My last post (this is Sandy) was about Maine. We’ve done a few things, went a few places since then, so this is an update with my thoughts on the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.
Saint John, New Brunswick was a “filler” location, a place we went to use up some days until our next location without straying far from our route. We were told there “wasn’t much here” to do. We were in a beautiful city park campground, Rockwood Park, the first “city” park we have ever stayed in, and we were impressed with it’s size and recreational opportunities. Definitely nothing like a “city park” our hometown has. The park was beautiful with many hiking trails, swimming, lakes, dining, city overlooks, fireworks viewing and most importantly it was free of pesky bugs and mosquitos. Although the campground was basically a large gravel parking lot with water, electric and sewer hookups, we were pretty close to the restroom building which is were the WiFi signal is sent, so we had great internet connectivity, a huge perk while on the road and trying to minimize our cell data usage. Plus, the gravel lot allowed us to wash our vehicles without making big mud puddles, also a perk.
Having 8 days here, we caught up on laundry, researched the 3 main Canadian grocery stores to determine who had the best prices, meats, produce, and selection. We found that prices here are much higher than the US, so we’re appreciating the benefit of the exchange rate to compensate. US grocery stores have a much larger selection of every food category it seems. One notable thing is that the aisles dedicated to unhealthy foods like cookies, sweets, sugared drinks, etc are much smaller and the packages are smaller. Possibly Canada’s way to encourage better eating?
We had the opportunity to meet several Canadians and they are the most friendly people you’d ever want to meet. We met a younger “weekend” camping couple and they actually invited us to come to their home when we pass through that area later on our trip and park on their property after sharing many ideas of areas to explore. Maybe it was their Canada day weekend that was causing their love of country to show through, but they were indeed proud Canadians.
Bill has filled you in on the sea cave exploring in St Martin’s, reversing falls where the Bay of Fundy meets the river, beaches, hiking, the Fundy Trail, etc. Although others think this area doesn’t have much to offer, we enjoyed the area. Maybe it has something to do with the views. Every 6 hours and 20 minutes, the tide is at low or high tide, so the view is always changing. Seeing it here is much different than seeing it at an eastern US shoreline because what’s under the water at high tide is so much more interesting than the eastern US shores of just more sand.
If we were in the area of Saint John again, we wouldn’t just pass it by.
Bay of Fundy National Park, New Brunswick - In this area, the don’t-miss highlight is Hopewell Rocks. It is the area that has the most impressive display of rocks, sea caves carved by the water, and “flower pots” (which is a tall rock that has been carved by the sea but has the distinguishing characteristic of trees and scrub on the top of the rock) and underwater interest, that along with the immense tides of 36-46 feet, make this a must see. The 2 day pass allows you access at both high and low tides to really help you appreciate this rare world spectacle of such high tides. Since this was almost an hour drive from our campsite and we’ve been watching the tidal effects since Maine, we saw it at low tides and again set foot on the ocean floor and we decided to skip the high tide stop and just imagine the effect from photos of high tide.
We had a beautiful campsite in this national park that was so private, it was a perfect location to break out one of the exercise DVD’s I brought and play it on the outside TV, so a different form of exercise among the pines along our route. That DVD and exercise bands which we could attached to trees for different exercises help keep us in shape. I was also surprised how good the WiFi connection was in the national park. So far, along with WiFi, we have only needed 10GB of data to navigate life on the road, so no extra charges yet. :)
Just like in Maine, all the small communities along the coast are small fishing villages, with lobster and chowder fresh from the ocean restaurants, several trip advisor rated. These villages are not tourists traps, just an honest working community, most very small, but many have more of a motel or cottage offering for travelers. We spent time trying to watch for when the fishermen would return with their “catch”, to see that process. Canadian lobstermen operate differently than Maine lobstermen. Whereas in Maine lobster traps seem to be brought ashore each evening, or left on boats for the next day, in Alma, NB, we were able to chat with a lobsterman on the dock and found that they go out for 12 hours at a time, several days a week or even just 2 days a week, but they grab their catch, rebait the trap and return it to the water until their next trip out. They can only come back to shore at high tide, hence the 12 hour trip. The average lobster is 3-5 pounds.
