"It's like Anne of Green Gables...in a BMW!"
Sunset behind the Confederation Bridge, from Hampton, PEI
Day 6: Fredericton ~ Bay of Fundy ~ Charlottetown (595km)
I feel like I'm in my house of 20 years ago. Andrew and I found a great little B&B in Charlottetown, PEI for just $45 a night. Actually, there's no breakfast included so I guess it's just a B, but it's so homey that I feel like I'm going to bed in my mother’s old room. The curtains are the exact same pattern as my mother had for her bedspread, with just the blue and white parts reversed, and the bathroom tiles are exactly the same as those we had in our bathroom years ago, just a different colour. To boot, she has the same small glass juice tumblers that we used as kids, and the doors lock by pushing the knob in and turning. It should be a good sleep tonight.
Crystal blue skies again this morning as we woke up in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which apparently likes to sleep in on Sunday morning, as we discovered on a brief walk around the miniscule downtown. We wondered where everyone was. Got the answer a few minutes later as we swung by the Tim Horton's and found the place jammed, with adults and kids alike. There are two things that you can say about the Maritimes: one, people are friendly; and two, they are WHITE, WHITE, WHITE. There must have been 20 or 30 people in the Tim Horton's this morning and the Asian girl in line in front of us was the only non-caucasian in the place, and I think she was a foreign student.
Shortly thereafter we were on the road again, bound for St. John. So far on this trip, New Brunswick wins the award for smoothest driving. The wide, two-lane divided highways make for a picturesque scene as they sweep off into the distance, up over a hill and around a corner out of sight. Round the corner, and you see the same sight repeat itself. The limit is 110km/h and the road surface is baby-skin smooth. Let's hope PEI and Nova Scotia can keep up.
We quickly reached St. John, home of the famous 'Reversing Falls'. I suppose upon hearing this every kid (and adult) dreams up this image of waterfalls pouring up. Sounds cool, eh? In fact, the reversing falls could not be more boring. They aren't even falls, but just a lightly churning portion of the St. John River. And you’ll never actually see them reverse unless you've got 6 hours to spare. Since the "reversing" happens as the tide from the Bay of Fundy pushes back against the flow of the St. John River, which only happens once every 12 hours, going at any one time you'll only see a river flowing as normally as rivers do, in either one direction or the other. It's amazing, actually, that they've made a tourist attraction out of this. But I guess high-calibre tourist sights in New Brunswick are few and far between, so you do the best with what you've got. And they have.
We stopped for a quick bite in St. John's Uptown. Another quirk here: there is no dowtown, only uptown - a fact that I checked with a waitress at the Pizza Hut here. Uptown St. John is small but quaint, with a nice little waterfront area and a main street where diagonal parking lines both sides...like you see in old movies. Walking down by the waterfront we got talking with a guy who asked us if we were there for the country thing. Huh? Well, turns out the Canadian Country Music Awards are being presented in St. John this week, which would explain why the Pizza Hut girls were all wearing cowboy getups. "Wow," I said to Andrew, "You could spot a Canadian country music star!" which prompted his reply, "Even if one were standing three feet in front of my face, I wouldn't know it."
As the afternoon was growing old, we arrived at the Hopewell Rocks, just outside Bay of Fundy National Park. The Hopewell Rocks are famous for their flower pot rocks, large rock and earth towers, worn at the bottom into thin stems by erosion from the tides, and sporting little trees and forest on the tops (hence the name). While they are a beautiful sight to see, and look very spectacular at low tide when you can walk up to them on the ocean floor, Andrew and I both felt there should definitely be some discount off the whopping $8 admission during high tide, when we came, since you can't walk down on the sand, and the ocean covers up all the thin 'stems' of the rocks, leaving them much more plain-looking. A 20 minute stop there, and we were on our way again.
It was time for the last grand tourist attraction of New Brunswick: Magnetic Hill, just outside of Moncton. We arrived towards 5:30PM and there was virtually no one around. By the paint markings on the asphalt it seems that you often have to line up to partake in this little illusion, but there was only one other car there, and the booth that normally collects $5 was empty and the gate up, so we were happy. The deal consists of this: You drive down a hill, or what seems like a hill to a white post, where you put your car in neutral and become astounded as it appears your car is being pulled back up the road you just drove down. The illusion is caused by the rise that you look at in front of you as well as the fact that the road you're on is actually sloping down to the rear, so you car is just moving because of gravity. In any case, as cheesy as it had been reported to me from others who had been there, I have to say that the optical illusion is actually legitimate. Looking forward, it does actually seem that your car is moving backwards up a small rise! As interesting as this was, what struck me more about the whole experience was just how dangerous it seemed. Drivers put their car in neutral and then look FOWARD as their car rolls BACKWARD!! It's an accident waiting to happen! Who thought this attraction up? Insurance companies? I'm glad there was only one other car there when we went, and I can't imagine the number of fender benders that happen during high season.
