Bay of Fundy, more

Whoa!  This is REAL!  A sixteen percent grade is common on the Fundy Trail in New Brunswick.  Not to worry, however.  The road surface is very good here, unlike most of the roads between small villages. Towing a trailer on a deeply cracked and pot-holed road means driving no more than 30 mph, sometimes even slower.  No wonder people hate following an rv!

The days of the Trail dead-end ends, as of today.  The day we toured the 10 mile Trail we heard the Legislature ( or whatever they call it in this province) had approved the funds to continue the Trail to Sussex, making it a through road.  It's like the Blue Ridge Parkway, for my southern friends.  In a few years, this magnificent access will continue to the next largest town.  Don't bring your travel trailer, however!  Congrats to the province for recognizing a treasure right in their own backyard.  And, thanks for allowing us to enjoy it, too!










Our campsite on the Bay of Fundy, at Century Farms Campground, in St. Martins.  Full moon on the Bay, a campfire, and polar fleece.  It's only June 28!  This is the campsite from which we could see the sea caves across the little cove, and could walk the beach to the lighthouse at low tide.  This is one of the prettiest campsites we've ever had.








From St. Martins, we drove on the perfectly awful  local road back to the perfectly great coastal highway, heading  north.  Thirty five miles/hour, top speed.  The local roads, sort of like Shaw Highway at home, are in dreadful shape because of the cold.  Gas is $1.35/liter.  For folks in the States, that's more than $5.00/gallon.  Taxes.  And, here, the highway department needs every dime to resurface the roads in the few short summer months.  Local roads get less money, as they carry less traffic, but the road to/from St. Martins seems to be far worse than any road we've tried to travel. Thankfully, traffic was almost non-existant, we held up no one as we drove slowly.  Destination: Hopewell Rocks, and the Tide Research Center.  Home of the highest tides in the world!

We arrived at Hopewell Cape late in the day, pulled into a pretty cg less than 2 miles from Hopewell Rocks. Cloudy skies, promising rain, as usual, hung around. To make plans for tomorrow, we decided to go to the National Historic Park, to investigate the fees and hours.  In order to experience the tides at their extremes, we'd have to make multiple visits to the park.  Luck, as always, was with us!  The low tide, in 2 hours, allowed us to walk on the ocean floor right away.  The entrance ticket allowed us to return tomorrow, for the high tide.

This photo was taken from the top of the bluff, at not-quite-low-tide.











Wow!  These photos were taken on the ocean floor, the day after the full moon.  That meant the tides were going to be even more pronounced than normal!














As we stood on the ocean floor, mouths hanging open like country-come-to-town, a park interpreter approached us, to say she was going to lead a low-tide walk and invited us to join her.  Well, we were the only people who joined!  Lucky us.  Megaen and Josh, a trainee, told us about seaweed, the rocks,  and the sandpipers that call this spit of land home while making the 2,000 mile journey south or north every year.  The mud flats are so important:  they are the home of mud bugs, which are the primary food of those sandpipers. Sort of like coastal NC "sand fiddlers" but smaller, the birds eat thousands of them in one day, doubling their body weight  to give them strength for their non-stop trip north or south.  I'd love to see thousands of them, dining on the mud flats here!  Great guide.  Good luck with your graduate school work, Megaen. 

 Back at the Shack, we ate lobster for dinner, of course.  Quiet, the rain didn't keep us awake at all.  The next morning, we headed back, to see the high tide....

Wow!  Hard to imagine we walked far below the surface of the water here yesterday afternoon.  The tides at Bay of Fundy are so dramatic because of a "perfect storm" situation:  the Bay is exactly the correct length, and narrows at exactly the correct rate to create a a funnel perfectly proportioned to aggravate the changing tide.  So, as the incoming tide is reaching the head of the Bay, the outgoing tide at the head of the Bay is just starting to turn, causing a back-up of water.  There is still an enormous exchange of water.

Not only where we there at the fullest tide, just two days after the full moon, but Megean pointed out to us the nest of a pair of peregrine falcons on the cliffside.  From the beach, we watched the parents bring home the bacon, feeding the 3 week-old chick who was screaming for food,  some piece of fish or fowl. The second day of our visit, I had the binoculars, and as we watched from the cliff top, the parents again brought home the bacon, and made the exchange  from one parent to the other in mid-air!  The chick, one of 2 born, is growing fast since the sibling has disappeared.  Megean said sometimes a chick gets booted out of the nest, leaving all the meals-in-flight for the remaining chick.  Survival.

For a terrific experience without buying the ticket, check out the tide on this youtube: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnDJ6_XpGfo

 We drove along the coast to Alma, NB, to buy scallops and to see a couple of lighthouses.  The coast here is rugged and gorgeous.  The sun was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds, but for the first time in more than a week, the rain didn't fall.

The blog is out-of-date by about 2 weeks, but I'm keeping up with the rain back home.  We've complained about the rain for the past 3 weeks while we're on vacation, but my brother and the other farmers on the coast of NC are struggling with the heavy rain.  Today, I learned Crooms Bridge Road is flooded, and friends along the NE Cape Fear River are unable to get to their homes. My brother is unable to cut hay, friends are unable to cut wheat, and lagoons are dangerously high.  While my complaint is purely personal, others are trying to make a living.  We live at the mercy of the weather!


Along the road to Alma, we turned off to drive on a rough, uphill road that should have never been built!  The road to the Cape Enrage Lighthouse is about the most twisted road I've ever driven.  No way could we have dragged the Cottage on this road.  Along the way, we drove across a man-made causeway, where a few small rvs were parked, boon-docking in a most beautiful location, playing on a rocky beach.  We cautiously continued up the twisted road to the lighthouse, the fog was moving more quickly than we were.  By the time we reached the top of the cliff, the fog had almost hidden the lighthouse.

The fog horn was sounding, automatically engaged when the fog came in.  Three, three-second-long warnings, then 45 seconds of silence.  Like the lights, the foghorns are distinctive for their locations, giving one more clue to the ships to their location.

In Alma, we bought lthe local scallops the town is famous for, continuing our dinners from local waters.  Travel to Nova Scotia tomorrow!  Today is Tuesday, and because the coming weekend is the national holiday Canada Day, we thought we'd call ahead for a reservation at a cg. Well, good thinking.  After calling eight campgrounds, we are learning there is no room at the inn.  Any inn.  Even though summer hasn't really arrived here, the locals are going to party on the long July 1 weekend, regardless of the temps.  I finally found a cg, in Kentville in the Annapolis Valley, who said he could squeeze us in, perhaps on a three-way shared hook up for water.  I'll take it, thank you!! 

Tomorrow, we will be Nova Scotia!