After a leisurely start to the day--we left out about 11am, this was our first view of the Bay of Fundy at Fundy National Park. We broke out a picnic lunch in the lovely seaport of Alma, just east of the park at full high tide, about 1:30pm. We came back around low tide that evening for a wonderful supper of fish and chips. I have pictures below that dramatize the changes in this largest of the world tide. According to brochure notes, boats can only enter and leave this harbor at the high tides and you can see why.
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| Alma at 1:30pm |
There is also a lovely little beach at Alma (at high tide--it was a quarter mile deep at low tide!) where Ben enjoyed skipping the flat, tide-worn rocks that make up the beach. It has been a special pleasure to be able to spend time with him this way. Both my children are adults now and as their responsibilities increase, their time with me diminishes, as it should. But watching Ben enjoy the ocean brought back a flood of memories. As a toddler, he had few words. His dad and I took him and his sister to Murrell's Inlet for their first view of the ocean. Greg kneeled down beside him in the sand and said, "It's the ocean, Ben. Big, ain't it?"
After a long silence, Ben furrowed his brow and said solemnly, "Big." He was 11 when his father was killed. Shortly after we were at Jordan Lake and I saw smooth stones on the ground around us and grieved that his father would not be there to skip stones with him. I think it was the first realization of how big my job would be. So I tried my best to show him and we spent some time slinging rocks into the water. I'm happy to say there have been enough good men in his life, he's gotten
a little better instruction at it and does quite well. That said, it feels good to be making new memories with him now and I hope for the opportunity to do more of this with Jessie.
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| View from the bridge |
Our travels after lunch took us to explore the charming park gift shop (did I say carmel maple popcorn??) and then a trip out to and across the Wolf Point Covered Bridge. While this bridge is in the park, there are apparently many well preserved and still in use covered bridges throughout New Brunswick and the highway department has thoughtfully put signs up to indicate their location. We passed by several getting here but this is the first one we crossed. Beautifully preserved, it spans a river just at the point it enters the bay. Later, we walked through dark, deep woods to near the water's edge and sat on a bench taking in the ocean through fir trees and talking about dreams and plans.
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| NB Railway Museum |
After Wolf Point, we headed up NB 114 through Alma to the town of Hillsborough to check out their train museum. The museum is small, short of funds and volunteers, but Ben saw items there he'd only read about and had a good talk with an older gentleman who had volunteered there for some time. They discussed old equipment I had no clue about and pleasantly connected in the way men do comparing notes on tools, cars, trains and other common interests.
We decided to take a different way home and stopped for gas on the way. In Canada, gas is priced by the liter and in pennies. ie we paid 125.6 per liter, or about $3.60 per gallon. Receipts are not itemized here so I'm not sure how sales tax runs. So far, my credit card works just fine and I leave it to them to do the math. That said, NB has lots of scenic highways, for which we have a map, and we decided to amble home a little closer to the coast than NB 114 was taking us. Main roads in NB seem to be in very good shape, but the secondary roads, the further away from main roads, become increasingly rough. Nothing quite matched what we experienced in Maine, but weather is clearly a factor here and I don't envy the job of the DOT.
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| Cape Enrage |
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| Low tide near Cape Enrage |
We did enjoy some spectacular views. We decided to take a short side trip to a place on the map labeled Cape Enrage. When we arrived, we discovered that it was a tourist spot requiring admission and we were not planning to stay long enough to justify the expense so we took a couple of pictures and headed on towards Alma and supper. The Cape Enrage lighthouse is short and sturdy, and low tide at the base of the cliff is dramatic. There is a zipline from a rocky outcrop above the lighthouse to just at its base. I'm sure it gives you the feel of flying out into the bay, something some of the road curves did without the price of admission.
We had supper at the Alma Boathouse--traditional fish and chips for us both and Ben sampled local beer. It was 10pm when we got home and midnight before we hit the hay after tidying up the camper. We have seen so much, we are both on overload. I think tomorrow will be a day of rest.
Grand Lake ends in the St John River. The St John River Valley is credited with being the most scenic river valley in all of Canada. New Brunswick has identified a number of scenic routes and between their map and clear signage, we had no trouble enjoying the trip.
They remind me of the old houses with a "Carolina A" back home though most of the houses we saw did not have a front porch. Obviously the steep pitch of the A is a nod to winter snow but they seem to be about the same age as the Carolina As, early to mid 1800s. We also saw many charming clapboard churches replete with gingerbread details and of a wide variety of denominations. As detailed as the woodwork on the churches was, the farmhouses were surprisingly plain by comparison. Very little gingerbread, very few with shutters. Still, they all had their own charming flavor.
We saw these beautifully preserved clapboard churches the entire length of today's drive. It was hard to stop for pictures on the narrow road but we caught this Anglican Church at a wide place and managed a picture of these two across the river through the windshield.
We also saw the world's longest covered bridge. It was being repaired, so we couldn't drive a cross, but it was impressive. The Canadians love their covered bridges and build them with aplomb. A cross country bicyclist stopped in a gift shop we were visiting and asked the clerk what he should see in town. She mentioned the covered bridge and he replied that he'd seen the world's second largest covered bridge already in Quebec. We passed others on the way including one bridge that had a covered section to the first abutment followed by trestles the rest of the way across the river. In fact, we saw many graceful and intriguing bridges of all sorts. Ben the welder enjoyed them all and photographed most of them. 
