East Coast 2022

July 24

Driving the Fundy Trail Parkway today. Will see about doing Magnetic Hill to font or tomorrow maybe. Hoping the heat breaks by tomorrow!

Had a busy but fun day on the Fundy Trail Parkway. We started by driving down a very potholed road to Fundy National Park (I read after that you should have to drive down any bad roads (i.e., ignore the GPS). In the park, we saw the Wolfe Point covered bridge from a couple of angles. Then we continued west onto the Fundy Trail Parkway. It’s a 30 km scenic drive along the Fundy coast. Mom’s exact words were, “I have to pay $30 for this road”, not realizing the scenic drive hadn’t started yet lol.

Nala loved our picnic lunch (she tried to keep eating our food) in a really shaded spot by the Big Salmon River suspension bridge. It’s quite a bit cooler by the coast. After lunch, mom and I walked over the suspension bridge (as long as they’re not high I don’t mind them).

There were many scenic viewpoints along the trail. I had noted a couple to start at (Long Beach and Long Beach Lookout) before heading to the interpretive centre to get our Lumberjack Lunch at the Heritage Cookhouse. Mom and dad had the egg salad sandwiches, I had fruit with cream cheese dip, and they all came with water, lemonade, cheese, veggies and dip, and carrot muffins.

After lunch, we continue west through the parkway, stopping at any lookouts that seemed interesting. The speed is on 40 km/h so it takes awhile to get through. I had made a note to stop at Fuller Falls, Fownes Head Lookout with its own Flowerpot Rock (like the Hopewell Rocks), and Fox Rock.

Mom and I really had to use the washroom after our big mason jar lemonades at lunch, but we had trouble finding one. We exited the park on our way a few kilometres down the road to the St. Martin’s sea caves. It was crazy busy there and really hard to park. Being low tide we could have walked into the caves. It seemed to take forever to walk to them though, and since we really needed the washroom and mom had sandals on (mom said she was living a nightmare lol), we just walked so far then left.

Instead of going north to head back to Moncton, we decided to drive the trail again because we missed the first lookout that is on the brochure (Walton Glen Gorge). Plus the only washrooms seemed to be back in the park. We asked where the first washroom was, and after taking care of business, mom drove the flip side. It was actually cool to see the different views from west to east. And with mom driving the speed was definitely a bit faster (dad could be heard in the back continually reminding her it was 40 km/h lol).

On the way home we found a better highway that avoided returning the the National Park and had no potholes. We found an Arby’s which was exciting. then went over to the Tidal Bore viewing area, determined not to miss it for a fourth time.

The bore came 25 minutes early (no wonder we kept missing it). Usually I think it can come like 20 minutes early or late.

Tomorrow we’re off to Cape Breton after Magnetic Hill in the am!