Alas, we're on PEI. My how time flies. So our first camping adventure (remember that last entry, in Gaspé Nat'l Park) was very rudely interrupted by rain. Yes, our first evening in the tent we got rain. I, of course, was sleeping soundly when the liquid weather moved in. Cara kindly woke me asking "is that rain" to which I soundly replied "no" - moments later it was clearly raining. Ah well, I was tired. Cara went on to warn me of the perilous animals waiting to devour me outside the tent, and luckily they never appeared while I fastened the rain fly and made a little rain of my own.
So yes, our first camping experience was a bit of a downer. It was quite fun drinking some wine and beer in the tent while hiding from the mosquitos, but rain (nearly) always steals some of the joy of camping, especially when it comes to packing up wet stuff. We did get out of it pretty easy - it wasn't really raining when we packed up, and our tent is quite waterproof, so it was far from a dashing-into-the-car-in-the-middle-of-the-night manouver.
After the camping fiasco, we were pretty done with frenchy canada, so we pointed it towards new brunswick with a vengence. The Eclipse had been treating us pretty well, although the major inconvience turned out not to be it's lack of room, but rather it's lack of bargaining power. Although I am an ardent bargainer, those skills are really put to the test when we roll up to a motel in a brand new convertible that can only truely be described as bling. We've gotten to know the vehicle well by now, and one thing is for sure, every time we walk by it it makes us giggle a bit. Not that we like it, but just that its design is just so damn sexy. It's hard to explain - we don't like the looks, in fact, although we love convertibles this Mitsubishi Eclipse is the opposite of our style. It's viciously designed - designed well in fact - but so bling. Slung forward and curvey - it has no roadster appeal, it just screams pimping with a low punchy growl at idle. All fun and games, until you try to pitch the poor student line to a motel owner. Conversation quickly turns to the car and even the most savvy lines about it being a rental don't help. Damn you Avis! We get a cool car on the cheap and wind up paying for it a few bucks at a time at bo-hunk motels across Canada. Go figure.
Back to the story at hand, we blast out of the national park and continue on 134 (now westbound as it wraps around the bottom of the peninsula). The towns click by rapidly and soon we can smell Anglophone Canada just around the corner. We set our sights on a place called "Chandler" as a lunch stop. Yes, we should have known it would suck. I mean it's called Chandler! Well, it was a rough-and-tumble sort of town, and way further from new Brunswick then we had thought. In fact, even when we did make it to NB we realised that we'd been fooled and that it was still frenchy land for another hundred miles, but that's a whole nother story. So yes, pulling into Chandler I first worried because all the vehicles on the road seemed to be muddy, as did the residents in a sort of way. But after a few miles it became clear, Chandler had decided to tear up all its few miles of route 134 at once, so it was a bumpy, muddy trek through town. Our lunch turned into a mini meal, which was fine, and after finding out that the ferry to NB runs once a week, we decided to keep on driving until we hit NB. Cara took over the wheel and did a fantastic job not only getting us to the new brunswick, but like an energizer bunny she kept on all the way to Shippegan. True to its name, we found a it to be a great town, home to the biggest fishing fleet of the province. Although our accomodation was on the pricey side, we had a great dinner, the first real nice proper sit down dinner of our honeymoon at a little bistro a short walk over a bridge from our B&B, and literally in the shadows of the dry-docked fishing fleet. Very nice. Apparently the main catch of the town is crab, so that's what I had, and it was fresh and great.
The next day (now, yesterday) we travesed the coast down the side of NB, which was, as the map indicated, not all that scenic. The drive was nice, but offered only fleeting views of the sea. We decided to make our next stop Moncton, a bigger city and one that sounded fun enough. By this time we were well aware that it was Canada Day weekend, so accomodation pickings might get slim. Somehow the honeymoon-fairy was shining on us and we landed a coveted spot in the Bonaccord B&B. A dear little place with 4 rooms, and legendary in both our travel guides. Alas, upon arrival we were back in native-english land, replete with an owner apparently very keen on England himself. Which worked out nicely - he was very hospitable and cooked up a mean english breakfast for us. Now, for those of you new to Moncton, it as two sights for which it is known. "Magnetic Hill" is an ultra kitschy tourist trap a la Route 66 where gravity has gone wrong and you can park you car at the bottom of a hill, shift into neutral, and then watch it roll backwards up the hill. Strange and mildly amusing, but not worth the $5 entry fee (not that we paid it.)
The other big feature of Moncton is the Tidal Bore. Check it out - Moncton has a river, right, and it flows into the sea. Now, when the tide switches from low tide to an incoming tide, a tidal wave builds in the river as the tide fights the rivers flow. As the tide wins the battle, the wave builds and flows up the river. Just one single wave, rolling right up the river, followed by the tidal currents. So if you do the math, this wave comes through town twice a day. So after we were settled in to the B&B, we walked down to Tidal Bore Park to see what the story was. They built this big amphitheatre and boardwalk on the river so people can watch this wave roll by. Fancy. Now obviously there's only one bit of info that tourists to this attraction need: the time the next wave will come. There's a big sign for this purpose, but the sign was broken. And the tourist office was closed because of the holiday weekend. So we had a look at the river, noted that it was strangely far away from the seating but gave up and went about our business. We stopped into a gift shop where I asked half-jokingly if they knew when the next big wave was coming. After a moment's pause the very helpful staff gave a chuckle said "oh, the tidal bore - well it's not what it used to be, you know, since the sludge." "Ah yeah" said another, and we all had a good laugh. They said that we might want to run over to city hall and ask, since they might know.
So we left the shop, and decided to do one better. Right next to city hall was a brewpub, called the Pump House, where we decided to just sample a few local waves of our own. After some great food and 9 different kinds of beer we began wonder wether we could do a future road trip around north america only eating at brew pubs. They're just so good and the food is great and the beer is generally tasty and it's supporting a good thing from top to bottom. Case in point, when we first walked by this brewpub, it was jammed with people, around the corner on the same block was another bar without a soul in it. Voila. After beers and a vegie platter and a tasty little wood-fired pizza, we decided to stumble back down to the tidal bore park, which the locals call the Total Bore park... While there we begin to see the larger picture. The river is really silty, in fact, it looks exactly like chocolate milk. All sand and clay and silt. And when the city built the boardwalk and viewing area for the wave, they changed the hydrodynamics a bit. They built it right on the river, in fact it used to overhang the river, and then the river just moved away. You know how rivers deposit stuff on the short side of a bend and cut into the far side and then make oxbow lakes, etc. Yep, well this river is running away from the viewing platform like there's no tomorrow. In fact there's probably now about 100 yards of grass between the platform and the river. Funny the way things work out. Anyway, wouldn't you know it, but after those beers we walk down to the river and talk ourselves into a hoopla declaring that the wave must be coming, because the river is so low that there is barely any water in it. And wouldn't you know it but the wave comes. Right then. Out of nowhere a single little whitecap rolls right up the river bringing strange rapids of tidal water. And we were the only ones to see it. True this wouldn've been even more special if it was a once in a decade thing and not a twice a day thing, but still, what are the odds?
