Cavendish Campground, PEI NP

Our trip to PEI was a bit of a bust. We had hoped to stay a while, but were astonished by the condition of the PEI National Park campgrounds. We were here a few years ago before and after our trip to the Magdalen Islands and it was quite beautiful. We only stayed one night then, at the Stanhope campground. We had only stopped in the park to look for a rare vagrant bird, a Gray Heron.

Since that time, PEI was one of the areas trashed by Hurricane Fiona, along with Cape Breton and the Magdalens. We decided to give the Cavendish campground a try this time and we were shocked when we arrived. The forest surrounding the campground was nothing but blown down and dead trees and most of the campsites were now surrounded by unkempt brush. We were able to get a unserviced open site near the beach where the view was toward the water  and not the bombed out forest. It was a very nice day and we were able to walk along the beach. We had originally planned to stay for a couple of nights, but the next morning we decided to see if we could cancel and try the Stanhope campground further up the coast. We had no trouble canceling. 

Before going on to Stanhope, we did a early walk at the other end of the park along a pond and out to the beach. Evidently the large dunes between the ocean and the pond protected the area as there was little of the damage we saw at the campground and a fair number of birds as well.

When we got to the Stanhope campground we saw that it was in much the same shape as Cavendish. It bore little resemblance to the campground we stayed in only a couple of years ago. We decided not to stay.

What to do? After a bit of discussion, we concluded that we were disheartened enough that we would start back home with our first stop at Fundy National Park on the way. So it was off on a rather long drive to the Bay of Fundy.