Retirement Travels: New Brunswick

Saturday, August 3, 2013

New Brunswick - Again

Fri, Aug 7

Today we head back toward the good ole US of A. And we're back in the land of big tides on the Bay of Fundy.

On the way back, we plan to spend a couple of days in and around Saint Andrews, New Brunswick. We stopped there on our way East, liked what we saw and thought if we could, we'd go back.

We departed Prince Edward Island via the bridge that connects PEI and New Brunswick. The bridge is 8 miles long and is supposedly the longest bridge in the world that goes over a body of water that freezes over in the winter. I guess everybody is looking for some kind of niche.

We've settled into an RV park that is owned and operated by the Saint Andrews Kiwanis Club. It is on the Bay of Fundy and is a beautiful place. They use the profits from the operation of the park to support community projects. That is quite a fund raiser.

Looking across the Bay of Fundy from the RV Park toward Maine

We ate out tonight, and in keeping with the spirit of being close to Maine again, I had lobster.

Praying to the lobster gods

And it rained today. Since we've been in Canada, we've only had 2 days when it didn't rain. It really hasn't interfered with any of our plans. In fact, it's made some of the scenery more interesting.

Sat, Aug 3

We finally got to ride our bikes today. We've been dragging them around on the back of the CRV and haven't ridden them but a couple times around other RV parks. But today, we are parked close enough to downtown that we've been able to ride them quite a lot.

We've really grown to like downtown St. Andrews and it's unique architecture;

The murals on the side of the buildings are fantastic.

We've found St Andrews to be captivating, including this dollhouse that was built in 1943.

We've really enjoyed St. Andrews. It's a small waterfront community with a very nice downtown. It reminds us somewhat of Beaufort, but with a lot more public spaces. And lobster!

Clara bought some real neat local crafts. As in Beaufort, you can also buy "imported from China" stuff, but Clara has a knack for uncovering genuine local products.

We also bought a couple of lobsters for dinner at a fish house on the waterfront. I had to bike them back to the motorhome in grocery bags to get them in the refrigerator until supper. They kept moving around in the bag all the way back.

Two live lobsters in a grocery bag

This afternoon we had a real treat. A couple of people had mentioned "Ministers Island" as a neat place to visit. And what makes it really unique is that you can only go to the island on low tide, when there is a drivable spit of land uncovered between the mainland and the island.

Driving on the ocean floor. "Where's the water?"

In the late 1800's, Sir William Van Horne, the driving force behind the Canadian Pacific Railway (Canada's first coast to coast rail system), built his summer "cottage" on the island. Today the island is owned by the Province of New Brunwick.

The Bath House/Artist's Hideaway. There are steps down to a basement and changing rooms and then a walkway out to the ocean. Sir William had a swimming pool dug into the rocky bottom which filled with water at high tide, and provided a nice swimming pool when the tide receded.

Sir William's vast house, his equally large barn and his bathhouse/artist's hideaway are open to the public with guided tours. It is quite a remarkable place, beyond the uniqueness of driving over the seafloor for a half mile to get there.

After a dinner of lobster back at the motorhome, we rode back out to the end of the road to Minister's Island to view what it looked like at high tide. It is again very remarkable the range of the tides and how much the landscape changes between tides.