Above: This is the route we plan to take... overly ambitious? I hope so...
Total distance: 11,978 km
Trip Duration: 36ish Days
Um. Ya. Jerusalem is mostly loaded and it is almost time to go.
I hope to make it...
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
The Grande Trip Home (TGTH)
The Rest of New Brunswick
Let's get this straight. This was supposed to be a long and meaningful post about how in a final burst of energy and awesomeness we saw the rest of all the amazing things in New Brunswick in one weekend! The reality is that in a few hours I will be leaving and Jerusalem is not yet ready to go so this will be like... a abridged version of this last set of adventures.
Saturday. Early AF. We headed to Fredericton to go to an aerial obstacle course called TreeGo. It was amazing. Following are the photos and movies of our fantastical adventures...
Lifeline
Bridge of Boards
Be a Squirrel
The Pipe
Lean Far
Zipline 1
En Route
The Bridge
Don't Look Down
Tightrope Plus
Step by Step
The Tarzan Rope
My Better Half on the Tarzan Rope
Still Alive
Run!
Zoom Zoom
Zipline Over Water
My Better Half and the RingRope
My Better Half and the Zipline
Another Zipline
This many movies ought to keep you busy for a while whilst I get our trip started. Oh yeah... TreeGo was amazing. It was cheap and it was great.
Heading back to Saint John we thought that we should stop by the Martello Tower. It was not the best day for it since it was super foggy, but even without the view it was easy enough to see the historical importance of this fort.
Oh yeah, and my movie is a little off from usual as I was trying to not let the tour guide girl/lady know I was filming... uh... yeah... Oh well...
The Tower
Suppah
Martello Tower
That done, there was still one big box that needed to be check in our list of stuff to see in New Brunswick. For those of you that don't know the Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. This happens to also cause some pretty amazing erosion. There are spots where the rock has been eroded to leave only a pinnacle of stone with some vegetation on top... these are called Flower Pots. This is what we needed to see.
We drove and drove and after a few hours we were there. It took a little longer than planned because of a thick thick fog that made it very difficult to see. We arrived after the park was closed so we didn't have to pay for entry. We walked in and headed to the shore. Even in the twilit fog it was incredible.
For a few moments we were the only ones there. It is kind of eerie to be alone in that kind of place... kind of eerie... and kind of magical.
Behold:
Sentinel
Life will Prevail
Pots on the Seabed
Flower Pots
Through
The Last Islands
What Lies Under (For a sense of Scale)
Free
Hopewell Rocks
Mud
The Last Clean Step
The Mud!
A Muddy Memory
A Lost Rock
Shattered
Defiance
Starlit Crevice
Broken
Stone Column
Being pretty late and having no more light with which to see the Flower Pots we headed back to Saint John. This time the fog was almost unbearable. In the car we could barely see 30 metres in front of us. The roads were pretty good and we could see the lines, but animals could be an issue. We had joked before that we might see a moose on the way home, and were we ever right...
I was cruising through the fog when coming from the left was the biggest deer that I had ever seen. It really all was in the blink of an eye. I pressed hard on the pedal and Jerusalem slowed with the utmost of control and grace. My better half woke up to see the hind end of a moose not a metre ahead of our bumper. We were more or less looking underneath... it was that tall. Another second and we would have had a moose sitting on top of us. I have described this to you in great detail, but I do not really remember it. I remember seeing that moose just feet away from us and walking off into the fog. I did not really realize what had happened until I heard Jerusalem sputtering away in fourth while rolling along at two or three kilometres an hour. Into neutral and into the fog.
The moose was gone, and we were on the road again....
p.s. If I don't blog about this now I never will. A while ago we went to Billy's Seafood for supper and found that a celebrity had been there as well:
True Art
The Private Car
So, the benefit of being bazillionaires is that you can do whatever you want, and if that means that you want to buy your own personal train car to have your business meetings in, you can. Well, the bazillionaires that own NBSR happened to want their own train car, and it just came in. Being on site I was privy to a self guided tour. For those who have never seen the olden day and overly decadent train cars of the rail era, please, enjoy my tour.
The Self-Guided Tour
The Silverware
In the Dining Room
The Private Car
Oh man, after seeing this I can only imagine how Dagny Taggart felt. Oh Dagny...
Grumps Found!
So, I was a chillin' in class one day speaking with a team member when the topic came up of my heading home. I told her that we had seen more of New Brunswick than most of the New Brunswickers, and I also told her that we had tried to see whales but were unsuccessful. Here she jumped in with some of her past experience.
Whale watching. Grand Manan. Awesome.
Sure, there were more words than that, but those were the ones that I picked up. Based on that it sounded pretty good. We had a few weekends left so we began to make some plans. We would go to Grand Manan on the Saturday, whale watch in the day, head back that night, and then go to Hopewell Rocks on the Sunday. Overall it was a great plan.
The time came for us to execute the plan and we did so flawlessly...ish... We were up early early early getting ready to drive to Blacks Harbour to take the ferry to Grand Manan. Right before we left we thought that perhaps we should toss the camping gear into Jerusalem... you know... just in case.
We made the drive and joined in the lines for the ferry. The ferry is first come first serve so we made sure that we were there with time to spare. The ferry came and we drove aboard. The trip was about 90 minutes and the ferry was well... very large.
Grand Manan V
A Stormy Ride
Another Shot of the Storm
Jerusalem was swallowed up like Pinocchio in that movie, and we made our way to the top decks of the ferry. Up there it was cold. We tightened our jackets and then wandered about. I ran into someone from the university who happened to be on the same trip as us. We wondered if she was taking the ferry back that night, she said she wasn't. This made us think... the last ferry left at 7 pm, and our whale watching trip left at 1 pm... would we make it?
