvelin.

Small and protected Plage du Perzel is backed up by a large camping ground and must be a haven in summer.

Our navigator liked to take us along remote local roads, this one through a farm of, we think, artichokes.

View of Le Conquet from across its port.

Harbour and light at Le Conquet.

Fisherman's cottage at Le Conquet.

This is as close as we could get to the Le Conquet light.

On the coastal walk near Le Conquet, some brave boys after a swim.

At the end of three days based at St-Mathieu we set out to the city of Morlaix near the north-west coast of Brittany.

Wind farms are all over Brittany. Joe Hockey would convert them to coal power stations.

Island LIfe on Prince Edward...

One of several photogenic PEI Lights, this one on Panmure Island.

We can only wonder what Prince Edward Island was like 20 years ago before the Confederation Bridge was opened, and the only access for vehicles was by ferry. There are many smallish islands which thrive despite their isolation (e.g. Tasmania), but nevertheless, suddenly connecting an island with a bridge must have a significant effect.

PEI's major town is Charlottetown. This town was the site of the conference in 1864 held between provinces of Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Canada (Quebec + New Brunswick) which ultimately led to the formation of the confederation of Canada as a new nation. Newfoundland should have been there, but were late, and a circus in town apparently filled the hotels and required many conference delegates to stay on ships in the harbour. Even then, politics were trumped by entertainment in the public's eye!

Home of the PEI Provincial Government. Maybe the Confederation Convention was held here?

The road into Charlottetown from the bridge was, like most others we encountered in New Brunswick, of excellent quality. It makes you wonder why Australian roads cannot be so good in remote regions.

Colourful housing in downtown Charlottetown.

Charlottetown is a flat harbourside city (in fact, PEI is a pretty flat island), and we stayed in a very well located downtown hotel in Grafton Street. Just as in New Brunswick, we found that the Information Centre (marked with a '?'), despite being promoted as 'open year round' was firmly closed 'for the season' when we arrived at the front door. The locals seem to speak with an accent quite unusual to us, and with certain mannerisms. Maybe we are hearing anglisised version of Acadaian which is a particular dialect of French spoken in this part of the world, maybe not!

This skating pond in Charlottetown is starting to melt in unusually warm weather.

At Beanz, maybe the best coffee we have found so far on this trip. The friendly barista went to great pains to follow our recipes, then delivered it to our table in real cups with real spoons!

Throughout Maine and New Brunswick, the terrain we passed was pretty heavily snowed in, but coverage on PEI was pretty sparse. The land is generally pastoral, with mostly potatoes grown (in rich red soil), but we could always see the cultivation tracks through the thin snow cover.

The Point Prim Light is the oldest on PEI, seen here under very leaden skies.

Summer visitors to PEI flock to Cavendish on the northern shore to see where Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Montgomery was set. Expecting nothing to be open there, we took advice and chose to follow PEI's very pretty coastline. The island is not so big, and we hoped to drive the eastern loop road (identified by starfish signs), but in a full driving day, only got about a third of it done. We obviously dawdle too much, and the truth is, we take it easy, start late and finish early.

This chowder bar at Point Prim won't serve another clam or mussel until next summer.

In our part loop, we managed to see much beautiful ice/snow-covered shoreline and several lighthouses. We couldn't get to the twin lights at Beach Point because the of last stretch road was pure sheet ice, no attempt to clear it. Wood Islands was particularly pretty - it is a tiny harbour which receives a car ferry in summer, but was totally empty and abandoned for our visit.

Numerous lights guard the entrance to the Wood Islands ferry harbour, closed for winter.

During our stay on PEI, we did not see a single other person who could be identified as a tourist or a visitor. But plenty of people live here (~140,000), and so Charottetown had pleny of establishments open for us to dine and imbibe. Our hotel was pretty quite, maybe 10% full, the other guests being businessmen and tradies. Having feasted on lobster in Maine, we though we could do the same on PEI, but with the harbours frozen and the boats out of the water, the local industry is in recess and lobster is not available.. In the Irish Pub, The Olde Triangle, the waitress explained that lobster is off the menu because it would have to be 'imported'. This may be a strategy to harvest lobsters sustainably, because there seemed to be no difficulty or objection to importing almost all other food and seafood.

The Fowler family has gone to some trouble to decorate their front lawn near Point Prim.

Ice fishing tents on Murray Harbor, PEI. Empty, we suppose, because no pick-up was parked out there.

Like we found in Maine, you would have to spend a lot more time on PEI to explore it properly, but our ultimate objective is Nova Scotia, and we must move on!

Some places the waters of Northumberland Strait are fully iced, other not.

The Lighthouses of Cape Cod

Our initial plan for Cape Cod was to base our stay at Hyannis MA, and on driving in we made a very good decision to eschew the mainstream hotels and stay at one recommended by the Lonely Planet, namely the Anchor In on the harbour waterfront and within walking distance of Main Street restaurants and of the ferries to Nantucket. The Anchor In is a family run hotel and was an absolute delight. Sandy, the receptionist, was ever so helpful and allowed us to view rooms before we decided. She also gave us great advice on the ferries, where to go on Cape Cod and where to eat. Our room was as good as any we have stayed in, and we had lovely views of the harbour, the ferries and the sunset. The Lonely Planet recommendation was a good one indeed.

