From VA to Labrador in 3 weeks, our 2011 Adventure

[CLynn85]

Little late posting this but figured I'd finally sit down and do a trip report for our 2011 adventure. This year we set Atlantic Canada in our sights and also had the goal of filling in the rest of our gaps on our map of the USA in New England.

This was to be roughly our map:
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We'd been researching this area for a long time but aside from some random posts here and a bit on the road from Quebec City to Lab City never really found a whole lot. The Lonely Planet guide for this region had a few tidbits, but quite a bit of inaccuracies as well. Map data was pretty sparse and it seems our Garmin doesn't even cover Canada, so we spent the entire trip with road maps and recommendations from locals.

For transport we loaded up our 07 Tacoma (which has now seen every state CONUS except Nebraska) and a quickly refurb'd 1985 Skamper popup in the bed.

I apologize as some of this may be copy/pasted from our blog that we used to keep family/friends happy along the way.

[CLynn85]

Day 1-2: Getting up there

Our first day was mostly highway through areas we'd already been, with a *yuck* KOA for the night. From there we moved into slightly more unfamiliar territory. Our first fun stop was in the town of Freeport; this is the home town of L.L. Bean. Their flagship store is unbelievable, plus the town itself is worth a walk around. While in Freeport, we saw a sight that is uncommon to our Southern eyes... a Civil War memorial to the Northern soldiers.

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Our final destination for the evening was Pemaquid Point near New Harbor, ME. Our campsite is in a quaint little family run campground just one mile from the coastline and lighthouse. The staff is very friendly and the camp kids are a riot. Upon pulling up to the office they promptly greeted us with "You're camper is TINY."

After picking our site, we set off for the Pemaquid Point lighthouse. We hiked down to the rocky shore right away. Although it was great to see our first lighthouse in Maine, the real attraction of this trip was the Seagull Gift Shop, with an accompanying restaurant. You can't beat a $10 lobster at a BYOB restaurant located right on the cliffs!

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[CLynn85]

Day 3: Still in the US

From there we headed up to Bar Harbor, our last really touristy destination for a while. Along the way we had some fun though, after a second visit to the Seagull Gift Shop for breakfast (blueberry pancakes, yum!) we explored around Pemaquid Point making stops at the harbor and the colonial town/fort.

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How could we not stop?!?!?! An old New England barn packed to the rafters with odds and ends.... it's amazing enough that we are not still there, even more so that we came away without some outlandish purchase. Wish I had a photo of the interior of this place.

We hit Bar Harbor/Acadia National Park. We mostly just gathered info on Acadia as it just wouldn't fit in the schedule for this trip, and plan to come back to it another day. But we did take advantage of the free bus service and spent the evening in Bar Harbor. Unfortunately, the bus ride proved to be quite a harrowing experience for the dog...

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After enjoying a picnic while listening to the live Jazz on the Town Green, we walked the streets and along the harbor. We were amazed at the number of people out and about. The town of Bar Harbor is basically a tourism madhouse this time of year, but we tried our best to go with the flow. Oh, and there were lots of boats....

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[CLynn85]

Day 4: Things that end in "-og"

Fog

Bog

Dog

Fog...Fog...

That pretty much describes today.

We got up this morning to find visibility was at an all time low. We had considered spending another morning, or perhaps even another full day, on Mount Desert Island and do either some harbor tours, kayaking, hiking Acadia, or some combination there of, so we spent the morning walking around the campground, getting ready, tidying up the camper, and waiting to see what the weather was going to do. Consulting the weather and some locals, we decided that it just wasn't going to cooperate and since we had already decided we must come back and spend a couple days doing Acadia sometime in the not too distant future, we hit the road with Canada in our sights.

Leaving MDI we plotted a course along some backroads up to Highway 9, which leads straight to Calais, and more importantly, Canada. There's not much on 9 between Bangor and Calais.... so we rolled into Calais, topped off the tank with low-tax American fuel and got in the line for the border crossing. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't quite it, a lot less signage and organization than I thought, I suppose. Either way, they could have seemed to care less about JD, didn't even ask for his shot records, which was the greatest stress Lindy had leading up to the border crossing. They were however, quite concerned as to the type and quantity of the Blueberry wine that we picked up in Maine... go figure.

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Once we were across and into St. Stephens, we hit Gonong's Chocolate, which is supposedly the company responsible for the introduction of those heart shaped boxes of chocolate that we're forced to buy every February 14th into North America. I guess I can't complain though, because their museum tour included trays of fine chocolates scattered about, with no limit on how many you could consume. I really don't recall that much else about the tour, because I was in a sugar coma for 80% of it...

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BTW - They don't import these into the USA, but I did get their mail-order information.

After a quick stop at the New Brunswick tourism office we hit highway 1, and after a short while pulled into St. George. There's not much there other than some entertaining old codgers in one of the town offices, but I did manage to stumble across this dam, which had a fairly elaborate fishway to allow migrating fish to continue upstream to spawn. I'm a nerd, so I thought it was cool...

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Our stop for the night was a campground at a provincial park at New River Beach. Provincial parks seem to be roughly the equivalent of our state parks, but nicer. We grabbed a site near the bath-house and setup camp, since we planned to walk across the street and hit the hiking trails before the mist set in too thick. After walking across the street, we found that there was no access to the trails there, but a mile and a half walk down the road later we were in business. Lindy had a good time, and I must admit the views and the foliage weren't terrible, but after I ran out of coordination on one of the slippery wooden boardwalks that traversed some of the wetter parts of the trail while being pulled by the dog and hit the deck, I was a bit out of sorts... (I'm guessing this was JDs payback for us making him ride the scary bus to Bar Harbor, after which he placed the blame squarely on me for some reason).

