The Bathtub, The Chocolate River? No it's Funday Bay

The three names of the bay with the most extreme tides in the world. It is an awesome place. We went to Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park in New Brunswick. We stayed in a very nice and small RV park about 2 miles from the provincial park. We got there fairly early so as soon as I got the rig setup we took off for the park.

High Tide was at 1:04 PM we got to the park about 3:00 PM. Mid Tide. It's about a 15 minute walk down to the actual beach and Hopewell Rocks. We took about 152 steps down to the beach. the water was only about 20 feet from the shear rock walls when we got there.


Did I say there were probably 250 people besides ourselves?

Within an hour the beach grew to about 60 feet from the shear rock walls. The tide level drops approx. 6 feet every hour. It takes 6 hours to go from high tide to low tide so the level drops about 36 feet. It was really awesome to watch. 

Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia

They say that Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia is one of the most photographed places in Canada.  Now I can understand why. 

Peggy's Cove has been one of the places on my must see list for a long time.  My parents were there about 18 years ago and had some pictures framed for me and brought me a couple of souvenirs... after all my name is Peggy.  My mother had told me that there wasn't really anything there...and she was right.  But the photo opportunities are endless.  Even if there is a marine layer.

We took our chances on finding a campground.   We hadn't made any reservations.  We came across one that was right on the ocean.  The owner said we could park on any site we wanted and any way we wanted.  We chose a great site and parked parallel to the water.

The first day right after we set up, we headed to Peggy's Cove.  We soon found out that it was a holiday in Nova Scotia...Natal Day.  This gave a lot of  people a three day weekend. There were bus loads of tourists milling around.   Peggy's Cove doesn't have much for developed areas.  It is a fishing village, not really set up for tourists...but they show up anyway.

There is a visitor Center with a decent size parking lot.  If you can find a place to park there, you can easily walk to everything.  There are no sidewalks on the narrow hilly road through town.  People walk along the road - either side.  The major destination in town is the lighthouse.  It's a short hike from the visitor center.  Everything in town is built on the granite bedrock that is everywhere.  Up near the light house is a restaurant/gift shop.  There is a parking lot there also, but it's difficult to maneuver around the people and buses.  There are a few warning sign, but there are no railings or barricades.  People are free to wander on the granite boulders.

There are a couple of other gift shops that carry Island crafts also.  You can also buy coffee and ice cream all from old houses...that are still old.  The small harbor in town almost looks like it was staged to photograph...Old fishing boats, nets, buoys.. all old.








We also climbed a granite hill outside of town in search of a geocache.  Got some great photos from there.  Randy wanted to walk on the granite near the water.  We found a spot with sort of trail and walked to be closer to the waves.  It was great. 

 

Just a short distance from Peggy's Cove is a memorial created to honor the residents of Peggy's Cove and Blandford for their hard work after the crash of Swiss Air Flight 111 in 1998.  229 people died in that crash and residents of the area worked tirelessly to help with recovery.  The memorial is simply made out of granite. 

Almost everyone visiting in the area stops to walk out to the memorial.

We took some really great pictures.  Make sure you click on the link on the right and then slideshow at the top of the pictures you'll see all of them.  Peggy's Cove was beautiful and serene - in spite of all the people visiting.  

 

Prince Edward Island - The Gentle Island

We hadn't originally planned on going to PEI.  But, from the brochures it seemed it would be a cool place to visit.  Going there would involve some planning and cost some money.  We decided that if we were going there, it would have to be for a few days in order for the expense to be worthwhile. Crossing over to PEI on the bridge doesn't cost anything, but leaving the island would cost us $44.50. 


We drove to Shediac New Brunswick to spend the night and saw the world's largest lobster:) 

From Shediac we took the Confederation Bridge to Gateway Village on the island.  This bridge is 8 miles long and takes 10 minutes to cross.  I timed it...they are right. 














Of course when you get off the bridge you are funneled through a touristy area, but they did have some cool shops there.



