Fredericton to St. John

Our decision to come back to the Kings Landing Historical Park today was certainly the right one. We got there shortly after the 10:00 opening and only left at 3:30. We could have stayed longer. The park began in the 1960s when a dam was proposed. Because it would flood the valley, historians researched and inventoried buildings in the valley. Many of them were moved to this park, a couple were added later, and a handful were built as replicas because the originals were to fragile to move. There are now about 30 buildings representing various time periods in the 1800s. They are each staffed by costumed staff who tell the story of the building. This village represents the Loyalists, mostly British subjects deported from the USA after the War of Independence. There is much less Acadian presence in this part of the province. Highlights for me were a water powered sawmill and grist mill, a sash and door shop, a print shop, and a cooper's (cask maker's) shop. The interpreters were extremely interesting in explaining the craft or lifestyle that they represented. It was well worth spending the day.

From Kings Landing, we drove to St. John. We arrived right near low tide, so we first went to the reversing falls to see how they look at this stage. High tide is around midnight tonight, so we will wait for the next high tide around noon tomorrow and check it again. We then went downtown and wandered around the harbour for a while before going to a high point of land where a fort used to exist and took pictures of St. John harbour.

Today was a great day weather-wise, about 20 degrees again, perhaps slightly warmer, but with only a slight breeze.

Fredericton and Back

The historical village that we wanted to start off with today does not open until tomorrow, so we decided to make a loop today and come back here and take it in tomorrow. We stopped in St. Stephen, home of Ganong chocolates and their museum. Unfortunately, they were still completing some renovations and were not opening until Monday. (Is this starting to sound familiar?) Nevertheless, the store was open and we bought a few chocolates.







From there we went on to St. Andrews. This is a very pretty and quaint old resort town near the US border. It would be a great place to spend a week or two, as there were so many things to see and do in the tour book. We took in an old blockhouse from the War of 1812. There were many interesting original and reproduction artifacts and the interpreters told the story well.







Before we left, I took this picture of the shore as the tide was going out. Later we returned and took this picture near low tide.






























The next stop was the Kingsbrae Gardens. Although there were not a lot of exotic specimens, there was a huge variety of familiar plants well organized and arranged. Celeste found this oversized chair there.






















On the way back to Fredericton via the Fundy Coast, we stopped at the Atlantic Salmon Interpretive Centre. It was pretty interesting, explaining the salmon life cycle and migration. They had an aquarium enclosure containing live salmon in the nearby creek. We returned to the hotel at 6:30.



Today was again near 20 degrees with a breeze. It was quite cool near the water and a couple of times fog banks rolled in. The terrain was heavily forested again, as it has been everywhere we have been. It is very pretty country, but not as spectacular as the Rockies or the West Coast. You don't have height of view and the contrast of the mountains, forests and trees. The land is hilly, but they are not very high. And the view from the road is usually obscured by trees. You rarely see the ocean from the road, unless you are right on the shore. I believe that it is more mountainous farther west in the Appalachians, but we will not bo going that way.

Miramichi to Fredericton

Somehow, we were a little slow getting on the road again today, but it wasn't a real full day, so it was no big deal. Celeste had an uncomfortable night due to the large lobster meal late in the day and did not sleep well.

On our way from Miramichi to Fredericton, we stopped to check out this old covered bridge. There are many of them dotted all over New Brunswick, but this is the first one we have come across.


Our first stop in Fredericton was at Old Government House. As it was early in the season, we had the new tour trainee and her trainer all to oursleves. We had a great and detailed tour of a very impressive and historic building. The restoration job was fantastic. It has a history similar to Government House in Regina. It was turned over to several other uses over the years, renovated several times, and many of its atrifacts were lost, but it has been restored to near its original grandeur.

We went on to tour several other things in town. We visited their legislature and watched a few minutes of someone's speech, but there was actually very little there that we were allowed to tour. We took a walking tour of the Garrison District in the old downtown which included many historic buildings. The old part of town is very pretty and quaint with very few buildings more than two stories and I don't think we saw any more than three or four. We briefly stopped at Christ Church Anglican Cathedral before finally moving on to the University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University to see if Brett had left any lasting impressions, but the place was still standing and seemed to be in good shape.

We arrived at the hotel at 6. I napped for an hour while Celeste looked up everything we have seen so far on Wikipedia. Just before dusk, we went for a walk to a nearby botannical garden. It was in the very early stages of an ambitious project, but it was a nice walk in the woods, except for the mosquitoes.