Finally, as the sun began to dip low in the sky, we sped further east towards the Confederation Bridge and PEI. The bridge is long, something like 13km according to the travel literature, but the overall feeling is simply of it never ending once you're on it. But we finally touched wheels on PEI and headed towards Charlottetown. The golden sunlight cascading across the rolling green hills and potato fields was just too pretty. We stopped en route to inquire about cabins for rent on the beach, which is where I took today's picture. It was heading up the road to the beach and cabins that we were motoring along a red dirt country road with lush green fields on either side, prompting the words of today's title to escape my lips.
PEI really is as beautiful as they say, and their people just as friendly.
Crystal blue skies again this morning as we woke up in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which apparently likes to sleep in on Sunday morning, as we discovered on a brief walk around the miniscule downtown. We wondered where everyone was. Got the answer a few minutes later as we swung by the Tim Horton's and found the place jammed, with adults and kids alike. There are two things that you can say about the Maritimes: one, people are friendly; and two, they are WHITE, WHITE, WHITE. There must have been 20 or 30 people in the Tim Horton's this morning and the Asian girl in line in front of us was the only non-caucasian in the place, and I think she was a foreign student.
Shortly thereafter we were on the road again, bound for St. John. So far on this trip, New Brunswick wins the award for smoothest driving. The wide, two-lane divided highways make for a picturesque scene as they sweep off into the distance, up over a hill and around a corner out of sight. Round the corner, and you see the same sight repeat itself. The limit is 110km/h and the road surface is baby-skin smooth. Let's hope PEI and Nova Scotia can keep up.
We quickly reached St. John, home of the famous 'Reversing Falls'. I suppose upon hearing this every kid (and adult) dreams up this image of waterfalls pouring up. Sounds cool, eh? In fact, the reversing falls could not be more boring. They aren't even falls, but just a lightly churning portion of the St. John River. And you’ll never actually see them reverse unless you've got 6 hours to spare. Since the "reversing" happens as the tide from the Bay of Fundy pushes back against the flow of the St. John River, which only happens once every 12 hours, going at any one time you'll only see a river flowing as normally as rivers do, in either one direction or the other. It's amazing, actually, that they've made a tourist attraction out of this. But I guess high-calibre tourist sights in New Brunswick are few and far between, so you do the best with what you've got. And they have.
We stopped for a quick bite in St. John's Uptown. Another quirk here: there is no dowtown, only uptown - a fact that I checked with a waitress at the Pizza Hut here. Uptown St. John is small but quaint, with a nice little waterfront area and a main street where diagonal parking lines both sides...like you see in old movies. Walking down by the waterfront we got talking with a guy who asked us if we were there for the country thing. Huh? Well, turns out the Canadian Country Music Awards are being presented in St. John this week, which would explain why the Pizza Hut girls were all wearing cowboy getups. "Wow," I said to Andrew, "You could spot a Canadian country music star!" which prompted his reply, "Even if one were standing three feet in front of my face, I wouldn't know it."
As the afternoon was growing old, we arrived at the Hopewell Rocks, just outside Bay of Fundy National Park. The Hopewell Rocks are famous for their flower pot rocks, large rock and earth towers, worn at the bottom into thin stems by erosion from the tides, and sporting little trees and forest on the tops (hence the name). While they are a beautiful sight to see, and look very spectacular at low tide when you can walk up to them on the ocean floor, Andrew and I both felt there should definitely be some discount off the whopping $8 admission during high tide, when we came, since you can't walk down on the sand, and the ocean covers up all the thin 'stems' of the rocks, leaving them much more plain-looking. A 20 minute stop there, and we were on our way again.
It was time for the last grand tourist attraction of New Brunswick: Magnetic Hill, just outside of Moncton. We arrived towards 5:30PM and there was virtually no one around. By the paint markings on the asphalt it seems that you often have to line up to partake in this little illusion, but there was only one other car there, and the booth that normally collects $5 was empty and the gate up, so we were happy. The deal consists of this: You drive down a hill, or what seems like a hill to a white post, where you put your car in neutral and become astounded as it appears your car is being pulled back up the road you just drove down. The illusion is caused by the rise that you look at in front of you as well as the fact that the road you're on is actually sloping down to the rear, so you car is just moving because of gravity. In any case, as cheesy as it had been reported to me from others who had been there, I have to say that the optical illusion is actually legitimate. Looking forward, it does actually seem that your car is moving backwards up a small rise! As interesting as this was, what struck me more about the whole experience was just how dangerous it seemed. Drivers put their car in neutral and then look FOWARD as their car rolls BACKWARD!! It's an accident waiting to happen! Who thought this attraction up? Insurance companies? I'm glad there was only one other car there when we went, and I can't imagine the number of fender benders that happen during high season.
Finally, as the sun began to dip low in the sky, we sped further east towards the Confederation Bridge and PEI. The bridge is long, something like 13km according to the travel literature, but the overall feeling is simply of it never ending once you're on it. But we finally touched wheels on PEI and headed towards Charlottetown. The golden sunlight cascading across the rolling green hills and potato fields was just too pretty. We stopped en route to inquire about cabins for rent on the beach, which is where I took today's picture. It was heading up the road to the beach and cabins that we were motoring along a red dirt country road with lush green fields on either side, prompting the words of today's title to escape my lips.
PEI really is as beautiful as they say, and their people just as friendly.
posted by CHRIS at 9:39 p.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home