travel dates: July 17-19, 2018
Many years ago, I heard of the Bay of Fundy for the first time. A co-worker of Dave’s at the Museum of Science in Boston went there for some kind of research trip, and he told me about it and about the Really Impressive Tides. So I had that information filed away in my brain–Fundy is the place with the tides–ever since. And then we finally got to see the Bay of Fundy ourselves, and…wow! Those tides are something else!
Fundy National Park was not our first Bay of Fundy encounter; we’d started our Canada adventure at a campground that overlooked the Bay from the Nova Scotia side of things. But we’d missed it, and we were eager to see it again from a different perspective.
Chignecto Campground
We stayed inside Fundy National Park, at Chignecto Campground. To get to Chignecto, you drive up and up and up past the park entrance into the highlands, to find a heavily wooded campground with lots and lots of large, private sites tucked into the trees. We were just coming off of our harrowing experience getting into our site at Prince Edward Island National Park, so I was very sad to find another tricky to get into site here. First we had some problems due to an inconveniently located road sign right across from the site, and then we found it completely impossible to get level front to back because of the way the site sloped.
To be fair, the website mentioned said sloping when we made our reservation, but we plunged forward because it didn’t look so bad in the picture. A shorter trailer would have been fine in the site, since it leveled out toward the back. And there were plenty of other sites in Chignecto without the same issue.
But once we got into our site, it was lovely and we were only sleeping on a little bit of a slope:
Our side yard:
The campground is big and sprawling, with 263 sites (most of them water and electric, plus a few without hookups and a very few with full hookups), an impressive playground, and a bike trail.
Impressive playground:
Nice bathhouses:
Adorable Otentiks if you don’t have an RV with you:
And confusing recycling bins (two doors, three signs…and to make things even more interesting, behind the doors there are FOUR bins!)
So sloped site aside, we loved Chignecto and our beautiful site in the forest….but I think if we had it to do over again we’d probably stay a Headquarters Campground down near the park entrance. For one thing, we got tired of making that climb up the steep road over and over again (it’s only a few kilometers, but it seemed longer). Also, while the sites are less private at Headquarters, it’s within walking distance of the town of Alma, and we would have been happy to trade a little privacy for that proximity. So…priorities! RV Atlas stayed at Headquarters and had a great experience that they talk about here.
Kinnie Brook Trail
The day we arrived, we hiked the charming Kinnie Brook trail, which leaves from the campground and takes you on a 2.8 km trip through the forest, down into a valley to a streambed and back out. It was a hot day, but there was a lovely little oasis of cool air down in the valley.
Hopewell Rocks
If you’ve seen pictures of the Bay of Fundy, you’ve likely seen the Hopewell Rocks, the precarious looking rock formations that are little tree-topped islands at high tide, but tower above the exposed ocean floor at low tide.
Hopewell Rocks Park is about 35 minutes from Fundy National Park, and we headed here the morning after we arrived. Admission is $10CDN for adults, $7.25 for kids, or $25.50 for a family ticket for 2 adults and kids 18 and under. The ticket is good for 2 consecutive days, so you can leave and come back any time during that window to get to see the rocks at both high and low tide.
You want to check the tide times before your visit; you can walk on the ocean floor for three hours before to three hours after low tide. If you have to pick between seeing high and low tide, I’d go with low, but if you time to stick around for both, it’s well worth it. This is what we did. We got there at low tide and took the walk (about 15-20 minutes) down to the rocks and spent some time walking around:
And posing for pictures:
We tried to do some silly holding up the rocks type pictures, but it turns out we’re not so good at those:
Then we walked back to the interpretive centre, stopping at a couple of overlooks along the way:
We checked out the exhibits at the interpretive centre and had a snack at the restaurant:
…until it was time to head back over to take a look at high tide coming in. It looked very different now (if you squint you can see the kayaks going in between the rocks. We were WALKING there a couple of hours earlier!)
The tide was still low enough that people were going down the steps and right up to the edge of the water. This made me nervous, but they have a lot of people working there making sure people don’t hang out too long and get stuck:
By then we were tired of walking back and forth, so we paid the small fee to take the shuttle back to our car.
Tours and Programs
There are lots of these offered, depending on the time of year. We did a guided beach exploration, where everyone went out to see what kinds of animals and other stuff we could find at low tide. We were surprised at how many people were there:
More Hiking
Here is where I wish I’d done a better job keeping up with my notes. We did a couple more short hikes after the guided beach walk, but I can’t remember which ones! Okay, after studying the list of trails very carefully, I’m fairly certain that one of them was Shiphaven, a 1 km trail with views of the covered bridge and Point Wolfe River and the other was Point Wolfe Beach, which is right next to Shiphaven. But, point being, there’s a lot of great hiking in the park and a variety of trails for all different skill levels:
Xplorers Badge
Abe got his last Xplorers badge here. As always, the book was well done with a fun variety of activities. Including checking out a secret trail behind the park headquarters:
Alma
Alma is the little town just outside of the park, and we loved getting to spend a little time there. We ate at and enjoyed Tipsy Tails restaurant (right on the water! Of course, it’s tough not to be on the water in Alma). And then we checked out Holy Whale Brewing Company, an adorable little brewery in an old church, which has an awesome sign and a great location, but, sadly, was out of an awful lot of the beer we wanted to try. Note how the sun rays are shining down from heaven on the holy whale. Not a photoshop effect! God really does love this beer! (well. I mean, maybe it’s a coincidence):
The taps are whale tales!
And thus concluded our very last stop in Canada! From here, there was mostly a lot of long driving days mixed in with college tours, but I do have a couple more posts to write before we finally leave our summer of 2018 behind completely. I bet you thought I wouldn’t ever catch up! I know I thought that!
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