July 30/31, 2018 PEI National Park, Prince Edward Island, CA

We left New Brunswick by crossing the Confederation Bridge onto Prince Edward Island (PEI). The bridge spans the North Humberland Straits. We stopped at the big Visitor's Center that was surrounded by a bunch of touristy shops. Our drive to the National Park in Cavendish was a bit disappointing due to the many tourist traps along the way-which reminded me of the drive to Cedar Point in Ohio.

Our first 2 nights in PEI, we camped in PEI National Park/Cavendish. The park has beautiful red sand beaches & dunes along the coastline of the Gulf of St Lawrence. There are some great bike trails in & around the park. We biked through meadows of wild flowers, across boardwalks, bridges and into the woods. Our second day, we biked 20 miles along the shoreline while Dan & Kathy went to the Anne of Green Gables site. The bike trail was a bit hilly, (made us glad we had our E-bikes) and most of the trail meandered along the cliffs & beaches of the Gulf. We rode through the town of Rustic where there was a lighthouse, beach & a few authentic fishing huts.

We sampled some PEI mussels while sitting looking over the French River. PEI has many acres of agriculture: beautiful fields of wheat, hops & lots of potatoes. Again, this province is experiencing an unusual heatwave, we had temps close to 90 degrees Fahrenheit or in the low 30's celsius.

Found a good use for those old tires

July 30, 2018 Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick, CA

While in New Brunswick Canada, everyone told us we had to visit Hopewell Rocks where the world's highest tides occur. We arose at 6:00 AM to drive 2 hours to reach the Bay of Fundy area that boasts some of the biggest tides of around 50 feet, at low tide. The best way to do it is to hang around the area for 6 hours in order to see the site at both low & high tide but we didn't have that planned in our schedule. 

We did arrive at low tide so we were able to walk on the ocean floor and experience the massive 40-70 feet tall rock formations, from the bottom up. The tide change here can be as much as 46 feet, which is as high as a 4 story building. The low tide exposes great amounts of seaweed around the rock formations and large mud flats with deep crevices. The movement of the large volume of water over the mud flats is what causes the water in this area to be brown, looking like chocolate milk. This site is located on the shores of the upper reaches of the Bay of Fundy. Surprisingly, we did not see any marine life nor shells nor anything interesting on the muddy bottom. We did see a Peregrine Falcon in a tree on our walk down to the shoreline. 

Special stop request from Doug

Captain Doug of the lobster fleet

That's one big lobster

Doug found another friend!

July 26-29, 2018 Kouchibouguac National Park, NB, CA

When we left Sugar Loaf, we took the scenic shoreline route, following the Sea Star route. We passed lobster boats that were all rigged, cleaned & waiting for lobster season to open.  Canada is very good at regulating so they do not overfish. 

Our second stay in New Brunswick was Kouchibouguac National Park. It is located on the east coast of the province. This National Park is our first official National Park in Canada. The parks in Quebec, even though they were called National they were really Provincial Parks. We stayed 4 nights & it took all 4 days for us to learn how to correctly pronounce the name of the park. (Coo Chi Boo Quac), we are definitely having fun with the french language & the french seem to have fun helping us. 

The province of New Brunswick is great because they do everything bilingual. For example, we went to a group beach bonfire the first night we were there, they were celebrating Christmas in July. They had a violinist and a story teller. They served cookies & hot chocolate. Some songs were in French & some in English. The next night, we attended a Full Moon walk on Kellys Beach boardwalk which led from the salt marsh & sand dunes to the beach, complete with storytellers & candles along the way. Our night was the english version, the next night they were doing it all in french. 

We kayaked the Kouchibouguac River, putting in at Callanders Lagoon & we were hoping to venture out into the Gulf of St Lawrence but it was too rough. There are salt marshes & sand dunes between the river & the gulf. 

We hiked the great bog trail near dusk, hoping to see some Moose but no luck. Everyone tells us due to the unusual heatwave the Moose have moved further inland, away from the shorelines. There are some 60 KM of bike trails here too that we sampled to & from the Visitor Center. We found a pretty river walk with lots of decks & overlooks. 

Like a scavenger hunt

The National Parks are running
a Red Chair Experience