Day trip up the Fundy Trail

July 25, 2007
Grand Bay-Westfield, NB

We planned on an early start and actually got on the road before noon, so I guess that’s doing pretty well, for us! We actually left a little after 10:30, and stopped in Grand Bay-Westfield (the official name of the town). Geri mailed some postcards at the local Canada Post, we filled up with fuel at the Irving, and picked up a bottle of gin at the local Provincial store. We’d packed lunch and treats for the pups, and headed south on NB-7. We went north on NB-1, getting off in western St John to avoid the toll bridge by using NB-100 through town. On the other side of St John, we exited the highway and started along the various country roads that make up the Fundy Coastal Route. It’s somewhat of a misnomer, since it makes a somewhat saw-toothed run inland 10-20 kilometers at times, but it was generally scenic nonetheless.

We made out first stop near St Martins, exiting the Coastal Route for a short distance to follow the shoreline for a bit. Geri had spotted a sign for the “World’s Best Chowder”, so that became the goal. Along the road, we came to a small harbor with a few fishing boats tied up to the wharf. As we got closer, we got a first-hand view of the impact of the Fundy tides: it was almost low tide and all the boats were sitting on the mud, still tied up to the wharf. As I was walking back from getting a few photos, I saw Geri crossing the road to a gift shop. When I looked back at the Range Rover, I saw Merlin standing in the back looking out the tailgate at me. I’d forgotten to close it when I got the camera out and Geri didn’t realize it was open when she locked the car. I was 100 meters away, but Merlin was good and just waited for me. I was waiting when Geri walked up and wanted to know how I got into the locked car! We looked around a little more at the several craft tents set up near the covered bridge, but there was no public restroom, so on we went.

A few kilometers down the road, we came to a pair of restaurants. Both were vying for customers with signage, but the second one was more direct – “World’s Best Chowder at Second Restaurant”. We pulled into the lot and found a spot to park. There were quite a few cars in the lot, but most people seemed to be walking on the beach, such as it is with lots of 2-4” rocks and no sand. Since it was low tide, farther out were mud flats, and off in the distance were sea caves of some sort.

Geri headed in for the chowder (the Loo was on the way in) and I took the pups for a quick rest stop as well. Once they were back in the car, I hit the men’s room and got the cameras out. I decided that it was a good time to use some of the film I had on hand, so I put the 28-70mm lens on the F6 and the 12-24 on the D200. I must have looked like Joe-Photo-Geek!

I got tired of waiting for Geri so I went inside to see what was keeping her. She was waiting at the counter for food, so I hung out for a few minutes, wondering how long it could possibly take to dish up a bowl of chowder. Much to my surprise and delight, she’d ordered me a lobster roll! We grabbed our napkins and headed to their outside patio for a table. The chowder (notice it didn’t say “clam chowder” had all sorts of seafood in it and was pretty good. I’m not the one to judge the whole “world’s best” thing, since I’m not a chowder kind of guy. The lobster roll got a solid B+ score. The roll was the proper kind (split-top) and it was toasted perfectly. The meat was very good, all body and knuckle meat, no claw and tail, and dressed very lightly with mayo. The only down sides were the inclusion of iceberg lettuce (not a lot, but enough to be annoying) and the fact that they were a little stingy on the meat (not a lot, but again just enough for points off). Overall, it was very good and a welcome surprise.

As we were finishing up lunch, I could see a lady sitting (some people plan ahead and bring their folding chairs along, as opposed to us who keep forgetting them at the campsite) near the parking lot with a small dog, so we decided to walk over with the pups. Walking on the rocks was a little hard (more for the dogs, but us, too), but we made it. The woman’s dog looked like a Yorkie but was actually a Silkie Terrier. It was a male about 12 pounds and behaved worse than Merlin. He was barking, growling and pulling, and the woman admitted that he didn’t get enough interaction with other dogs. We chatted for a few minutes, and the dog, “Buddy”, must have touched Maya where she didn’t like it, so she gave out a whelp and snapped back. Well, you should have seen Buddy calm down at that! We knew it was time to move on, so we wished them well and headed for the car.

