Given that we took our trip to Fundy during the off season, many of the beaches were deserted. This was wonderful for us and we enjoyed roaming all over, drinking in the beauty of God’s creation. Of course, we were always careful to keep one eye on the tide…

One of our stops was Cape Enrage. Here a lighthouse and fog horn warn ships of dangerous rocks in bad weather.

A narrow staircase leads down to a rocky cove.

Amy learning about tides.

Nearby, a “marshwiggle habitat” drew our attention. I believe these are what are called “salt marshes.”

Mary’s Point was another very quiet beach, but this one was sandy instead of rocky. We got to be here at both low tide and just after high tide. The land slopes so slowly in this location that the tide runs kilometres out. One would have to run to keep ahead of it as it came in! 

Hmm… interesting driftwood! Amazingly it still works. I guess they make Nikons well! 🙂

We also made a trip out to Moncton to see the reversing tide. The river in this place actually reverses directions as the tide comes in!

Another spot of interest was Anderson Hollow Lighthouse. Actually not a functional lighthouse, this tiny replica and corresponding boat were built in honour of those who served as lighthouse keepers over the years.

Our final stop before leaving New Brunswick was a receded cove in a quiet spot: Herring Cove. It was beautiful here. Perhaps it was just the before-a-storm lighting and the hazy, almost fog combined with seaweed covered rocks backed by soaring cliffs, but something made it feel a bit “fjord-like.” It made me think a little of the pictures I’ve seen of Scandinavian ocean sides.

And what would a vacation from the perspective of a family of photographers be without a few pictures of photographers? 🙂

Did I mention that it was windy?!

It was a wonderful family vacation! The only improvement for next time would be to have Stephen with us!

Though our family travels a bit, most of the time we go places in order to attend a conference, to spend time with another family, or simply take a day hike. It has been 11 years since we took off for more than a day to see a new place and enjoy God’s creation just as a family. September 4th to 7th was such a time for us. Sadly, Stephen’s classes at the university started up that week, so he wasn’t able to be with us. Hopefully we’ll be able to work around that next time.

Monday morning, we took off. It was a long drive…

…but eventually we began to see signs of what we were coming to see:

Finally, we arrived at our destination:

We camped at Wolfe’s Point campground where we rented an oTentik – like a permanent tent. We were glad to have them as during our last night there, it rained hard. Taking down our tents in the rain would not have been fun.

But on the whole, we actually received very little rain during our trip. Despite dire predictions of heavy thunderstorms, the only showers came either during the night or while we were driving in the van – never while we were walking beaches or exploring coves.

Of course, one of the first things we wanted to do upon arriving was to go down to the rocky cove and see tide come in.

The Bay of Fundy is well known for experiencing the world’s highest tides. Knowing that in one’s head and seeing it with one’s eyes are two radically different things. In 2006, during our trip out to the west coast, we had the fun of lighting a campfire on the sand and of watching the tide slowly come in to wash it away. But the tide in the Bay of Fundy is nothing like that slow-moving, gentle, western Vancouver Island tide. Here the tide rises and falls as much as 30 feet every 12 hours! We had to be careful always to keep an open escape route behind us as we backed away from the incoming tide! All camera equipment had to remain tied to our backs or in our hands, for in a matter of minutes the water could come in and wash any forgotten tripod, etc. away.

During our two day stay, we had opportunity to visit numerous beaches, coves, and the famous Hopewell Rocks. These last are situated in the spot where the tides climax. Though we were there neither quite at high tide nor quite at low tide, the pictures show the dramatic flow and ebb of the tide. The sheer rock cliffs make you realise how dangerous it would be to get stuck here at high tide! We were careful to time our visit as the tide was going out, not coming in.

Looks like something washed ashore!

The Hopewell Rocks were by far the most crowded place we visited, but even there it was not impossible to get pictures that didn’t contain tourists. And there were birds everywhere we went. Some of them, we recognised from pictures, but had never seen in the wild.

These ones weren’t actually wild.

And other wildlife…

And not so wild life…Though we took some interesting, very small roads…

… and saw moose dropping all over one road, this was the only moose we saw:

But to tell of all of our stops would make this post very long, so I’ll pause here and post more pictures later.

Though unexpected yet certainly possible in mid-May, this morning’s snow sprinkled a rarely seen beauty to home’s surroundings!

Truly God’s creation is amazing!

It seems as though winter never arrived this year. Sure, we got bits of snow all along, in fact we’re expecting a bit more tonight, but we received none of those get-you-stuck-in-your-driveway storms and the piles that usually mound up during snow removal season were only a few feet tall at most.

Yet despite winter’s non-arrival, spring is just around the corner! The birds are returning: Canada geese fly overhead regularly, mallard ducks were seen today, song birds in large numbers show up at the feeders.

purple finch

chickadee

pine siskin

song sparrow

The red-winged blackbirds and robins have not yet been caught by my camera, but they are around as are the less colourful starlings and grackles. The squirrels too have been feasting on the seed the birds drop. They are cute little creatures and quite friendly too!

Everyone is enjoying the longer days and warm sunshine… including the cat!

Saturday, several of us tuned up our bikes and went out for a short ride. It was a lovely day for it: bright sun and no wind!

Meanwhile, the guys were busy solving a computer issue… It looked complicated.

And then yesterday, we had a special event to commemorate the coming of spring, but I’ll tell of that another time… 🙂