St. John and Hopewell, New Brunswick

07/12/2019 - We drove from St. Andrews to St. John, New Brunswick.  It poured rain the whole day.  Tom and I got soaked while we hooked up the car to leave.  Only 78 miles between the two campgrounds, but it took almost 2 hours.  The towns are narrow and had to go through residential areas.  This campground is actually a municipal resort destination, called Rockwood.   It was designed by the same man that designed Central Park in New York City, except that Central Park is 300 acres and this municipal park is 2200 acres, with 10 lakes.  They hold a lot of weddings here.  There are  several community activity centers.  The parks was established by the City of Saint John and all proceeds go back into the city.  Saint John was the first city to be incorporated in Canada, in 1785.

We got settled and Tom and Trish went out shopping for some supplies.  In the evening, we had dinner at the restaurant in this resort called Lily's.   It was delicious.  We had scallops wrapped in bacon and deep fried..  Tom was especially thrilled with the dessert, caramel and pecan cheesecake.  No pictures, as the rain was too heavy.  Tomorrow is supposed to be much better.


07/13/2019 - Bus tour of Saint John.  Our first stop was the central indoor market.  Lots of fruit and vegetables and cooked stands; also local hand made goods.  It reminded me of Farmer's Market in Los Angeles.

St John Central Market

Then we walked to the square across the street.  It had a beautiful pavilion in the center.

The next stop was Reversing Falls.  I will try to explain:  The Saint John River is fed from the mountains in Maine.  The water runs down through New Brunswick and then to the Atlantic through the Bay of Fundy.  When the tides come in from the Atlantic, they send a tremendous amount of water back into Fundy Bay which forces the water to back up the river and actually force the river to flow backwards (uphill).  It creates rapids and raises the water levels in the river.  When the tide goes back out, the water moves down the river and back to the ocean.  My pictures don't do this any justice.  I watched birds floating upstream and seals unable to swim downstream during high tide.  As I mentioned before, the high tides actually raise the water lever by 28'.  This causes the falls in the river to run backwards.  My pictures show a pulp mill in the background that actually does NOT smell.  It is owned by the Irving Oil Co. (who owns a lot up here) and they put scrubbers on the emissions to keep the smell out.

High Tide-water flowing left to right (upstream/backwards)

Low Tide-water flowing right to left (downstream)

Our next stop was the Martello Tower, built by the British to defend their interests against Napoleon and the U.S.  They built many of these small fortresses all over the world.  We could not go inside because of the restoration efforts to keep the building from collapsing under its own weight.

MartelloTower

The bus then drove us up the coast to Saint Martins (quite a ways) for lunch (seafood chowder), then back to the Reversing Falls (about 4 hours later)  to see the tides going out.  It was truly amazing.  Then we went back to the campground.   The ride seemed endless and most everybody feel asleep.  I got a little quezzy.  The bus ride totaled 6 hours---way too long, especially since the bus had no leg room to speak of!


07/14/2019 - Drive day to Hopewell Cape-northbound up the Fundy bay about 106 miles.  As we left the Saint John campground, Tom forgot to unplug the electrical and water hookups.  We pulled out and the water faucet broke and shot water 10 feet in the air, while we were dragging our electrical plugs.  This happened in front of everybody.  Tom was so embarrassed!  Now, my job is to do a 'walk around' the coach when he is ready to leave.  Everyone there has done this at least once, and they got a big laugh.    The roads to Hopewell were not great so it took over 2 1/2 hours to go 100 miles.  We got settled, and Trish and I took the car and drove back to a little town on the coast called Alma.  It looked so quaint when we drove through.  We headed to the bakery where our wagonmaster said that they had good sticky buns.  Then we visited the candy store and had lunch at the cafe (more chowder).  After lunch, we wandered through Mooseheads, a gift and souvenir shop.  We talked the whole way to and from Alma and had a good visit.  We had to get back to the campground, because our lobster dinner cruise was tonight.

