Friday, July 20, 2012

July 20, 2012

Another really nice day today.  Temperatures were in the low 70's inland and probably the low 60's on the coast.  Blue skies with just a few clouds.

I left Pennfield this morning and rode down to Black Harbour looking for the Bliss Island Lighthouse.  Well, the lighthouse must have gotten washed away in a storm, because it sure wasn't in Black Harbour like Google said.  It was a nice ride, though, and the town of Black Harbour looked to be pretty prosperous.  Below is a picture of the ferry dock, and you can see how much higher the high tide mark is:


I would put it at about 12 feet or so.

After puttering around the dock for a while, I headed back up to Route 1 and went east toward St. John.  St. John is a city of about 70,000 on the banks of the St. John River, where it meets the Bay of Fundy.  I went to see the New Brunswick Museum, which had an interesting collection of the art, history, and nature of the area.  Beginning in the 18th Century, timbering and shipbuilding became important industries in the area.  A typical display in the museum was the one below, showing a shipwright pegging planks into place:


I did manage to catch this little rowboat outside headed down the river toward the Bay:


You can see that St. John has quite a large harbor area, and in fact, there were two freighters standing just offshore.

I left St. John and headed down Rte. 111 and 825 toward the shoreline and went through the little villages of Garnett, Black River, Shanklin, and Bain's Corner on the way to St. Martins and the Bay of Fundy Trail.  Along the way, I caught glimpses of the bay like the one below:


The Bay of Fundy Trail runs about 10 miles along the bluffs overlooking the Bay east of St. Martin.  Many of the views are spectacular and there were turnoffs every mile or so to take in the scenery.  You can get an idea of how gorgeous the scenery was from the pics below:




Anyway, really impressive.

I'm in Moncton, NB for the night and have about 10 things to see in the immediate area tomorrow.  I'll be spending tomorrow night here also and leaving Sunday morning for Prince Edward Island.

Miles today:  241
Total:  2,182