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Saint John, New Brunswick
On Wednesday, September 17, we visited Saint John, New Brunswick. Steve, Trevor, Jonna, and I all booked the "Best of Saint John" shore excursion through Princess. This all-day tour took us to many fun and interesting destinations, starting with Reversing Falls Rapids.
The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides on Earth. Reversing Falls Rapids, where the Bay of Fundy meets the Saint John River, is one of the best places to see that.
At low tide, the river empties into the bay, which causes rapids and whirlpools. The rising tide slows the river current briefly (which is what you're seeing in these pictures). As the tides continue to rise, it reverses the flow of the river and rapids form again. The tide cycle here is an astonishing 28 feet.
It was really fun watching the playful seals.
Our 6.5 hour tour was designed to start and end at Reversing Falls so that we could see the dramatic change, so after a 15-minute stop we were back on the bus to head to our next destination. Then, THUNK! We went off the road and into a ditch.
Our bus ("Optimum Ride" - ha!), which was already questionable and looked like it should have been retired awhile ago, suffered a cracked window. Our driver tried gunning the engine to get out of the ditch, but the wheels just spun. We got off the bus and had an unplanned extra hour at Reversing Rapids.
The guide told us to get back on the bus with the rear left wheel still off the ground. Shockingly, about 2/3 of the people on our tour did. The remainder of us refused until the driver pulled the bus forward so that it was stable. Then we insisted he inspect the broken window.
After more waiting, we ended up on a different bus. Fingers crossed for no more bus problems. (It worked!)
Next we took a 45-minute drive through the beautiful countryside.
Lunch was included in our tour. Those of us who don't eat seafood got minestrone soup. Delicious! We also got biscuits, cookies, and sodas with our meal.
Did you know that New Brunswick is the only province in Canada that is bilingual by law?
Once we finished eating, we had time to explore the St. Martins sea caves.
The caves are sandstone, carved by the tides. You can explore them at low tide.
We returned to Saint John and visited Fort La Tour. We learned about the origins of the fort, built in 1631 by Charles de La Tour.
We also learned about the valiant (but ultimately unsuccessful) efforts of the Lioness of Acadia to defend the fort in 1645.
Saint John is a neat city.
Cool flag!
Next stop: City Market. It's the oldest working farmers market in Canada and a National Historic Site.
Not sure why the coffee is with the produce.
Our driver passed these Maple Cream Cookies (affiliate link) around on the bus. Soooo good!
The Pal-o-Mine is Canada's (and North America's) oldest candy bar. It features fudge and peanuts and is delicious.
St. John is known as A City of Firsts.
As our bus took us back toward Reversing Falls Rapids, we saw a lot more of beautiful Saint John. It's a city well-worth exploring.
Check out how different the water is from our visit that morning.
Here's the ditch (hole?) without our bus in it. Note the scrape marks on the pavement.
Despite the morning's mishap, we had a wonderful time in Saint John. We had one more port to visit, which I'll tell you about tomorrow.
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