Today was the nicest day so far. It wasn't any warmer, but the breeze was the lightest we have seen, probably because we were away from the coast.

The Acadian Penninsula

We were up until 11:30 last night, but compensated by sleeping unitl almost 8:30 this morning. That resulted in a bit of a late start to our day. But we made up a lot of time when we found that our first planned stop for the day was not yet open for the season. The tour book said that the Acadian Historical Village was open June to September. Unfortunately, June means June 7 in this case. I knew we were a little early and would beat the tourist rush, but it didn't occur to me that some of these places would not yet be open. To me, June is already summer. But, having experienced the weather so far, summer is still coming.

We had an interesting experience anyway. We drove into the parking lot and there were quite a few cars there. But there didn't seem to be anyone looking after admissions. We tried the security and information kiosk, but there was no one there. There was a small sign that said something about personnel, which I took to be something like authorized personnel only, but I don't undersatnd French, so we drove on through. We had a nice little tour of some new costruction they were doing and some maintenance construction until a very nice gentleman tracked us down and explained that they weren't open and he would escort us to the exit. It looks like a pretty good "attraction," so we might try to hit it on the way back.

From there we went on to the NB Aquarium and Marine Centre.

















There, I drove a fishing boat,













while Celeste hung on to the back of the boat. They had a small museum and a very nice, but not large aquarium of local ocean and freshwater fish.







From there we went on to Miramichi to a small historic site dealing with the deportation of the Acadians and the subsequent establishment of a shipbuilding enterprise. We checked into our hotel about 5 and got a recommendation on where to go for a lobster dinner, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We then took a bit of a driving tour around Chatham and Miramichi before waddling back to the hotel for the evening.

Weather was much like yesterday, temperature around 20, sunny, but windy enough that you were cool without a jacket.

The whole northeast coast of NB is called the Acadian Coast and the area we covered today is called the Acadian Penninsula. It was sure evident in our experiences today as French seemed to be the first language of most of the people we encountered, although they easily switched to English for us.

In the more remote areas, the road is lined with forest, but, for most of the day, there were lines of houses on both sides of the road, almost like a continuous ribbon of village, stretched out for miles and miles.

Moncton to Bathurst

We were up a little later than planned last night. We had to catch Conan O'Brien's debut on the tonight show which lasted until 1:30. So we were not up quite as early as hoped. We had a great included breakfast at the hotel and hit the road.

Here is a better picture of our car.

Our first stop was the K. C. Irving Eco-Centre on a giant sand dune near Bouctouche where we took a long walk on the boardwalk. There was also a long hiking trail back to Bouctouche. We didn't plan to take it, but decided to take a short walk along it. We were soon swarmed by mosquitoes and were glad we were not doing the whole trip.

From the beach we could see this wind farm on Prince Edward Island. We will visit there later in the trip.

From there it was just a short jaunt up the coast to Kouchibouguac National Park. Although the main feature here is another dune, it is a much bigger park with a wide variety of terrain. We toured the dunes and beach, then drove through the park and out the north end on a secondary road. The villages and residences on this route were very proudly Acadian, painting Acadian colours and symbols on telephones poles and other items and flying Acadian flags.

We stopped in Miramichi for supper, then pressed on to Bathurst for the night. We tried to get a McLobster at McDonald's based on more than one recommendation, but we were disappointed to learn that they are a seasonal item and won't be out until later in the summer. Boo Hoo!

Weather started out clear and sunny, but clouded over as the day wore on. It was near 20 degrees, but quite windy. Everything is very green. The sides of the roads are lined with trees, so you think you are in a forested area the whole time, but who knows what is behind that row of trees.

Next up...the Maritimes

We have talked for a few years about someday touring the Maritimes. A few months ago, we received a reminder from Aeroplan that the points we earned from our Australia trip would expire if we did not use them by June. So, we thought what better time to go to the Maritimes?



We were up late last night getting ready and early this morning (4 AM) to get to the airport for a 6:30 departure. We were 2.5 hours to Toronto, a one hour wait, and two hours to Moncton, arriving there at 3 PM Atlantic time (3 hours difference). We arrived at the hotel just after 4 and crashed until 8. Refreshed, we went out for a bite to eat and a short exploratory drive. When we returned to the hotel, we worked on trip planning and watched some TV. We tried to adjust our body clocks to Atlantic time by not staying up too late, but 12 their time was only 9 Regina time, so we weren't real sleepy.

Weather on arrival was 12 C, overcast, and windy, but it is supposed to be sunny and warmer tomorrow.



Here is our car, a Nissan Sentra.