Our route then took us inland before heading back to the shore. About 20km before we got back to the water, we entered Fundy National Park. This is a nice, compact little park, with lots of hiking trails (we passed on those because of the time required) and several side roads for exploring. We went down the road to Point Wolfe and got a few photos of another covered bridge, and then back past a couple of waterfalls noted on the park map. We’re not talking Niagara here, just a few brooks with nice cascades, but nothing particularly photogenic.

We exited the park in the little town of Alma, another little wide spot in the road with a few fishing boats still mired in the low-tide mud. We stopped for a few photos and more water and were on our way, even though there were several lobster joints in town. It was just too early (4 PM) for dinner – too bad). Our next stop was “Cape Enrage”, just a spit of land jutting out into the Bay, but there wasn’t much to see (and they seemed to want to charge admission at that), so we pushed on and turned northward to Hopewell Rocks. This is another paid tourist attraction, but was worth the price. There are numerous rock formations within 100 meters of the shoreline that are little “islands” at high tide, but towering rocks sticking up from the mud flats at low tide. Since the tide was still out (it was coming back in at this point), I was able to walk out on the flats and get some photos. The best part for Geri is that they have a shuttle (actually just “stretch” golf carts) that’ll take you down to the rocks and back for C$1.50 each way. This was a good deal for us since it was getting late, the tide was coming in, and walking, even downhill, can be a challenge for Geri. It worked out well, even for the pups who got to “guard the car” for an hour.

Here are some pictures from the day:
http://picasaweb.google.com/GeorgeandGeri/FundyCoastalDrive


By this point, we needed to start thinking about food, since it was after 6 PM. I thought about backtracking to Alma for lobster, but that would have put us on 4-5 hours of back roads home. We pressed on along the Fundy Coastal Route to Moncton, a fairly large city in New Brunswick. We had a tourist guide with us and saw an ad for a steak and seafood place that looked like it would fit the bill. I was able to figure out from the maps and the GPS in the Range Rover how to get there without stopping and putting the address into the navigation system. We could tell that Moncton is a big deal because, as we were getting off the loop highway (a clue right there), we saw all sorts of shopping: Michael’s Crafts, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and – oh-my-gosh, Costco! The restaurant was between the loop (NB-15) and Trans-Canada-2. It’s a new place in a new hotel, and we decided that it would work for us (we usually don’t go for hotel food, but it was now 7 PM).

Much to our surprise, the hostess told us it would be a 15-20 minute wait! It must have been for a lack of staff (or she just didn’t like Americans) because there were plenty of open tables. We thought about leaving but didn’t have any other options picked out, so we headed for the bar to wait. Well, when we saw the guy down the bar from us eating, we checked with the bartender on food availability (a big “yes”) and quickly let Miss Snooty know that her services were no longer needed – in the nicest possible way, of course. Geri ordered a seafood platter and I decided to try a steak. The wine list wasn’t too flush, but a Hardy’s Shiraz from the Barossa Valley in Australia caught my eye for the name: “Oomoo”. It was actually pretty good and we enjoyed it with our meal. The steak was on the small side and processed (a la Outback) but came out cooked rare and was acceptable for me. Geri’s platter was OK but nowhere near as good as “Secret Seafood” (a place we go it CT; long story).

I saved some steak for the pups and Maya ate but Merlin was just too nervous (as ho often is when we try to get him to eat or drink while we’re in the car). We walked them and hit the road for home. It was limited-access highway most of the way, first on TC-2, then NB-1 all the way to St John, then up NB-7 to Grand Bay-Westfield. It took about 90 minutes to go the 90 km of highway and 10 km of NB-177 through town, so we got to the ferry just at 10 PM. We queued up and waited for about 10 minutes, crossed easily, and we were home. All in all, another excellent day.