The Road Goes On…

2019 Eastern Canada

  • Miramichi, NB to Shediac, NB

    After a great sleep and quick shopping trip at Walmart, we began our journey to Shediac, home of Parlee beach, supposedly Canada’s warmest salt water sand beach. Driving through Shediac, we experienced our first tourist town in New Brunswick with lots of people, cars and cute little stores. Our focus was finding the Adorable Chocolate shop and we were very lucky that it offered ice cream as well. Of course we treated ourselves to ice cream before we chose six chocolates to go.

    The Parlee Beach Provincial Park campground was only a few kilometres away and we were lucky to still get an electric site on this huge campground. A 15 minute walk to the beach warmed us up for the not quite so warm water. We don’t think it was the 20 degrees that the gatehouse said it was. Nevertheless, our first salt water swim was glorious.

  • Shediac, NB to Moncton, NB

    Martin was driving from Shediac to Moncton while Ruth was busy looking through the tourist guide for ideas of what to see. We were excited about all the options we had. First things first, where would we sleep? We checked into the Camper’s City Camping and Seasonal Resort but were told that they wouldn’t let us go to the camping site until after 1PM although we had paid. We had lots of things to see so that wasn’t a big deal. First up, the University of Moncton Acadian Museum where we met Deborah Robichaud, a true Acadian and former director of the Museum. She was the featured artist and showed some of her jewelry. Our conversation soon turned to the history of the Acadian people and her immense knowledge of the subject fascinated us.

    The museum is well worth seeing and clearly presents the history and more recent accomplishments of the Acadian people.

    Next door in the library of the university is the Esther and Isadore Fine Collection of Inuit Art comprised of 242 pieces from the 1930s to 1975.

    Some fresh but warm air would do us some good and the tidal bore was scheduled to happen at 3:54PM. The tidal bore occurs twice daily and reverses the flow of the Petitcodiac River when the higher water in the Bay of Fundy sends a wave upstream during high tide.

    A few steps away is the RESURGO Museum which houses exhibits on the subjects of transportation, business development and the history of the Moncton area. We liked the experimental exhibits for children and the iPad equipped walkers that read barcodes embedded on a map of Moncton printed on the floor to give you information on those locations.

    The historical section featured a Lutheran Bible printed in Nuremberg in 1747.

    A special exhibition on rug hooking was also there, although we didn’t get much of a chance to practice as closing time was fast approaching.

    Right next door was a very old cemetery and the Free Meeting House, restored in its original 1821 style. This was a non-denominational place of worship and bore witness to the religious tolerance in the Maritimes in the 19th century.

    This was enough culture for the day and we were really hungry so off to Skipper Jack’s Seafood and Grill House we went for fish and chips dinner. Ruth’s plate also had scallops and clams.

    Costco was next for gas and some groceries and to sniff out what Moncton’s Costco had to offer. It looked very much the same as ours.

  • Moncton, NB to Fundy National Park, NB

    We had to be out of the campground by 11AM as there was a big sign that they were very strict about this and charged for late departures. A pickup truck patrolled constantly and it felt a bit unwelcoming. We left on time and happily made our way to Hopewell Rocks where during low tide one can walk on the ocean floor to explore 2 km of shoreline. At high tide (36-46ft over the low tide level), the water rises to fill the caves and turns the flowerpots into rocky islands.

    We hiked and photographed for about 2 hours, totally fascinated by these beautiful and huge rocks that made the people look like ants.

    We went on to the Fundy National Park where we will be spending the next two nights.

  • Fundy National Park, NB

    We had time today to have an elaborate apple pancake breakfast, yoghurt with fresh blueberries and lots of great conversation. Low tide wasn’t until 1:44PM and we made our way down to the beach to experience and photograph it.

    Now we had time until today’s high tide at 7:57PM. We used this time to visit Bennett Lake, about 10kms from our campground where we had an extensive and fun kayak paddle across this beautiful lake, making it back against the wind.

    Slightly exhausted and heated we went for a very refreshing swim.

    Dinner was in Alma, the fishing town at the entrance of the park. We walked through the various shops and, no, ice cream was not the highlight of the visit. Rather, it was the lobster fishing boats getting ready to leave the harbour. They loaded crates of frozen herring and fish heads as bait for their lobster traps.

    At the end of the day we went back to the beach we’d been at 6 hours prior to experience and photograph high tide.

  • Fundy National Park, NB to Amherst, NS

    Today was an early rise, a quick muffin and no coffee (a dangerous situation) or tea. We drove back to Moncton to visit the Farmer’s Market before leaving for Nova Scotia. Martin found a great parking spot right next to the market and the first thing we bought at the market was a 20oz dark roast coffee with milk for Ruth. The world was safe and sane again.

    The market had a lot of food stands, crafts and produce and we had a great time strolling through the aisles.

    Our eyes caught a berry stand that sold Haskap berries and the stall owner told us all about this super fruit and let us try some. The berries are tart and refreshing and have an almost bean shape and blueberry color. We bought a jar of the jam and are looking forward to trying it with some yoghurt.

    We bought some sausages and eggs from a small local farmer who has his animals running free on his farm.

    In a corner stand we met Serge Martin, a potter who also does amazing photography with a special focus on street people. His images attracted us and we must have talked to him for at least half and hour. He told us the stories of the street people he had photographed and how he shares 20% of the proceeds of sales of their images with them.

    Next stop was Sackville where we visited the Boultenhouse Heritage Centre, home of the most prolific shipbuilder in the area in the mid-19th century. The house overlooked his shipyard on the river. The effects of erosion, however, has changed the course of the river and there is no longer any water or shipyard.

    Adjacent to his house is an octagonal house, originally belonging to George Anderson, a mariner, and learned of sea-faring families.

    From there we drove to the George Campbell Carriage and Wagon builders historic site and learned about how wagon wheels and carriages where built. Many of the old tools and some old carriages are on display.

    Now it was on to Nova Scotia with a stop at the Welcome Centre to stock up on information materials, get suggestions for routing and fill our water bottles. It was a very positive experience!

    Amherst is right at the border and we had a quick stop at the Deanne Fitzpatrick Studio where we had a demonstration on rug hooking, got to try it ourselves and bought a small beginner’s project to try our newly acquired skills out on.