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Published: October 7th 2008
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We woke up this morning to this.....
It was overcast this morning that was part of the reason the sunrise was so beautiful. This is a really beautiful place. We got up and had a light breakfast downstairs and asked the owner about Fundy Trail. The trailhead is at St. Martins and I had been reading about it in one of the guide books. He said it was well worth visiting so that is our goal this morning.
We packed up and headed first for St. John. St John is the largest city in the province with about half a million people. The only reason we stopped there was because you drive right through the middle of it. I'm glad we did.
Arriving in St. John we stopped downtown at a Tim Hortons (a Starbucks by another name...they are all over Canada) and had coffee. I really liked St. John. It is very quaint with a lot of parks. One thing I've noticed in large and small towns alike is the abundance of flowers. Everywhere you look there are hanging baskets full of flowers as well as flower beds everywhere. There are plants that look like hydrangeas that
are in flower and the plants are as big as a small tree. The climate must be very conducive to growing. I would kill to get my petunias to look like these do here.
St. John is very popular with the cruise ships as it has a large port. We spotted (hard to miss actually) a Carnival cruise ship parked.
Moving on, we went further north to the city of St. Martin where the Fundy Trail begins. Along the way we saw signs for "The World's Best Chowder" and I was thinking...yeah right.
Headed into the Fundy Trails region. The trail can be driven but there is a lower footpath where you can hike or ride a bike. The view from the lower path is much more spectacular I'm sure since it is nearer the bottom of the cliffs....but we're old so we drove and the view from the top was not too shabby either.
There were waterfalls, and cliffs and pristine beaches and tour busses. Lots of tour buses. We got to a place where there was a waterfall and after I took some pictures I sat on a bench to wait for Cal. I
got in a brief conversation with a woman from New Jersey. She asked me what we were doing and I told her that we were from Colorado and that we'd driven up from Boston. She wanted to know where we stayed the first night and I said in Brunswick. "No, dear" she said, "you are confused, you couldn't possibly have gotten as far as
New Brunswick in one day from Boston". "I've visited this area for
years, in fact we have a cabin in Maine and we've never been able to do that". "No" I said in my most patient voice (halo over my head), I stayed in Brunswick not New Brunswick the first night, in MAINE." "Oh" she said and walked away. Jeesh. I'd say something disparaging about New Jersey but I'll let it go.
At the end of the trail at the Big Salmon River on Little Beach (I can't make this stuff up) we walked over to a suspension foot bridge. Now, I'm not liking this at all. Not only is it suspended over water but it moves. Cal made me do it and I lived.
Getting hungry. Time for the worlds best chowder.
Backtracked through Fundy and arrived at Cave View family restaurant. It was low tide and I noticed bunches of people milling around on the rocky beaches. I asked a guy who was a tour guide what they were doing and he said they were looking for moon stones. They're supposed to be good luck. He said he had a whole bunch of them and his luck hadn't changed one bit. Heh. Resisted the temptation to go out there too and we sat outside and ordered. I had "world famous chowder" and a caesar salad. They were'nt lying about that chowder. It was that good.
After lunch we decided to head towards Hopewell Cape. We weren't sure whether we would stay in the park, in Alma or on the cape.
I did most of the driving for this leg and it was inland away from the water. We just drove through Fundy National Park. I can't say much because we didn't stop. It was trees, trees and more trees. We drove through Alma but most of the places to stay there looked pricey so we drove further to Hopewell Cape. There was only one place to stay
so it was stay here or go back to Alma or on to Moncton. Since what we want to see is right here it made sense to stay here. Our room was in the inn part of the building. We had a nice little wooden porch overlooking the lawn down to the water. The room was strange in that it smelled strongly of something minty...kind of like being in someone's mouth after they've brushed their teeth. OK, now that I've sufficiently grossed everyone out I'll say that the room was clean and I got used to the smell after a while.
We walked over to the restaurant. Neither one of us was especially hungry but needed to eat something. The restaurant was empty and the only person in there said that since all the waitresses were back in school the "chef" would be bringing our order out to us. We decided on take-out. I had fried scallops and cole slaw. I think Cal had fish and chips. It was all so-so.
They advertise wi-fi but the only wi-fi there was was if you took the laptop over to the office.
They had wi-fi. We found out later that if
we sat in the car in the parking lot the wi-fi worked great there too. Cal wandered over to the office with the laptop and I veged and watched TV. He got some information about tomorrow...when low tide is...when high tide is and where we need to go to see the Flowerpots.
Another day bites the dust.
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