New Brunswick, Canada
Five hours after we left Quebec City, the French street signs gradually change to English, and we knew that we have arrived in New Brunswick. Looking at those English street signs zoom past our car window, we ecstatic to see one that says Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! township along the NB-2E highway; for this is the only town in the world that has two exclamation points in its name.
Kimson's first haircut since we left California, of all places, is in Edmundston New Brunswick. After stating that he wants clipper size-6 and 3-inch scissor off the top, the pleasant barberer shows his size-4 clipper attach and smile "This is what we have!". Slump in resignation and not wanting to find another barberer. After all, at least 2 local men sworn that Salon Chez Marcel is the best in town. 8 minutes later, he holds the mirror on the back of Kimson's head and said "ok?" Hey, that looks pretty good! Until the barberer said "eye brow?" to which Kimson replied with the longest no ever "oh nooooooo!". Is it customary for Canadian men to do their eye brows after a haircut, we'd never know.
New Brunswick Botanical Garden is only 5 minutes away from our motel. Greetings upon our arrival are the farmer, the bison, and the incredible edible garden. Gracing the garden, one can find vegetable and herbs are being grown as ground cover. Our nostrils can detect none of the fertilizer smell, but everything in the garden are absolutely healthy and fresh. All figures are mosaicultures which gardeners (or horticulturist) carefully cultivated into people or animal shapes with different succulents, flowering, or foliage plants that make up clothing or hair. Strolling around the various beautiful, exotic botanical themes with delectable vegetable surrounding, it took significant self control to not bury our faces into those fresh lettuce, crunchy kale, minerally spinach, sweet cherry, juicy tomatoes, chard, yummy penny wort, and flavorful artichoke... And we are not even vegetarian. I don't think we ever have that strong yearning when we are strolling around goat farm, do we?
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| Mosaicultures and the edible ground-covering can be found throughout the park |
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| The cutest chicken coupe we found thus far |
Five hours south of our Ponderosa Pines Family Campground, we reach Hopewell Rocks in Lower Cape. Highway 2 to Lower Cape is scenic drive through small and quaint towns like River Glade, Berry Mills, Lower Coverdale, Hillsborough. The Hopewell Rocks formation at low tide is amazing sight. Some of these formations stand 70 ft tall, while million years of tidal force carving its base into very unique shapes. Walking on the ocean floor looking up at those ancient fantastic forms, one can appreciates of 50 ft differences between low tide and high tide.
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| The river view on our Ponderosa Pines Family Campground |
Nearby, an UNESCO site called Mary's Point offer a different view than Hopewell Rocks. At low tide, we stroll on sandy beach and standing dumb found at the huge 4.6 square miles of mud flats which local and migrating birds alike take advantage of the abundant of specific tiny aquatic species that strive here. Each year, 2.5 million Artic Sandpipers feed on the abundant of mud shrimps before their annual migration to South America from May to July.
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| Huge 4.6 square mile of mudflat expose in low tide |
After a visit to the town of Alma for lobster lunch, we head to Fundy National Park only short distance away to visit Dickson Falls and for beaver sightings. The hike to the falls is less than 1 mile round trip, which visitors traverse on elevated boardwalks and stairs zigzag through steep terrain. There wasn't much water this late in the season, but the trail still quite scenic. At the pond, we spotted two small beavers dragging tree branches in their mouths back and forth to their nest. Fe atonished as she watch a small beaver takes only 5 bites to cut down a branch that is the same size as your arm. Some part of the pond, huge trees have been chewed clean right through and have falling down into piles on the pond edge. The phrase "busy as a bee" needs not apply to the beavers, they kept on cutting down trees, strip its branches then drag back to reinforce their lodge few 100 times a day and from sunrise to sunset.
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| One of Fundy many wooden covered bridge |
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| Dickson Falls trickles down steep ravine with the elevated boardwalk on the right |
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| Ship Haven at low tide |
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| Alma lobster lunch (front) and lobster roll (back) |
New Brunswick visit has been educational trip for us. From horticulture garden to spectacular Hopewell Rocks, from the helpful locals to the busy beavers, we realized the more we learn the less we know (as one local puts it), but we are glad that we are here and now.
GPS Coordinates:
Salon Chez Marcel - 47°21'51.4"N 68°19'42.9"WNew Brunswick Botanical Garden - 47°26'18.2"N 68°23'35.6"W
Ponderosa Pines Family Campground - 45°49'00.1"N 64°35'35.1"W
Hopewell Rocks - 45°49'04.1"N 64°34'41.9"W
Mary's Point - 45°43'38.6"N 64°40'23.7"W
Fundy National Park - 45°35'44.0"N 64°57'03.2"W, Beaver Pond - 45°35'36.6"N 64°57'09.1"W, Dickson Falls - 45°35'13.6"N 64°58'26.0"W
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Quebec City - September 3rd, 2016References:
- Destination details were extracted from respective literature, brochure, website, and Wikipedia- Coordinates are from Goggle map in Degrees, minutes, and seconds (DMS)
