Atlantic Provinces: New Brunswick

Atlantic Provinces: New Brunswick, Canada

Saturday, July 11, Day 25
 66 degrees F

187 miles to travel

It was a clear sunny day when we headed to New Brunswick, Canada. One thing we had not been able  to do at Jack and Jane’s remote camp was to access our cell phone provider to make calls. We stopped in Machias, ME (which had a good Verizon signal) to make phone calls to remind our credit card companies to expect charges from the Canadian side of the line and to honor them. This was a lesson we learned from last year's travels to Alaska.
 

There are three common icons that we have encountered that will forever remind me of Maine. One was the frequent signs that proclaimed “camp wood” for sale. They were often accompanied with a colorful honor system pay box.



Second was the mosquitoes, which proved to more of a nuisance here than they were in Alaska last summer.

Tourists were hauling these back south tied on their luggage racks!

The third was lobster. When we left this morning, I expected that we had our last ME lobster. Then we saw a McDonald’s marquee in Calais just before the border crossing. It appeared that the hamburger and French fry giant had expanded into the lobster roll market. 

Each even had a small craw on top.

 



















The price was reasonable and the product was quite acceptable. Somehow, though, I don’t think we will find lobster rolls in the McDonald's back in Arkansas. 

Not far from the Mickey Ds was the border crossing. We waited 20 minutes in line to get to the customs agent, who asked about our destination and any alcohol, meat products, and firearms we were bringing into Canada.


 

One sign of being in Canada

It was 1:24 EDT when we crossed the border and realized that we were now in the Atlantic Time Zone, for my first time. Our destination for the evening was Saint John. 


Another sign of being in Canada

 

We stopped at the visitor center and received directions to our campground via a ferry. 

Ferries going and coming 24-7

At 4:35 pm we crossed on the free ferry (we would make this crossing 6 times) to Harding’s Point Campground. 

The TC runs on land and water!

Destination area

We shared the waterway

and the ferry

The only WiFi they had was at the office and we sat on a bench outside the building to catch up on email, Facebook, and whatever else we able to connect to. It wasn’t a convenient way to stay connected, but we had very limited data on our add-on Canadian cell plan. This plan allowed us unlimited texting and 100 phone minutes on each phone for each 30 days. So we had to find free WiFi opportunities. We had informed our families that they could call us in emergencies.

Water view

After dinner and our customary walk around the campground, we got “hard lemonade” at the bar over the campground office and went to the DJ dance in the adjacent courtyard. There were lots of kids jumping around to the music—not our style. We went to our site, which was very close by, and when the DJ started a country segment we went back and danced until he changed.  We left again, and when he slowed it down we returned one more time. There were only 3 couples actually dancing together. The other dance style was to form circle groups, voice loudly the rap words, and hold your beer up to the sky. I can’t imagine what they thought of the coordinated couple dancing we were doing. We soon left and took out our maps to plan our next day’s visit to Saint John.

Sunday, July 12, Day 26

81 degrees F, elevation 39 meters

We slept in for a change and then got ready for afternoon sightseeing in Saint John, the largest city in New Brunswick and the second largest in the Maritime Provinces. Our first stop was what is called Reversing Falls.  This event is created when the tidal body of water from the Bay of Fundy (at 28 feet) collides with the Saint John River, creating first rapids and whirlpools and eventually stopping the flow of the river at slack tide, and then reversing the flow of the river. At low tide the Bay of Fundy tides are 14 feet lower than the river and the reverse happens, forming the rapids and whirlpools again, but in the other direction. A hundred billion tons of water, equal to all the water that flows in every river on the earth in 24 hours, pours into the Bay of Fundy every 12 hours. It was slack tide when we arrived so there was not much to see. 

Slack tide

So we went downtown, parked at the Harbour Station sports arena, and walked to the New Brunswick Museum, where we focused on the history of military, shipbuilding, and wildlife exhibits. It seems that ship launching for this community was a gala affair in this port area. People would dress up and flock to the area to be able to witness a ship hitting the water for the first time. Once the blocks holding the ship in place were removed she would slide slowly at first, accelerating then hitting the landing with a big rolling splash.



 



  
The full-size whale skeletons helped me imagine what Jonah felt like.





We were there on Sunday so there were not scores of live people wandering around Market Square. 

