Working in Reverse, Metaphorically and for Real! September 23, 2012

Last evening’s rainstorm was a bit of a surprise to us in it's intensity and duration.  This morning I had visions of our TC becoming the newest version of “Noah’s Ark” through the night with the amount of rain that must have fallen.  Thankfully at first lookout, our screened windows only revealed hungry mosquitoes and very green, lush grass.  It wasn’t until our “feet hit the turf” so to speak, that we truly witnessed the impact last night’s rains had on our poor campsite.  Once again, all I can say is thank you BFM Pages for bringing my attention to the world of Croc Footwear!

On the horizon at 7:10am was the promise of sun.  By the time we settle breakfast and completed our morning routine, the sun was just kissing the edge of the Confederation Bridge: a vision of my glorious exit off PEI and Ken’s reluctant man-made structure of impending doom. He’ll get over it!

We discovered a little “Gateway Village” just off to the side before you enter the point of no return on the bridge.  I was hoping for a better vantage point for an awesome profile picture of the bridge, so we ventured in.

Dini would be wowed by this one prominent tourist attraction called “Cows”.  It’s a “creamery” specializing in homemade ice cream, but also boasts of every possible spin on cows.  Dini, I’m telling you, you’d be in Cow Heaven!  From t-shirts to key chains, tooth floss to flashlights, there is that special gift for that special someone!  Ken and I resisted the urge (sorry Dini, no souvenirs were purchased), but the one thing that caught my eye was the “Angry Herds” key chain (as apposed to the “Angry Birds” game), which I thought was hilarious.  Unfortunately the girl behind the counter didn’t find it as amusing as I at 10:00 am in the morning.



Ken seen here inspecting the massive
bridge columns before the crossing.
It pays to be thorough.

 On that note, I think the entire PEI province needs to look at the ingredients in the cereal boxes here – more specifically the Cornflakes boxes!  Happy-go-lucky faces here seem to be far and few between.  The campground staff and campers, and the AMAZING Captain Cook Fish Factory from across the way from the park, oh and the Boom Burger Girls in Charlotttetown, were happy, but apparently they had not consumed the Cornflakes! They were happy throughout all of our encounters with them.  Spin ahead to the other side of the bridge, and I would like to note (in our defence) a conversation we had with a couple who pulled into the Visitor Centre in Cape Jourimain just on the other side.  They also remarked to us on their particular experience.  Thank goodness for high red sand rocks and cliffs, and for Sun & Shade Campground…we did find the silver lining in this province.  Nikki and John, our Winter Friends from Port Elgin, were out here a few weeks before us, but they didn’t have time to make the journey into PEI.  Nikki and John, you didn’t miss much!  We took the pictures of the highlights we thought were worthy of pictures, and we would consider both of you lucky to have saved the $58.75 it cost us to leave the island.  We have the pictures and we will be happy to share them with you, free of charge!

Enough said.  Before those of you who said how amazing PEI was and how we had to go, I would like to again remind you this was the soggiest, greyest part of our trip so far.  Feel free to blame our experience on the weather we had, or perhaps the fact we were at the end of “tourist season” and the locals were tired of us Ontarians, but if anyone asks us how we felt about PEI, we have discussed the fact we would tell folks to experience PEI, but to do it first thing within the itinerary of the trip.  This way, the amazing beauty, people and culture of all the other provinces you will journey to will only get better.  Hands down!  There were highlights in PEI, but the other provinces and places FAR surpassed PEI.

So, with PEI behind us, New Brunswick awaited, and to quote Ken (as video taped while crossing the bridge), if there was a piece of land available as soon as we crossed in New Brunswick where we could kneel and kiss the ground, I am pretty sure we both would have!  We commented on the level of tension and anxiety which dissipated as soon as we made the 12 minute journey across.  Having said this though, we are glad we experienced PEI.  If time would have prohibited us to journey across like Nikki and John experienced, we would have wondered what we had missed, and perhaps would have been disappointed in wonder alone.

The Confederation Bridge was AWESOME!!  In his secretive way, I believe even Ken loved it!  He filmed the whole 12 minute journey, and never once climbed to the “high side”!  There is something to be said for its architecture and regal beauty.  I told Ken as we crossed, there’s a junior book in our library called “Imagine a Day” – one of my favourite books to read to our bookmobile daycare kids.  The illustrator in this book drew the Confederation Bridge, but as it expanded over the water, the pillars take on human form.  I simply couldn’t help but get all nostalgic between the link of this illustrator and the reality of crossing this bridge.  The labour, planning and skill it took to make this amazing structure be there for us, to me at least, is mind-boggling.  In fact, we learned today, the structure did not go without sacrifice – 3 to 4 people died in constructing this bridge.  What a magnificent experience we had in crossing.  Even Ken now admits he was more at ease than he thought he would be.

As soon as we crossed Cape Jourimain’s Visitor Centre was waiting for us.  From this vantage point, numerous photo opportunities were presented, and I can assure you, we took every possible angle imaginable.

Tricia taking the traditional dip" in the
Northumberland Straight after
a relaxing lunch on the beach.