The water was iron rich well water at Fundy National Park, so I chose not to do laundry on board and told Bill to not add that water to our fresh water tanks. Well, that may not have been the best idea after all, because once again we had rv issues. After passing through the border to the province of Prince Edward Island, we blew an air bag on our chassis (a suspension issue we would not have expected with a new RV). We ended up at a Freighliner service shop for several days, had to use a public laundromat, and could only connect to 15 amp electric, so not enough to run appliances, etc. although we were able to fill our fresh water tanks at the repair shop.
Prince Edward Island - Our needed repair and having to wait for the part from the US altered our plans for the island. We stayed in Summerside, which was on our agenda anyways, so did all our exploring from here, including getting into Charlottetown without the RV but using the tent we had with us instead. Somehow the thought of staying in a hotel which are rare here or a cottage or B&B which are prevalent did not appeal to us as much as staying in our own tent and hitting restaurants. If we had been working, this repair would have been a huge letdown, but retired.....just another interesting part of our trip.
For me, not so much Bill, the highlight in Summerside was the stage performance by the College of Piping, which is a school for bagpipe and drum performance, also including highland step dancing and a fiddler with a theater storyline. Where else can you see that type of performance. Parades are just not enough bagpipes for me. This island is known for being a music and theater mecca, with country music festivals, small bands mostly revolving around drums and string instruments (guitars, fiddles) performing on stage and in most restaurants, Luke Bryan and ZZ Top performances to name a few big names that perform here , theater opportunities galore (including Ann of Green Gables to comedy and dinner theaters). Many of the bands revolve around blues and Celtic music or country. Since Bill is not huge into these types of performances we didn’t attend any others, but did catch some local artists performing outside or at the lobster festival we attended. On this island, a ceilaugh (pronounced Kay-lee) are the local performances you’ll find. They are advertised everywhere but usually only perform once a week and it seemed that we were usually in the wrong location for them.
Prince Edward Island National Park is a very nice area, with beaches and beautiful sand dunes but their “beaches” are extremely rocky and usually very fish-smelly and laden with seaweed, therefore not swimable in our eyes. At high tide, there is no beach but also no smell. At low tide, a beach..... but the smell !!
Charlottetown is the capital, and our original 8 day plan turned into a half day visit. This is the cruise port of the island and the port is very nice, shopping and restaurants in the area and close enough for excursions to Summerside and the beaches on the north end of the island (which I would recommend Cavendish as the nicest beach on the north end). The city is a mix of old and new buildings. This is where the documents for Canada to become a country were signed, similar to our Philadelphia. So lots of history, museums, etc in this area.
Since we got word our part arrived and the RV was finally fixed, we decided to leave this island early and move on to Nova Scotia and hope for this move over a border not to give us RV problems. Prince Edward Island is a beautiful island. The main things here were the above items and the coastal drives. The center of the island is farming, with potatoes being the main crop, hence the visit to the potato museum. This island has a very relaxing vibe, and the most helpful people live here. There is very little traffic, you can drive forever on the main road through the center of the island which is mainly farmland and tiny tiny communities (don’t blink). There are communities of 98% speaking French, but in most communities people will say hello or just stop and have a long long conversation with you. People stopped to have a family picnic on the bench next to us and offered us food and included us in their conversations. When we broke down next to a potato farm field, the owner saw us sitting there and had their son, about our age, stop and see if we needed help and he talked to us for over an hour until the tow truck arrived, offering us his dad’s home property to park the RV if needed. Just really nice people and very welcoming.
The homes on this island are pretty basic, not large, only what they need, and it took me a while to realize that the reason they look so neat and tidy was because they had no landscaping. Only about 50% of homes are landscaped, at least from where we traveled. What a great concept! That much less work to do. :)
I would go back to PEI and plan on attending more performances, but Bill I think was glad to leave. He may be getting a little tired of fishing villages and rocky beaches. We’ll have to see if we can find more adventure in Nova Scotia than the Confederation Trail offers, which was the bike/walk trail that goes from one end of the island to the other. But for our cruising friends, stopping for just a day
On to Nova Scotia, over the Confederation Bridge we arrived on, which was an engineering feat of 8 kilometers. You pay only once when you cross this bridge, when you leave, so if you arrive and decide to never leave, which could be possible, you don’t pay.
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