The Bay of Fundy and Beyond!

 

We had another early morning hitting the road!  We started off the morning by singing Happy Birthday to Leslie! We left Moncton at 8:15 and drove 45 minutes to reach the Bay of Fundy.  We needed to arrive at that time in order to catch the low tide so that we could walk on the ocean floor before the tide came in. The weather forecast was for rain but we were lucky enough to have the rain hold off while we were outside.  We picked up the guide at the Visitor’s Centre and proceeded to the area of the Hopewell Rocks.  We walked down 99 steps to get to the floor of the ocean. It was an amazing feeling to look up at the huge “flower pots” that towered above us and would, in a few hours, be half covered in water.  As it was, the tide was already coming back in so we had to scoot along the water’s edge to stay on dry ground.  We had a very informative guide that explained all about the geological formations and why the tides were so high in this area.  We also got a close up look at seaweed and an explanation of how it thrives in the ocean.

 

We walked back up on a ramp, cleaned the mud off of our shoes and rode back to the Visitor’s Centre.  There, the guide showed us some time lapsed videos showing the tidal changes.

 

Since we had some extra time, Warwick threw in a surprise.  We motored down the road to see a covered bridge. This has been on my bucket list so that was an added bonus!!  We had enough time to take some pictures and walk through the bridge.  Then we returned to the Visitor’s Centre for lunch.  By this time a steady rain was coming down.

 

We had to travel back through Moncton so our TD and bus driver treated us to a quick visit to “The Magnetic Hill”. It was pretty cool.  He drove the bus to the beginning of the hill, which was going uphill.  He then put the bus in neutral and we coasted “up” the hill!!  It is an optical illusion that you are going “up” hill when you are actually rolling downhill.  Go figure!!!

 

From Moncton we had an hour drive to reach the Confederation Bridge, spanning 13 kilometres to Prince Edward Island.  Along the way, we watched a video that showed how the bridge was built, very interesting!  When we got over the bridge, into PEI, we had to go through a COVID checkpoint.  Each of us had to get off of the bus (in the rain), and present our PEI pass and photo ID.  One of the employees was obviously on a power trip and she insisted that we ALL had to be subjected to a rapid COVID test (even though it stated that it would be random checks). They were painfully slow at getting the paperwork and vials prepared but we eventually had everyone tested and got on our way.  We travelled another hour, in the rain, until we reached the Acadian Musical Village.

 

We were treated to a meal of traditional Acadian dishes.  They explained each dish and how it was made.  Almost everything was eaten with molasses! 😋. While we ate, two very talented ladies performed Acadian music, one on the keyboard and the other on the fiddle.  They also treated us to some great step dancing.  After the meal they coached us on spoon playing and step dancing.  It was so much fun and a great way to help Leslie celebrate her birthday!

 

We then had another hour of driving to reach Charlottetown.  We were grateful to our driver, Bob, for getting us safely to the hotel through the dark and pouring rain.  The rain is supposed to stop overnight, so here’s hoping! 🤞