Land Ho
On that voyage, when we were looking into the yonder we saw something amazing. We saw a whale. Well, it might have been a whale, or it might have been a basking shark, but either way, we had not even made it to Grand Manan and already this whale watching trip was better than the last one.
The Lighthouse
The sites were gorgeous as the ferry pulled up to the island and spewed out all of ye vehicles.
We had some time, so we decided to drive a bit to see what we could. We drove down to the very tip of the island where we saw what was once a picturesque lighthouse. I saw once because now there is a big radio tower there, which is less picturesque, but, the scenery was still incredible. The lighthouse and radio tower were perched high upon a set of mighty cliffs. We took many photos and the began to head to where we had to catch the whale watching boat... ship... thing...
The Edge of the World
A Quiet Spot
Trickle
The Cliffs of Grand Manan
More uh... Cliffs
A Long Drop
Cove
We stopped on another beach for a short while and ate some sandwiches made of a some french bread we picked up on the way. Running out of time, and tired of running from the spider that continued to chase us, we got back in the car and headed to Seal Cove.
Post
Seal Cove
Feed
That is where we got on our whale watching boat... ship... thing. The Captain had taken people out in the morning and they went north. There they found many whales. This time we would head south to try and find humpback whales, but if that did not work we could double back to the north to see the same whales the morning group saw.
We headed out on the water.
Floating
A long way out the First Mate spotted a humpback. We tried to track it and find it, but it vanished. It was down 12 minutes before we gave up, humpbacks should only be down for 5-8 minutes between breaths. We kept looking but found no whales. This does not mean that we did not find anything. We found plenty of sea birds and we found bazillions of porpoises. People did not seem to find them that exciting, but I found them plenty exciting.
Having spend enough time in the south the Captain turned us North.
It took a long while for us to get to the area where they had seen the whales before but we made it. We were sitting there just waiting for a sign. Eventually we saw one. A whale in the distance took a deep breath and shot water high into the air. We became instantly jubilant with excitement and ran to the side of the boat. Grumps!!!
A Glimpse of Grumps
Grumps
A Whale Blows
The Captain drove us forwards and unto a mass of birds. It was a feeding frenzy. The whales and porpoises were devouring sardines that were coming up to the surface to escape their predators. The sea birds were grabbing at the fish at the surface and the bits of fish left over by the larger predators. We saw fish, and porpoises, and whales everywhere breaking the surface and moving about trying to get their fill of fish.
Grumps Again
Feeding Frenzy 1
We stayed there for a good long while. While we were there the First Mate asked us if we needed to catch the ferry. If we did we would head back immediately, but if not then we could stay a little longer. We did not really need to catch the ferry... not really. We let them know, and we continued to find whales.
Feeding Frenzy 2
We eventually move on to try and find different kinds of whales. We had so far seen only Minkyand Finback whales. We saw nothing for a bit and then heard the First Mate say that he had seen a Humpback. Just so this is clear. Not all whales stick their heads above the water, or their tales, or jump, or splash, or whatever. Minky and Finback whales show only their dorsal fins. They go for a dive and grab some air and their backs stick out of the water. Humpbacks however, stick their tail out of the water. That is what we were looking for, and that is what the First Mate saw.
The problem was that only a few people managed to see it, and like the other one it seemed to disappear. Crap.
Well, we came to see whales, and we did. We turned the boat around and headed back to shore. We were sitting on the boat enjoying some hot chocolate and scanning the sees when I saw it. I saw a single tail rise out of the ocean and wave good-bye; to me! No one else saw it.
Hot Chocolate
I was so excited now. I had seen Grumps, and Grumps had seen me.
We continued on the way. People were all over the boat. The front half of the boat were looking forwards, and the back half were looking back. All of a sudden Grumps appeared again and gave one final wave. His tail came up out of the water and everyone on the back half of the boat let out gasps of "ooohhhhh" and "aaahhhhh." The people at the front of the boat turned to look but they had missed it.
Gumps had waved good-bye once again.
On the Daily Catch
Vigilance
The boat pulled into the harbour and we disembarked. It was amazing and worth every penny. The time was 7:30pm and the ferry was gone. No matter, on our way back the Captain called the ferry for us to move our reservation. We would now be leaving on Sunday at 11:30pm.
We took Jerusalem and headed to the campground at Anchorage Provincial Park; some of ourboatmates were staying there and told us the way. We got some weenies and set up our camp and fire. The gentleman staying at the campground drove over to our site. He told us that his wife wanted to see that we had everything we needed since we were forced to stay the night. I thanked him and told him that we had everything. The people on Grand Manan really were amazing.
We enjoyed our hot dogs and s'mores and then went to sleep with the stars burning overhead and the sound of the waves crashing on the shore.
Mist
In the morning we took a walk around the park. We found a bird sanctuary and a small lake. There were spiders webs hung on the plants and a low cloud covered everything. It was beautiful. It was amazing.
Anchorage Provincial Park
The Lifting Fog
Dew
A Quiet Refuge
A Morning Web
We packed up and headed for the ferry. Right before we boarded we stopped at a B&B for breakfast. I had some eggs and for the first time in a restaurant, corned-beef hash! It was great. We saw the ferry pull in and we had to get going. We drove Jerusalem back into the ferry and were ready for the long ride home.
Corned-Beef Hash
On the way back there were whales all around us, it was like Grumps was taking us safely back to shore.
We landed, disembarked, and drove back to Saint John.
It was a great trip... Grumps, we will never forget you.
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