As we crossed the river separating Maine from New Brunswick we immediately felt a different new energy that we had not felt before. While in northeast Maine the towns got progressively smaller but as soon as we crossed into New Brunswick the towns were lively again full with people. We steered “Bubbles” to Canada Route 1 and we were off toward our first destination of Saint John.
As we drove toward Saint John we were both pretty excited. The natural surroundings looked the same as in Maine however everything else was different. Both of us have been to Canada many times however this time was different as it was on our trip of a lifetime. We enjoyed trying to decipher what some of the new pictures on the road signs meant as well as tried to relearn some basic French from the dual language signs everywhere. We wouldn’t really need to know French until we reached Quebec but you have to start somewhere.
Our destination for the first night was a campground in Rockwood Park, which was actually in the city limits of Saint John. We were both a little worried as we thought the place might be packed and noisy but to our surprise when we arrived we were one of the few staying there. We pulled into our spot and stepped outside. The sun was out and the sun was setting later and later the further north that we traveled. We noticed that there were laundry facilities and as we were starting to run low on clothes we decided to do a few loads. We thought this would only take an hour or two but after the wash cycle we discovered that one of the washers didn’t exactly drain much water at all. After attempting to dry our clothes in the dryers we didn’t want to spend any more money and set out laying our clothes out to dry on picnic tables surrounding our van. It didn’t look pretty but it mostly got the job done. Toward the end of the night when things still were not drying as fast as they needed to Julie took the extra step of blow-drying clothes with a hair dryer (she’s the best).
The next morning we woke up to a cloudless sunny sky. We hadn’t seen this in a while and it got us raring to go. After breakfast we packed up and headed downtown looking for a parking spot. Parking for us normally isn’t hard as the van actually does fit in a normal parking spot (minus half a foot or so) but downtown parking is another issue. Luckily we found parking in a lot where we didn’t take up too much of a 2nd spot and we were off. Our first stop of the day was the Saint John city market. Julie and I had learned from our friends Laura & Geoff a great spot to try new foods and really get a feel for a city was their local market. This could be as simple as a farmers market or if it was an older established city like Saint John, an actual downtown market. The Saint John market while on the smaller side was still full of history and good food as well. The charter for the market is Canada’s oldest dating to 1785 and the building where the market stands has been in use since 1876. The market for the most part was almost all food with a few tourist vendor stalls as well. Julie and I picked up some needed veggies, fruit, meats and seafood for dinner that night before sitting down to split a plate of spicy pork from a Korean vendor. While it was spicy it was definitely worth the sweat that came from it.
From the market next up was a souvenir shop. Early on, on our RV trip we noticed a lot of RV’s with stickers of the outline of the USA and Canada where you could add in the state/province sticker of places that you had been. We liked this idea but didn’t really want a sticker like that on the outside of our van. Our solution was to get a smaller state/province magnet to put on our little fridge inside the van. After walking around for a while (also visiting a city park) we found a small indoor city mall with some shops. We found a shop selling just what we wanted and bought a Canada flag magnet as well as a New Brunswick magnet. For those that know me I love flags (Julie does too) and we purchased a small New Brunswick flag as well. From there one of the places where guidebooks told us to go to was to the loyalist house. Not knowing what a loyalist was we wanted to check it out. When we got there we found some information that I couldn’t remember was ever taught in high school history class. It turned out that Americans from New England who were loyal to the British Crown were forced from their land after the American Revolution. With nowhere else to go and Britain wanting to populate the area they headed north. So we learned that very much to our surprise that Saint John was the oldest incorporated city in Canada being founded by loyalist “Americans” in 1785.
As it was getting to be early afternoon and we had been walking for quite a while we were getting thirsty. We have had a habit when in bigger cities of finding small breweries and checking them out. We were in luck in Saint John with Big Tide Brewery. We walked in and had a flight of a few of their beers. We also started up a conversation with a few of the other patrons. They advised us to go to the reversing rapids. We had no idea what these were but soon learned from them that they were a set of rapids in the Saint John river. These are not any normal rapids or any normal river however. Saint John is located in the Bay of Fundy which has the highest and most powerful tides in the world. At low tide the Saint John river flows like a normal southern flowing river. At high tide the force of the water from the bay is so powerful that it actually pushes the water the opposite direction. We were told that in order to really grasp how powerful it was you really had to see it at both tides. That was good enough for us and after a 30 min walk we were there. Currently it was high tide and while it didn’t look too impressive as it looked like a muddy slow moving north flowing river we knew that what was going on was pretty powerful. We decided to come back the next morning to see it at low tide so we could really get a sense of how powerful the tide really was. We walked back to the van then drove to the campsite and feasted on halibut and scallops that we had purchased at the market earlier that day. So delicious!
The next morning we woke up, packed up and headed back to the rapids. We parked and walked over to the viewing area and boy were the people at the brewery right. Now instead of a slow moving, muddy north flowing river it was a ferocious, fast southern flowing river with big rapids right in front of us. It was really mind blowing seeing it now and thinking about the day before and really gave us a sense of just how powerful the tide was in the Bay of Fundy.
Next up….Fundy National Park & The Hopewell Rocks
Very cool! Looks like you two are having a blast!