St. Andrews, New Brunswick

07/09/2019 -   Today was a driving day.  We drove 138 miles, through the Canadian border, and settled in at Oceanfront Camping in St. Andrews, New Brunswick  This campground sits on a point, and is surrounded by a bay on three sides.  It is beautiful.  We all gathered at the center under a shade tree for appetizers and a 'Get to Know You'.  The group is very diversified, but most of us are about the same age, retired, and out to see the continent.    Tomorrow is our first touring day of the caravan.  We will be on a bus tour of St. Andrews, an old town in New Brunswick. 


07/10/19 - The bus picked us all up in the morning around 8:45.  We had a local biologist as our guide.  She really seemed to love her job as a guide.  She was also a high school science teacher and ran a small shop in town - a very busy lady.  She had many good stories to tell about St. Andrews, and we all really enjoyed her.

Our first stop was at the Anglican Church. 
Minister John at the Anglican Church
The minister there, John, talked to us about the history of the old church and some of the relics they kept from the old church.  It was a very quaint church and was visited by Charles and Diana in June of 1983. 
The Royal visit in 1983
It was a big event for this little town.  The minister said that Diana took time talk to every person there.  Just up the same block, was the Baptist Church and the Catholic Church.  We learned that there were 6 churches in this little town of 1800 people year round, so the congregations were not very big.

We then toured through some of the better neighborhoods.  Here is a sampling of the large houses put up in the late 1800's. The architect was Edward Maxwell, who we were told, was very famous in his day.

The city was settled in the 1600's by the original settlers.  They built their houses near the water, but did not realize that the high tide was such a big difference from the low tide - it actually goes up and down with a 28' difference.  They got flooded, so they actually moved the houses, and got flooded again.  The moved the houses 3 times before they were safe from high tide.  I bet that was a very tiring day.  Only a few of the original houses remain from that first settlement, but we found one of them, and it has been completely restored to its former self.

Our next stop was the town's jailhouse.  The original burned down and was replaced with this granite building.  It was purposely built to keep the inmates in.  They could not dig out (the building was made with  2 foot thick granite stones. 
St Andrews Jailhouse
The cells were tiny and had only one very small window and an iron door on each cell.  I cannot imagine how uncomfortable these cells must have been.  They had no bathroom or shower facilities either.
There were 8 cells
A very cute local girl guided us through the jail.  Can you see the iron door behind her?
Iron door to the cells

Next to the jailhouse was the courthouse which had also been completely rebuilt.  We also had a local girl as our guide.
St Andrews Courthouse

Our next stop on the bus tour was Kingsbrae Gardens.  These were beautiful gardens.  We were first greeted at the front entrance with the most beautiful dogwood tree I have ever seen.
Dogwood tree
We then were escorted to the restaurant for lunch.  After lunch, we toured the gardens.  Here are a few pictures.
beautiful fountain

See the reflection in the mirror
Just a beautiful picture (water in back)
Caught us in front of the dogwood as we left

Back at the campground, and we walked down to the waterfront.  We visited with people down there, then came back to the RV to fix dinner for Trish and Bev and us.  Trish brought rasberry turnovers for dessert.  It was a very nice day.


07/11/2019 - Trish, Tom, and I went into town.  We happened upon a Farmers Market in the town square.  Great food!  We bought meat pies, sweets, vegetable flatcakes, greens, and vegetables.  In town, we bought fudge.  You might think we only eat on this trip.  We stopped at the bank to convert more US dollars into Canadian dollars, and headed back to the RV.  I was able to get on the internet so I tried to download pictures, but no luck.  Maybe the next stop will have a stronger internet connection.

Meeting for dinner and drivers meeting.








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