 The drive from the bridge to the campground really gave us an idea what the island was like...there are rolling green fields that go right up to the waters edge...the unpaved red clay roads that have always been a part of the island...and the churches...every little community has one.  When you see a sign for a community usually there aren't any businesses - but there is a church.  They all seem to architecturally different and unique.

Our campground - Twin Shores - was on an area of the island called Green Gables Shore - which is on the north central coast.  The book Anne of Green Gables was written on PEI and there are museums, the author's home, and everything "Anne".  It is on a point on the coast where one side has the red sand of Darnley Bay and the other the white sand of The Gulf of St. Lawrence.  It was absolutely beautiful serene place to be - even if there were 600 other RVs there. 

We took a drive to golf at Mill River Golf Course.  This course was the golf course used in The Big Break show - One of Randy's favorite golf shows.    We got rained out and drove up that way again - this time we drove up to the very tip of the island - for us it will be the northernmost point of our travels.  We saw the wind farm and the North Cape Lighthouse.

Our geocaching on the island led us to a beautiful brick cathedral and cemetery out in the middle of nowhere.  The Parish of Mont-Carmel have a stunning cathedral - inside and out.  It is open to the public and they have volunteers on site to answer questions.  I picked up a handout with the history of the parish.  The huge columns inside are actually made of concrete and were painted to look like marble by artists from Italy in 1921.  Visitors are surprised to find out they look the same now as when they painted.  The cemetery is just as beautiful as the church with a history that is just as fascinating. 

 

We made a trip to Charlottetown which is the largest city on the island.  We weren't there long.  We found a geocache, had a seafood lunch and walked around the historic waterfront.  Just enough for a warm sunny day.

After much discussion we decided that we would take the ferry from PEI to Nava Scotia.  It is more expensive than the bridge, but the additional $60 would save us about 400 miles and hours of driving.  We made our reservations and had to leave our campsite at 5 am Sunday morning for the 2 hour drive to Woods Island for the ferry.  The 75 minute trip on a warm sunny day was great.  

 There's a link to the right of this blog that will take you to more pictures.

Parlez Vous Francais?

We had originally planned to travel from Niagara Falls through Canada to Montreal Quebec, but Randy started having problems with a tooth and went to the dentist while we were in Niagara.  The dentist gave him antibiotics, but told him that if they didn't work he would need to have root canal or have the tooth pulled.  Since we didn't really want to be in Canada if something happened, we decided to travel the south side of the great lakes and we ended up in Plattsburgh NY - on Lake Champlain.  While he was making a decision on his tooth, we decided to take a day trip to Quebec about 25 miles away.

We knew we wanted to grab a geocache in Quebec so we wouldn't spoil our record of one in every province.but he wasn't too thrilled with the idea of going all the way to Montreal (50 km away.).  I of course had been reading up on Montreal and really wanted to see Old Montreal.  We grabbed the cache we wanted at the visitor's center and I started asking questions about Old Montreal - parking, walking tours etc.  :)

Old Montreal was lively and colorful on a beautiful, sunny, Sunday afternoon.  There were street performers, crowds of people and vendors everywhere.  We walked the cobblestone streets, saw all the sidewalk cafes and listened to people speaking French everywhere.  I've had 5 years of French, but that was 47 years ago and I've hardly used it since....I really didn't understand a word they said.


The architecture of the buildings is wonderful.  Montreal has done a wonderful job of making the area people friendly...there are parking lots, signs (mostly in French) and something for everyone. 















There is even a fake beach at the marina...it has beach sand and umbrellas.  People bring their  own chairs.  There is no swimming, but they lie in the sun in their bathing suits. 

 

Driving was a challenge...There were areas closed to traffic...streets were narrow (and we are very wide and long)...the cobblestones were very bumpy...and the signs were all in French...very few had any English on them at all.  When we went to leave we told the gps to take us back, but she didn't know that there were detours.  After going in several circles and tying to find our way out we ended up on a route that had signs indicating "No Trucks"  as we rounded a curve we discovered why...a very narrow underpass.  Luckily, we made it through unscathed - although Randy was stressed.