Getting Closer To Fundy

Cap-Pele’, NB – Aug 2 & 3, 2012 Our Current Location

Woke up full of vim and vigor, ready to go. EJ has plotted our route and we are off to find the Appalachian Trail, the French fry capital of the world and the worlds longest covered bridge.

Frank is interested in seeing the Canadian version of the AT. At Perth-Andover, NB we stop at the visitor center to ask directions to the trail. They try to give us directions to the Appalachian Route which is for cars. I explain I'm interested in the hiking trail and I get a blank look. Finally one of them says they think it goes through the town, but they don't have a clue as to where we should look for it. They have WiFi so EJ and I get on the Internet and find an IAT trail map and see where it runs through town. We hop back in Big Guy and take off in search of the trail.

We take a run into town and no luck. According to the trail map we've crossed over it several times, but find no sign of it. We turn around to come back and spot a paved path that may be what we're looking for. We walk on the path for a ways, but there are no markers of any kind indicating that it's part of the International Appalachian Trail.

We turn around to walk back to the RV and we pass a big sign that has some local trail information on it. In the upper right hand corner EJ spots the coveted letters, IAT. We found it! There must be a really good trail map available, because we never saw the first blaze marking the trail.

 

Now it's off to Florenceville, NB to find the French fry capital of the world. At the Potato Museum, we learn all about how potatoes are grown, how they really originated in Chile and Peru, and how the Irish Potato Famine brought the potato industry to New Brunswick. Now we know what all of the acres and acres of crops are that we have been seeing. And of course we have to try an order of fries, which is why we really came here, right?

Can’t pass up a chance to see the world’s longest covered bridge now can we? Off to Heartland, NB we go. No way BG is going to make it through the bridge, so we park at the top of the hill and head down.

We couldn’t really get a good full view from where we were, so we decided to walk across to the other side. Better views, but just as we head back, a bus load of Japanese tourists disembark and head for the bridge. And of course they all had to stop for pictures.  We finally got back across and up to BG to continue our journey.

Having missed the musical event of the 60's, EJ and I decided we really must go to Woodstock (NB that is). Since we were just looking for an over night stop we pulled into the closest Walmart. We were the only RV there which made us a little nervous, thinking maybe this particular Walmart doesn't allow overnight parking. We didn’t see any signs so we found a spot and settled in. Eventually 5 or 6 more RVs show up and our level of concern goes way down. It turned out to be a beautiful evening with an amazing full moon gracing the sky. What a great ending to the day.

Our thinking was that if we got closer to the coast, the temperature might be cooler because of the Atlantic waters. So on Friday we decided to get closer to Shediac, NB which is on the Northumberland Straight.

It was a long road day and when we got to Moncton, NB we took an exit to check out a Casino we saw advertised to see if they had an RV park. No overnight parking allowed, so we got back on the road.

We ended up going further than we wanted, but found a nice place to boondock in Cap-Pele’, NB overlooking a working marina on the straight. The marina is home to a fleet of lobster boats. Our luck, lobster season closed on Aug 1, so the traps and boats were sitting idle.

The wind is blowing out from land, so we don't feel the cooling effect of the water, but it's still nice enough to sit outside and enjoy the evening. Some time during the night, the wind shifts and begins blowing in from the water and the temperature drops nicely. We end up under all the covers before morning arrives.

On Saturday morning, we walk around the marina and check out the coast line and lobster boats before heading to Shediac for the day.