We drove about 35 miles north to Shediac, New Brunswick to the wharf where we boarded the Ambassador, a fishing and dinner cruise boat, with Captain Ron.

The Ambassador

He was very entertaining.   Our group was about 30 from our caravan and we had the boat almost all to ourselves.  The skies were overcast and threatening, but Captain Ron said it wasn't bad and would pass.  He made 'chicken' jokes about the people who chose to eat chicken on a lobster boat.  The boat headed out of the harbor and into the bay where Captain Ron stopped to describe to us how they fish for lobster.  He then asked for volunteers to pull the rope to bring up a trap.  Tom was at the front of the line. 

Tom fishing for lobster

He pulled and pulled, and up came a trap, but when Captain opened it up, he pulled out a rubber chicken! 

He caught a rubber chicken

Lots of laughs.  Then he moved the boat to another buoy and asked Tom to pull again.  This time he pulled in a trap with 2 lobsters and a crab in it. 

Two lobsters and a crab

Captain Ron with a lobstr

Captain Ron explained a lot about lobsters--how to tell the females from the males (the females have larger and wider tail fins); and how the fishing industry in New Brunswick and other parts of the Maritime provinces are using conservancy methods to insure that the lobster population is growing.  It is all working, and without any government intervention--Hooray!

We watched the scenery.  Then Captain Ron brought out a cooked and chilled lobster.  He explained that this was the 'Acadian" way to cook a lobster, and the ONLY way.  Boil in salted water for about 18 minutes and plunge the lobster in icy water to 'fringe' the meat away from the shell.  He showed us how to pull the meat from the shell very easily, and enjoy the true taste of the meat without any butter or other things that might cover the taste of the meat.  He was right.  The meat was delicious (even without butter).  Now we feel like pros at it.

Lobster dinner

Of course, more jokes about chicken, and then the traps went back into the water - even the rubber chicken.  He actually told Tom that he paid $3,50 for the rubber chicken 5 years ago and has been using it every since.  He really got his money's worth.

Everyone had a great time and even thanked me for discovering the cruise.  We had rain and a rainbow - a very good day.

Threatening skies

Then a rainbow

07/15/2019 - Hopewell Rocks.  We traveled by car to Hopewell Rocks on the sea.  This is the location of the highest tides in the world.  It is at the most northern part of Fundy Bay.  Where I thought a 28' high tide in Saint John was high, the tides here reach a high level of 48', with an average at 39'.  The tides come in and go out approximately every 6 hours.  We walked down to the shore at low tide and saw amazing rocks formed by the force of the tides.  It leaves behind lots of mud and small rocks, but no dead seafood (therefore no smell and no sea birds).  I only saw one lonely pigeon.

The ocean floor at low tide

One lonely pigeon

The rocks look like they would topple over any minute, as the bases are all eroded to nothing, and there were lots of caves.  Here are my pictures.

rocks with no bases

This one is called 'Flower Pot Rock'. When the tide comes in, the water reaches the top of the erosion (yes, those are people at the base).

Flower Pot Rock

This picture is a postcard taken at mid-tide--what a difference. I bought it in Saint John and thought it looked like something out of 'Avatar'.

Postcard of Flowerpot Rock

Tom wasn't paying much attention to the 'danger' signs on the beach (the trees above eventually fall down. 

Caves and interesting rocks

Elephant Rock on the left

We walked on the ocean floor for a couple of hours and back up the ramp toward the cars, when the skies opened up and we all got drenched.  A lot of walking, and I was exhausted.  At least I had my canes.

We then went up to the Center and listened to a park ranger talk about the wonder of the tides.  Then he showed very short clips of how dramatic the tides were.  One showed 3 park rangers standing on dry land with water at their heels.  There was a stopwatch on one side of the film.  We watched the water rise to their heads in 27 minutes - just amazing.  He explained how some visitors got trapped by the tides and had to be rescued.

Dinner at Trish's and to bed.  Tomorrow is another driving day.  We had to get some rest.