Let's Go Places: New Brunswick

 

Continuing the saga of the Great Maritimes Bender from last time, it's Thursday and we are wheels up from Charlottetown PEI headed to Fredericton NB.  I wonder what adventures we will find along the way.

Time wise NB really got the short end of the stick for this trip.  All that I knew going in is that Fredericton is the capital city and Google told me that Hopewell Rocks was the #1 place to go.  I was in a completist mood, so I didn't want to skip it, but NS and PEI had priority.

Thursday Afternoon - Let's Stare at Rocks!

You can't go to Hopewell Rocks any old time that you feel like it, since there is a small matter of a 40 foot tide.  When I saw that the driving time from Charlottetown to Hopewell would have me arriving at the start of low tide, I got right on it.

I paid the admission fee and took in the eagle eye views from the lookouts near the visitors center.

You can pay to take a shuttle or do a 15 minute walk for free.  Guess which option I chose?

(No shade on the shuttle option.  Between the shuttle and the access points for the beach, Hopewell has decent options for folks with limited mobility who want to go to epic places in nature.)

As I walked, I wondered how the trail was going to get me down to the ocean floor.  There is an (unpictured) set of stairs that make the descent relatively easy.

I was soon in my normal Maritimes environment.  Walking on the ocean floor and staring at rocks as one does.

Walking conditions were much tidier than Medford Beach.

At the end of the public area there was a walking ramp, so the return to ground level was easy.

I finally tore myself away from the rocks and drove a few hours to Fredericton.

Let's Rate the Airbnb!

The Fredericton unit was a one bedroom apartment on the top floor of a massive historic home that had been converted into apartments.

Remember how sometimes I've joked about needing to grade on a curve?  Back when I was in college, the professors in my core classes used to increase everyone's grades by raising the highest score to 100.  For example, if the highest score on a test was a 95, they would increase everyone's grade by 5 points.  My friends and I used to play a game we called "screw the curve" where we would try to get the highest grade possible so that there was no curve.  The classes were hard, but with a little diligence in studying it could be done.

All of this is to say that the host of the Fredericton Airbnb screwed the curve.  This was a clear 100%.

The pillows are in the way so you can't see it, but let me assure you that there was a nightstand with reading light on the other side of the bed.

The kitchen was well laid out, and bonus points for the skylight.

Best of all, there was a reading nook.  The bookshelves were well stocked with fiction, personal development, and finance selections.

But there is always something that is "off" in every Airbnb.  There's got to be a flaw here somewhere...what nit can we find to pick?????

It was quite a search.  The best I could come up with is that there was no toilet paper holder.

After getting settled, it was time for dinner.  I had made some noises to Elisabeth and Belle that it would be fun to have poutine in every province, but after two nights in a row of pretty hearty restaurant dinners, I just couldn't take another big meal.  It's a given that this will not be my last visit to NB, so I'll just have to get poutine next time.

Instead I had a picturesque walk to the grocery store.

I picked up breakfast fixings and some fine, fine grocery store sushi.

Which I ate on my private rooftop deck.  Because of course the unit had a private rooftop deck!

Friday Morning: Let's Explore Fredericton

I woke up fairly early and did the coffee thing.

After sunrise I packed up and went out to explore.  Hike and bike path that led to a bridge - check.

Cute flower sculpture on the embankment - check.

Bridge views galore - check!

We've already checked so many boxes, but there was another one that doesn't show in a photo.  The people were super friendly.  When I walked down the street in Halifax, at best I got eye contact and a tight smile, and I picked up a touch of frostiness in PEI.  But in Fredericton, the norm was a big smile, a warm "hi how are you?", and a few rounds of chit chat.

It wasn't all fun and games in Fredericton.  Someone was having a bad day.

A very bad day.  The truck had gotten stuck before I arrived, and was still there when I left a few hours later.  One passerby exclaimed "Not again!  That's the fourth one since I moved here!!!"

But enough reveling in nature.  We have a legislature to visit!

When I was doing my legislature planning, my prediction was that NB would take the lead since the website said that they had tours every half hour.  However, something changed because the website now said that tours were self guided only.  Sigh.

I checked in and got my v-card.

There was an information kiosk with an overview and facts, but that's never as good as an enthusiastic human being telling you stories.  

The chandeliers in the legislative chamber are called the North Lady and the South Lady, and once upon a time the South Lady played Phantom of the Opera and crashed.

What the NB Legislature lacked in guided tours it made up for by being the only Maritime Legislature to have a dome.  OK, OK, I know it's a small dome, but nevertheless it is a dome.

After the legislature, I walked around for a bit and then decided to leave town.  As with PEI, there were so many other things that I could have done, but it was a choice between "do other things" and "spend more time with Elisabeth".

On my way out I stopped by the Government House.

The best part was the WWI display.  I once heard the term "Ladies from Hell" used to describe kilted troops.  I never saw the phrase used in NB or NS (story to come), but it was definitely in my mind.

My recently developed Flag Nerdism noted a US flag on the premises (context: I am writing this in 2025, the year in which someone in my country with a big mouth has not been very nice to Canada).  So far my 2025 US flag count in Canada is three, which was three more than I expected to find: one outside a hotel in Victoria, one seen in NS while we were driving to Peggy's Cove, and now one in the Government House.

Friday Afternoon - Let's Get Gone

It was time to head back to Nova Scotia.  I wanted some snacks for the road, and if not for the time I spent with Elisabeth, I would have stopped by the grocery store or a convenience store.  Now that I knew better, I did better and went to the dollar store.

I got my snacks, plus an unexpected bonus.  I used to have pair of fluffy socks that I used as travel slippers, but I lost them sometime on the California trip.  Ever since then I'd been doing without.

Now I had exactly what I wanted at a price that could not be beat.  These little fox slipper socks and I are going to go places.

On paper the drive back to Elisabeth's was about five hours.  I put the address into my GPS and put the pedal to the metal and was making good time.  I started seeing signs for St. Johns, and I was confused because I didn't think it was on the route.   I did what the GPS told me to do and found myself driving through town.  Huh, some kind of short cut around the freeway?

Imagine my surprise when I abruptly found myself at the ferry dock.  This was not in my game plan, and google said something about the crossing taking two hours, which was also not in my game plan.  There were too many factors to consider - sailing schedules, whether you can just wheel up without a reservation, cost, time, yada yada yada that I was just not prepared to make on the fly.  I told GPS to get me to Elisabeth's by land, which it did but the detour added at least an hour onto the drive.

Eventually I got back to Wolfville and pulled into Lighthouse HQ around dinner time.  I was back with my friends.  But that's a story for another day.

NB, I'm sorry that you got the short end of the stick, but I will be back!  Who's been here?  What's the nicest non-hotel stay that you've ever had?   What was the last road trip that you've taken where GPS steered you wrong?