It sure felt nice to wake up to the feeling of being dry and not having to take our tent down in the rain. Great decision, team!! We enjoyed a really good breakfast in the hotel lobby. The kids were thrilled to see that the famous pancake maker from our previous road trip was part of this breakfast. They were also fascinated to see Frank's Red hot sauce in small packets, so they sampled it on their breakfast sausages. I think they enjoyed it? We hopped in the car and headed to the grocery store to pick up some wine and potato salad for lunch. Since we had time to spare, we drove 10 minutes out of our way to check out Magnetic Hill, which was highly recommended by my father. I guess it has become a very touristy area over the years. There was a lot more to do than just the experience of the hill as it was surrounded by commercialization. We paid the $10 entry fee and were given instructions on what to do. As we waited our turn, we watched the previous car in front of us doing its thing and it really did look like they were backing up a hill towards us! Then it was our turn. Definitely a bizarre sensation. Looking out the back window you would be convinced Ryan was using the gas pedal to back up a hill. But interestingly, if you looked out your side window, you could see the small slope downwards. Definitely a fun little science experiment / optical illusion for the kids to experience.
We made our way to Grand Digue, which is where Cecile, a long time friend of Ryan's mom, lives. Enid and Cecile became close friends when they lived in the same neighbourhood in Pointe Claire, QC. Originally we had planned to stay at Cecile's house that night, but her son, Marc, and his family were visiting so we opted for a lunch visit instead. We were greeted warmly and enjoyed a true maritime lunch of fresh lobster, corn on the cob, buns and potato salad. After lunch we got a tour of Cecile's house. It was neat to see her wood workshop in the basement, and her craft room upstairs which had a beautiful view of the ocean. To finish our visit, we drove a few blocks down the road to a small beach near the wharf. It turns out this wharf is where they picked up our lobsters fresh off the boat from the fisherman the day before. We couldn't stay too long since we had plans to visit Hopewell Rocks and catch the low tide, so we said our goodbyes and took some final pictures. As we drove away, Ryan commented on how truly nice it was to catch up with an old friend, who he hadn't seen in 20+ years. So neat to connect with people so closely tied to Ryan's family.
We arrived at Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park too late to catch the lowest tide. However, we did manage to catch mid tide, so we were still able to take the hike and stairs down to the famous Stair Cove to stand on the ocean floor in front of the iconic “Lovers Arch”. The kids and I enjoyed standing a few feet from the shore, taking a photo, and waiting to see how long it took for the tide to overtake our feet: on average, 2 mins! Pretty incredible. Since we had planned to stay all day and do a 6pm guided kayak tour, we had a noticeable amount of time to just sit and enjoy the space, a rare treat given how filled our schedule had been for the majority of our trip. After a while we did the roughly 800m hike back to the car to make some peanut butter sandwiches and check out the museum. Another 900m hike down to the kayak place where we arrived 45 mins early as they had requested. When we got there we realized we could have driven the car down a separate road to park much closer, but alas… The sun was shining and there was a small wind, but the mom in me was worried that the kids would be cool on the kayak, so we added another layer with our hoodies and waited with a healthy dose of nerves until it was our turn to suit up and go. We got a short lesson on paddling and water safety and then launched into the Bay of Fundy. The wind was stronger on the ocean, so we had some pretty good waves between stops inside the protected coves along the way. In each cove we would regroup, hear an interesting story from one of the five guides, and then continue. We came together 3 km down the coast, then turned around and headed back. It was nice to have the wind at our backs on the journey to the finish. At one of the final stops, one of the tour guides in a solo kayak demoed a log roll in his boat, which was certainly impressive. It was hard to get pictures, but we got a few nice ones. I loved sharing this adventure with the family, although I'm not sure everyone felt equally as thrilled as I. They were all good sports for participating.
After the kayak was done, we had one final 800m hike back to the car. We were tired, wind swept, and a bit wet, so it felt nice to climb into the car. Our appetites were fierce after all of the activity that day, so we polished off the loaf of bread with more PB&J sandwiches. We had a 45 minute drive to Alma where we stopped at the general store that was still open when we arrived around 9:30pm. We stocked up on chips and chocolate bars and drove the remaining 3 mins to Fundy National park. Grabbed our keys to the yurt that I had booked, and settled in for the night.
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