Sunset over Hyannis Harbor from the Anchor In.

We had some excellent and interesting dinners in Hyannis. One was at a tapas bar EmBarGo, perfect because we were after a drink and a light meal. We tried quahog, a large shellfish stuffed with lobster and chorizo. The waiter, Ben, told us this was a Massachusetts and Rhode Island specialty. Ben looked like a wannabe footballer, and gave us lessons on the game on that night, Baltimore vs the New England Patriots. The locals were clearly on the side of the latter, but we don't know who won in the end. Even with the football on, a trio played live jazz at the EmBarGo.

Empty recreational berths populate Hyannis Harbor, like all other marinas in New England in winter.

All up the Atlantic coast, we see cute lighthouses like this one in Hyannis Harbor.

These gulls seem cranky that they could not have a swim in the frozen water.

There are only two roads onto Cape Cod, both crossing the artifical Cape Cod Canal which cuts about 200 miles off the shipping journey from southern ports into Boston and Plymouth. With the canal, Cape Cod is now an island. We came in over the Sagamaore Bridge which is quite a bottleneck. Luckily (on a Sunday afternoon) we were heading onto the Cape, because the traffic heading back onto the "mainland" was backed up maybe 10km behind this bridge. We noticed at Sagamore a huge Park 'n' Ride depot where Cape residents can park and commute into Boston for work. Trouble is, they have to drive across that bridge!

A well integrated navigation system, like this one at Dennis Beach.

Cape Cod is a thin J shaped spit of land with 900km of coastline and beaches - it protects most of the coast of Massachusetts from the Atlantic Ocean. We toured what a map referred to as the Mid-Cape, the Lower Cape, the Outer Cape and the northern part of the Upper Cape over a couple of days. Cape Code is a lighthouse fiesta. The present-day lights distinguish themselves from each other for seaman by their colours and flashing patterns. Before the invention of rotating lights, other artifices like multiple lights side by side were used. Eastham was identified, for example, by a row of lights called "the three sisters" which are now redundant but have been preserved for posterity in the bush behind the present facility.

The Nauset Light is near Eastham on Cape Cod. Behind it are the now retired "three sisters" lights.

Moving sand at Chatham Banks at the tip of the elbow on Cape Cod.

We learned that Cape Cod is predominantly a holiday destination - there a multitudes of beach houses but the vast majority are locked up for winter. Their owners either stay in their Boston homes, or have moved to Florida to escape the bitter cold. That said, there is still a sufficient residual population to keep businesses open and we had no trouble finding cafes and bars to relax at. Most touristy art, craft, fashion and souvenir shops are firmly closed. Buildings are typically clad (walls and rooves) with timber shingles. These are blonde in colour when new (so recent renovations are easy to spot), and grey off to become quite dark if not black as they get old. Towns are uniformly grey for this reason and look quite charming.

The 1878 Chatham Light is maybe the prettiest on Cape Cod.

The houses are not beach shacks as an Australian would recognise them - they range from modest to grand but are generally well kept and neat & tidy. Cape Cod lives up to its reputation - it is evidently a summer playground for the wealthy from between New York and Boston. They are basically not here in winter, and during that period the Cape is mostly populated by local business owners and tradesman working on getting the place ready for summer.

The 1797 Highland Light near Truro is the oldest and brightest on Cape Cod.

The last 30km of the Outer Cape is effectively one road in and out to Provincetown, surely one of the cutest towns imaginable. What this compact town must look like in summer is, on the contrary, unimaginable, and the traffic up that road must be unbearable. But our visit was in winter, and the place was very quiet and all but closed. Each afternoon we look for a cafe for a warming cup of tea, and in Provincetown, we could only find one open in a main street of dozens.

Uninterrupted & close-packed beachside shacks and cottages line the Cape Cod Bay shore for miles along route 6A into Provincetown.

Kale grows colorfully in planter boxes in Provincetown.

In Provincetown, a Christmas Tree made of lobster pots and topped artily with colourful fishing floats.

All the townships we saw leading up to Provincetown were pretty as a picture. These include Chatham (fantastic lighthouse), Eastham and Truro. The coast on the east side is wild, being fully exposed to the Atlantic. The protected beaches on the west, inside Cape Cod Bay, are much calmer, and seem to be the popular swimming spots in summer. Nearer the canal, in the Upper Cape (this nomenclature is acknowleged to be irrational and confusing), there is a delightful town called Sandwich (the first town established by Europeans on the Cape, 1637!), which is separated by broad (and windswept) marshes from Cape Cod Bay traversed by a quite spectacular boardwalk.

The 1654 Dexter's Grist Mill in Sandwich still grinds cornmeal, in summer anyway.

Warming up at a welcome cafe in Sandwich. Coffee in real cups!

This long windswept boardwalk connecting Sandwich to its Atlantic surf beach dates back to 1875. On reconstruction in 1992 by the community, almost every board was engraved with a sponsor's name.