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[Detslider]

Hey we're also from the NOVA area and also planned to make this same trip last year. Unfortunately work trumped my vacations plans and we didn't get to go.
I used the trip report that Northern Explorer put together as a bit of a planning aid.
http://www.expeditionportal.com/foru...-interest-2010

Subscribed for updates!

[CLynn85]

Day 5: "There better be a moose, with puffins on its antlers, eating lobster and surfing with a whale at the end of this road"

We awoke this morning to rain, and fog, and then more rain. We end today with rain, and fog, and then more rain. Despite the damp weather conditions, we have managed to make a full day of it.

Our first stop was a drive through Saint John, New Brunswick's most populous city. There is a great deal of industry here. It is also home to the "reversing falls;" however, we did not catch the tide shift at a spectacular time. Our pictures just look like shots of water. Saint John is also home to a gang of wild elderly who seem to enjoy racing their wheelchairs though the busy city streets. Seriously, we saw at least three. After pulling out of Saint John, we tracked along the suggested Fundy Scenic Route... it did not greatly deliver (hence the title of today's post).

This was our view for most of the way:

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As we ran along back roads with nothing to see, we began to up the criteria for what would make this drive worth the time and gasoline. Needless to say the mythical surfing moose never arrived, but we did find some things worth taking a (not very good) picture of.

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The next village to appear on our route was St. Martins. We had come to drive the Fundy Trail and hopefully do some hiking, but the weather put a damper on those plans. Still, We were able to see the huge effects of the Bay of Fundy's tidal changes, enjoyed a delightful bowl of seafood chowder at a bayside stop and trekked out to some caves just in time for another cloudburst.

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St. Martins is also, allegedly, the only place IN THE WORLD where you can see two covered bridges AND a lighthouse all in one shot....

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The only way to get back on the main route from St. Martins appeared to be by back tracking, and I was NOT ok with that, so we set out on the direction we wanted to go in to see what happened. Turns out you eventually end up on a huge network of logging roads, which would not have been all that exciting were it not for the typhoon that had suddenly appeared turning roads that looked like this into complete mush.

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We finally emerged on some improved roads remarkably close to the area we were heading towards, so we headed on to Fundy National Park. Since the weather was still not cooperating we slipped into the town of Alma for a bit to dry out and use the wifi at a local coffee shop.

[CLynn85]

Hey we're also from the NOVA area and also planned to make this same trip last year. Unfortunately work trumped my vacations plans and we didn't get to go.
I used the trip report that Northern Explorer put together as a bit of a planning aid.
http://www.expeditionportal.com/foru...-interest-2010

Subscribed for updates!

Sorry for the misfortune, hope you're able to do it in the future. It was definitely at or near the top of all time best trips we've done. Feel free to ask any questions you have.

[CLynn85]

Day 6: Fundy to Five Islands pt 1

As my wife wrote:

"When we awoke this morning to a hillside view of the sunrise over the Bay of Fundy, it struck me how extraordinary a thing we were doing. Moments later when our camper was under siege with bats trying to nest, I realized what a strange thing we were doing."

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Some of our original plans had us pushing on past the park today and onto Prince Edward Island. Instead we were lured in to the beauty of Fundy National Park and decided to stay here and forgo the driving time and other expenses that going to PEI would entail.

After an enthusiastic recommendation from the front desk attendant, we chose to hike the Laverty Falls trail. We were not disappointed, the falls were breathtaking and the trail leads you directly to the drop point for one of the larger parts. Of course, the rains the night before had not helped the rich earth on the trail and our footwear did suffer a bit. JD had no problems, At points he was plucking through dark mud up to his knees and enjoying every minute of it.

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After cleaning up from the hike, we made our way over to Point Wolfe. This area of the park used to be a port area for a logging camp. There is a reconstruction of a covered bridge marking the camp's area. A short trail here takes you down to the shore. The bay of Fundy is known for its dramatic tide changes, we were close to the low tide time and were able to step out almost 1 km further on the shore than you can at high tide.

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Leaving the park, we stopped in Alma, NB to see the effect of the tides. It is amazing to see huge fishing ships laid on their sides as the water rushes out. We also saw a local fishing vessel which recently brought in a 30 foot shark.

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Reluctantly we left the area and pressed on to keep up with the schedule. While hitting the last town in NB before NS for supplies and currency we received a phone call that we had missed an earthquake back home. "Seriously?!?!?!!" An earthquake in VA... and we're in Canada, go figure....

[CLynn85]

Day 6 Part II


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When we left NB for Nova Scotia the change was unbelievable. The first thing that hit us were the strong winds coming from the bay. We then focused on the local flora and fauna. The area were were driving in was beautiful, rural and also oddly familiar. There were times where we could have sworn we were back in Madison, VA on a Sunday Drive. After following some back roads, we made it to our final camp at Five Islands Provincial Park. We have been extremely impressed with the local park sites in Canada.

Five Islands sits out overlooking the Bay and the five islands along the shore which give the area its name. Our site looked out over the water and the view was breathtaking. After starting the day with a stunning sunrise, we finished it with an equally beautiful sunset.

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[4x4x4doors]

Excellent! I for one believe it's NEVER too late to share a great trip report.

Looks like a wonderful time was had by all. I may want to put this on my future trips list (I may need to prioritize a bit but that's another issue.)