From here, it was clear sailing for us down the Trans Canada Highway.  The roads were smooth and quite clearly marked.  We chose to head off the highway a few times.  Once for a photo opt in Port Elgin…we like OUR Port Elgin MUCH better!  Once for a picnic lunch in Shediac on Parlee Beach (Provincial Park).  The view was amazing, sandwiches made from our trailer and taken to a closed deck off a shoreline restaurant were to die for, and soon after lunch I took a dip in Northumberland Straight!  I didn’t even wait for the traditional 45 minutes after a meal to do it either!!  No worries, I was only knee deep!  It was a beautiful day at the beach!  This stop was a perfect stop.  We both commented that we have finally figured out this travel thing!  Unfortunately, it only took 3 weeks.  Perhaps we are both slow learners, but we are learning.

The remaining drive over the Trans Canada eventually turned cloudy, then foggy, then a bit rainy, but we waited 5 more minutes and the sun appeared again!  The weather may have been a bit unpredictable as we drove, but the fall colours were not.  We can confirm with our readers we believe the fall season has found us!  The spray of red, yellow and orange among the evergreen's lining the edge of the Trans Canada has been like candy to our eyes.  In two to three weeks time, autumn should be at it's peek here.  I wonder how my new supervisor Cathy Taylor back in the branch would feel about a few more weeks off? 

We decided to end out travel day by me conducting a Google search on my phone  for our camping options as close to St. John’s as possible.  Turns out, there’s actually a campground right in the middle of the city, called Rockwood Park Campground.  If any of you have ever stayed here before, I wouldn’t say the actual campground is much to write home about.  The washrooms are COMPLETELY outdated and the campground is really nothing more than an elevated parking lot.  The entrance into the park is beautiful, with an elegant community hall, pristine flower beds and a gorgeous pond which we observed kayaks frolicking in.  If we haven’t learned anything on this trip, the actual campground is secondary to all the other activities you plan on doing while in the town or city.  We find the amount of time we actual spend at our site is incredibly low.  My only criteria at this point, at least lately, is the facilities need to be clean.  Although the facilities here SCREAM for some attention, they are clean, and Tracy, the greeting park attendant was super-duper helpful, friendly and a real comedian.  We really enjoyed interacting with her.  On her advise, we dropped the trailer, scooted down the mountain and headed to the Super Store to grab some staples to see us through super.  Our immediate attention to this was imperative as stores close on Sunday’s here at 5:00pm, we had 25 minutes!  I don’t think I have ever seen Ken disconnect the trailer quite as fast – not even in a torrential downpour!

A zoomed picture from the grocery store
up to the top of the mountain
where we are camping.

Night shot from our campsite to the
yards below.

When we were in the Superstore

parking lot, we looked up toward the mountain and realized our trailer overlooked the exact area where we stood!  Without realizing it, our view captured the industrial and shipyard portion of Saint John’s harbour and CN Rail Yard.

After the grocery store, we headed to see what the excitement was over the tourist attraction commonly referred to as the “Reversing Falls”.  We were catching the flow at a little more than 2 hours after the peek of high tide.  The water was flowing super fast toward the river, where rapids formed around a few rock based islands.  Fisherman were anchored in their boats just beyond the rapids, and the pulp paper factory was as ripe as your imagination can conjure!  The flow was definitely impressive, as too were the rapids.  It would be interesting to see the flow at low tide, when we read the flow will be completely opposite.  Jump ahead to 10:45pm, and as we saw it, the only way to witness the phenomenon is to observe it yourself.  You guessed it, in disbelief, we headed down at this ghastly hour of the evening to see for ourselves.  It was UNBELIEVABLE!  The flow first observed this afternoon at 5:30 pm, was flowing completely the opposite way.  For the “non-science types” like me, this occurs because, at 5:30 the tide was coming in, filling and pushing the river and sea water up stream.  At 11:00, the tide was going back out to sea, rushing the sea and river water back out past us.  The island and river floor debris creates a perfect environment for rapids, and we were NOT disappointed!  We were so glad we ventured out to witness both high and low tides of the same waters.  The only downfall was the night shots on our cameras were not as spectacular due to our flash range, but trust me when we tell you, the memory of what we saw will stay with us a long time!

5:30pm, High tide,
sea & river waters flowing ->



11:00pm, Low Tide,
sea & river waters flowing <-

On our final drive back to camp for the night, as we park on the edge of the mountain top overlooking the shipping yards and industries below, the regular train horns, emergency vehicle sirens and plumes of industrial burn offs rise to our eyes and ears.  Not sure how well we’ll sleep tonight, and frankly, it’s not the kind of camping environment we would traditionally seek out, but it’s interesting to experience, and it is for only one night.  Now back in the warm comforts of our TC, I finish my blog to you and head to bed.  We may wake to witness high tide one more time before we head out tomorrow.  We’ll have to wait and see.  We set our sights on St. Andrew-by the-Sea, the south-western most corner of this amazing province.  Many have suggested this last part of our journey will not disappoint.  With a little bit of Google searching, I found what I was hoping for…but we’ll save that for the posting day it actual happens.  As my dear friend Kevin always says, “Always keep your audience wanting more!”  Touché Kevin, touché!

St. John's is an incredibly industrial city.  It's majestic in the sense of it's industrial structures and strengths, but not necessarily a place we could see us staying for long.  Like this park built in the centre of the city, we believe city planners tried to bring beauty to the city's awkward surroundings.  It was interesting to see, and interesting to play tourist here, however moving down the coastline towards more traditional, quiet harbours is something we currently look forward to.  Our perch above this city skyline reminds us of yet another quote used by the locals: "It's as awkward as a crow on an icy rock".

Talk to you from the shores of St. Andrew-By-The-Sea!

Cheers,

Ken & Tricia