New Brunswick

We’d only scratched the surface of the Maritimes, so we decided to go back. But just like the year before, a hurricane was skirting the Eastern Seaboard as we were preparing to go. Luckily, Danny had passed before we arrived. Barely. We had surprisingly smooth flights to Montreal and Moncton, considering our proximity to a hurricane.

We arrived, picked up our rental car at the airport and checked into the B&B. It was a cozy place, a 2^nd floor apartment with a kitchenette and private bath; cream, robin’s egg and tile, respectively. We even had full cable.

How was the hurricane? we asked. There was heavy rain the night before, the landlord said; the proof of it in the humidity and the puddles gathered in every hollow. But the forecast for the next week was good, he said.

We took his word for it and decided to walk downtown after a day crammed into airplane seating. It was a fair hike, easily twice the distance it was from the Citadel to the downtown core in Halifax, but it was beautiful too. We passed a gorgeous treed park crisscrossed with garden paths and a cenotaph a short distance from our rooms.

There wasn’t much to do. It was Sunday and most of the stores were closed, but the restaurants were still open. We settled in for steak sandwiches and Pumphouse raspberry wheat beers.

We had a late supper at the Old Triangle. We had no idea it was a chain when we ate there in Halifax. Same decor, same menu. Steak and kidney pie for me and liver and onions for Bev.

The next morning we ate at Jean’s Restaurant for the first time, a mom and pop diner a few blocks from the B&B. It’s a classic diner, Formica and chrome and the expected fare. That said, seafood was on the menu. It’s an east coast diner, after all. It would become a staple for us before we hit the road each day. It served large portions for a good price, maybe too large. We were rarely hungry for lunch after eating there. But what drew us there day after day was the staff. Quick, friendly, talkative, and they never failed to recognize us, striking up increasingly lengthy conversations with us when we arrived. Why wouldn’t we come back day after day?

We spent our first day at and around Magnetic Hill. We did the tourist thing first, car in neutral, the car inexplicably rolling back uphill. It’s an optical illusion, of course, but it was fun. I felt oddly queasy while on it, as though my mind and body couldn’t quite reconcile why everything I perceived felt wrong. When I looked to the rear of the car through the open window, the illusion was obvious, but not so when staring out the front window. One shouldn’t analyse things too closely; it kills the magic of the moment. That said, I did roll “up” that hill three times. Like I said, it was fun.

The district capitalized on the tourist attraction, drawing in the tourist dollars. There was a covered bridge there, painted red, somewhat spongy as we drove over it, its interior woody and close. Beyond the bridge was family fun: a narrow-gauge train for the kids, a fun park and a zoo. And restaurants; burger barbeques and a cafeteria.

It wasn’t all for kids. We saw a sign declaring where the Magnetic Hill Winery was. We had to go; of course, we did. There were scatterings of such here and there, but they weren’t wineries, per say; no grapes, the Maritimes doesn’t have the climate or the soil for it. That’s not entirely true; Nova Scotia has a bustling wine business, but New Brunswick only seems to sell berry and rhubarb wines. We pulled off the highway and climbed the hill, following the signs, where we met three carloads of tourists as curious as we were. They had taken a bit of a tour and were just finishing it up with the obligatory tastings. We didn’t care about the tour. We’d been on a few in Niagara and expected theirs to be much the same. But we did join them for the tastings. We sampled, we bought a case or assorted types and had it shipped home. Bev had to drive after that.

Magnetic Hill took longer than we imagined it would. We returned to Moncton to plan our next day, deciding on a Mexican Restaurant for supper for something different.

What we decided before leaving was to head out in a different direction each day, using Moncton and our B&B as our base of operations. But which way to go first?

The next day we were on our way south to Hopewell rocks and then to Alma, a small fishing village on the edge of Fundy National Park. If you time it right you can arrive when the tide is in and later when the tide is out. If you time it better you can be there to kayak the Bay. We could have timed it better. We did not kayak the Rocks. We did walk down the switchback path to the observation area before climbing back out and driving to Alma, where we treated ourselves to a relatively dirt cheap lobster lunch. The sign said restaurant; the interior did not. There were no tables to be had, only lobsters and fish to be bought, so in my mind that made it a fish market. We ate there, outside at a picnic table, with an incredible view of the bay, walked the rocky shore, enjoying the moment.

Then we were off to Enrage Point, its lighthouse and its view. The wind had picked up and had been picking up all day, probably the tail end of the hurricane sweeping past the shoals, gathering strength as it did.

We returned to Hopewell, timing our arrival to be there for low tide, so we could walk the shore under the precariously perched undercut rocks. One of the rocks had eroded into what looked a skull. I imagined pirates carving away at the rock, a marker for future reference to remind themselves that the treasure was buried here. Right here. Tiny crabs scuttled here and there, unearthing what they might find, evading our clumsy footfalls. I brushed my hand over the rocks and found them to be little more than a loose conglomerate, easily crumbled. I wondered how the rocks had remained standing as long as they had. It’s unreal how high the tide rises. Apparently, enough water rushes into Fundy to submerge the entire State of New York under 30 cm of water.

The drive back to Moncton was as pleasant as any I’ve driven, along the coast and following riverbanks, the road little more than a narrow shelf, high rocks to one side sprouting a thick mass of trees and tangled shrub, a steep drop to the wide river on the other, the waters in full sun and we in a twilit shadow.

We indulged ourselves when we returned, having found a house filled with Christmas ornaments and decorations of all sorts imaginable, each room coloured in theme.

We didn’t stay out too late. We planned to drive to P.E.I. the next day and we had no idea how long we might have there once we got there. It looks small on the map. We doubted that it would seem so small when we got there.