 



















 


The uptown area was open for business,











and we got directions to the Big Tide Brewing Company for local beers and eats.

Interesting beers we tried:

 

We asked for a window seat

Lobster lunch for her

Tasty breakfast for me

It was an effort to get there up King Street which is the shortest steepest main street in Canada.




Guess what Daisy found to eat? I partook of a “poutine” which was hash browns, sausage, cheese, and homemade hollandaise sauce topped with a sunny egg. 

Open wide

We took a brewery tour after our snack.

It was downhill back to the parking lot and we headed back to the campground. We repeated the ferry ride, our third in 2 days.  At the campground, we selected a different site—one that was more level than the previous night’s location. We were going to head east the next day and took the evening to lay out a plan. With us, however, all plans are subject to change at a moment’s notice.

Monday, July 13, Day 27

258 miles to travel before nightfall

We left at 9:05 on a 64 degree, sunny morning, and headed to the coastline to check out the Bay of Fundy’s high and low tides. 

At 9:25 we got a text message from my daughter informing us that their next Army post is going to be near where we spend the winters in Texas. Well, if you consider 6 hours away to be close, as we do, that is exciting news. They are being assigned for 2 years or so to Fort Hood, which is north of Austin, Texas. Austin is a music Mecca with a Texas flavor. The nearby Texas hill country and its vineyards and European food attractions are an addition. So we look forward to having more of an excuse to spend time in that area—not that we need one.

Our intermediate destination on this date:

Visitor Center

The Flower Pot Rocks

Our destination for this day was Prince Edward Island via Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick. This area has what are commonly called the “flower pot rocks.” Because the Bay of Fundy is funnel shape, that is wide on one end and narrow on the end near Hopewell Rocks, the tide is almost 4 stories high by the time it gets here.


We wanted to observe the rise and fall of the tides by being able to walk the ocean floor.  We arrived there at 12:15 and the temperature was very pleasant at 75 degrees. High tide had been at 10:30 so there was still water around the unique features of the rocks for our first photos from the platforms looking down to the beach area.  


We decided to have lunch at an outdoor cafe while the tide was still receding. What would Daisy have, you ask?

I know you’re surprised. 

The menu

And an double caramel chocolate ice cream bar to wrap it up

  

She gave me one bite!

An interesting thing happened at lunch. We shared our table with a woman on a bus tour who hailed from Albuquerque, where I had lived for several years. And no, she did not know me. When I told her I had worked there for the US Forest Service 15 years ago, she asked me to meet her friend who was sitting at another table. I walked to the other table and started to introduce myself, and the lady said enthusiastically, “I know you.” 

She had worked for the USFS in Albuquerque during the the last few months I had, so we shared a hug and took a photo.  It’s a small world.

 
We hiked down to the bay floor and around the rocks. We had rubber footwear on but it was amusing to see everything from bare feet, flip flops, knee-high boots, and narrow 4-inch heeled sandals in the muck. 


 

The mother-in-law rock. Go figure.

The tide is out.

The way down..and back up

The Lovers' Arch

It worked for us, much to the amusement of the kids behind.

Flowing water, wind, and ice erosion has carved these designs in thousands of years. But there are other theories as to how these rock formations were carved.  The first peoples here tell one story that there was a fearful sea monster that inhabited these waters. He loved to eat white porpoises.  As the story goes, he had captured the local natives in this bay and forced them to be his slaves. One day he ordered them to go fishing for porpoises for him. When they got away from this bay they escaped.  In his fury this great sea monster used his tail to lash up the cliffs where the slaves had lived, carving the features we now see.

Some beach areas were roped off because erosion is still taking place

 

We did not see any sea monsters during our visit.Yet I did see one large fin breaking the water's surface off shore. I really did, and was told it was a white porpoise.

One can visit this area from the sea as well.

On our way back up the cliff face we observed a Ranger giving a talk in French.

The Hopewell Rocks area of the Bay of Fundy was an impressive place and worth the drive to experience.


 As we reached our vehicle, we thought we were seeing double. There was another truck and TC just like ours parked next to us. Nobody was home but they had Texas plates. We decided to not wait around to meet them.

Truck with Texas plates in the foreground

The official low tide would not be for another 2 hours, but we still had more miles to travel before we called it a day. So we were off for the bridge to Prince Edward Island.