Today we are going into our third Maritime province of this trip. New Brunswick. It is also one of the four Atlantic provinces, which add Labrador/Newfoundland to their ranks. New Brunswick is not an island, but is rather part of the mainland, adjacent to Maine and Quebec to the south and west and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy to the north and east. The province is 83% covered in forest, with the coastline taking up the rest. It is one of the more culturally “blended” provinces with about 2/3 of its inhabitants being Anglo and one third being French in origin. It’s called the Acadian province and has changed hands between England and France many times over the centuries before it joined the Canadian Confederation. The province has historically been less prosperous than the the other Canadian provinces, largely due to its relatively poor acidic glacially deposited soil. It does not attract the tourism or the commercial interests and is thus sort of the middle child of Canada, getting more than its share of support from the other, more prosperous provinces.
Today we will hit two of the more popular sights on our way to Saint John, its provincial capital city. The first is the upper Bay of Fundy where we will find the Hopewell Rock formations along the rugged shore. It’s a long walk down to the shore, but we availed ourselves of a friendly golf cart to do the deed. You could almost feel the tide coming in to get us. We lunched at a spot called Cape Enrage at the Cape House Restsurant. From what I could see, if I had to live full time on Cape Enrage, I might have called it the same thing. Then we rush down to Saint John in time for a 3:49pm low tide or what is called the Reversing Tides Rapids due to the average 28.5 foot tidal surge that takes place twice daily. The tidal bore creates a wave up to 30 inches that rushes up and down the Saint John’s River. The shape of the Bay causes this phenomenon more than any tidal effects anywhere else in the world. It is said that more water passes through there on a daily basis than all the other rivers of the world combined. That’s a lotta water rushing back and forth. I have been to the Bay of Bengal where the tides are unique for their distance coverage of the uniformly shallow bay. Fundy presents a very different sort of tide as we saw today.
It’s Sunday, so there was little traffic as we departed Charlottetown this morning. We left PEI via the bridge rather than another ferry ride. It’s 8 miles long so one gets the opportunity to contemplate PEI as we leave. We then wend our way down the Petitcodiac River to Cape Engage and those Hopewell Rocks we’ve heard about. I imagine some combination of lobster rolls, fish & chips and mussels has found their way onto our menu for the day…again. I’m very proud of myself in adapting to all the seafood in the Maritimes. I’ve actually had some fish along the way and expect to do so a bit more as we enter these last three riding days.
Saint John seems to be a real working town and while we found a decent Restsurant for dinner, I doubt anyone would ever call the town quaint. Just as well, we had a 7am call to be at the ferry that goes to Digby, Nova Scotia. It’s a 2.5 hour trip so we will settle in for the duration, get us a little ferry boat breakfast, and be ready to disembark in Digby and find our way south along the coast.
Our weather outlook for today and tomorrow on Nova Scotia looks to be clear and cool, so perfect riding weather. There seems to be little in the way of attractions on this part of the province, so my plan is to head to a lunch spot called Cafe du Crique and then go look at a lighthouse called Cspe Forgf to. (the provincial sport of choice) before heading to the Best Western Mermaid.
I am presuming in advance that our time in Yarmouth will be uneventful. Tomorrow is our return day to get back to Halifax. The guys will find their way back to Truro to return the bikes and the gals will return the car to the Hertz at the airport. We will likely stop in Lunenburg, the Chamber of Commerce seaport on the south shore. I’m sure we’ll find a nice lunch spot before we get on with our rental return chores. We will have an early dinner at the hotel and then try to rest for our 3am pickup for the 5am flight to Toronto and then on home. We’ll get back to San Diego at 10am so it will be like we never left before we know it. In the meantime we will get the most fun we can out of the Bay of Fundy.