Wednesday: A good day at Kejimkujik National Park. In the morning we got a good bike ride, covering all the paved roads in the park and a few miles outside the park as well. 27 miles, good conditions. Mostly flat, natural scenery, good roads, little traffic, good weather. In the afternoon we took a 5 km hike on a trail which had been closed for years but reopened a few weeks ago, through various forest habitats including a stand of old-growth hemlocks, some as much as 400 years old. Also younger but still impressive white pines, 2' thick and straight as an arrow. Safe from mast makers only for lack of demand. We would have liked to do more canoeing, but we were out of steam and out of time. warm. Evening weather not uncomfortably hot, as the day was mostly cloudy.
Thursday. We stayed for the 10:30 petroglyph tour because we remembered them so well from our last visit. The park was formed in 1968 and we were there in 1970, so the large crowds were just starting to get a look at the petroglyphs: centuries of carving on shore rocks by Mikmaqs, loggers, guides, and anthropologists. Great images of Indians fishing, hunting caribou, Indian clan hats, sailing ships, and you name it. Sadly on the rocks we were shown this time, maybe half of the carvings are by vandals since we were here last, and the good stuff is now off limits to the public. Tour would have been a disappointment if it were our first visit. The ranger was same one who gave the poor quality survival talk on Tues. p.m., but he did this one very well. Turns out, he's a Mikmaq himself. Leaving "Keji" we stayed on major highways and covered about 200 mi. to Moncton, New Brunswick, a long drive for us, and stayed in a parking-lot type RV park, but it did have electricity, so we ran the A/C for a few minutes to get the Casita inside temperature down below 80. Slept well and long.
Friday: Stayed most of the day in Moncton to see the tidal bore scheduled for 3:15 p.m. A good local lake for canoeing but windy and threatening rain, so nix that. Meanwhile, we took advantage of modern Moncton shopping: At Cabela's bought a 1 burner propane stove to give S a third cooking burner. At an outdoor store bought a replacement for my worn out drybag backpack, and also got S a new rain jacket. Then to Best Buy to face up to lost camera. Selected a Canon with 20X optical zoom. Went out to car to ck if we have a memory card and camera case. Looking in the storage bin both S and I had checked repeatedly, found the camera we thought was lost! S and I had always both had cameras before, so I went ahead and bought the new one. What a relief to find the camera, especially not to have lost all this trip's pictures. Headed downtown, lucky to find a good free parking place big enough for us with the trailer at a 1760-vintage building with a Tourist Visitor Center. Walked to restaurant lunch. S had fried cod, and swore off her lifetime hatred of cod, dating back to boarding-school days. I had chowder and good fritters: haddock plus corn. Moncton an attractive small city center; people enjoying the warm and sunny summer weather. A 30-person bicycle attraction, which moves along at traffic pace, and all the riders are equipped with tambourines. Back to the riverside, we walked a long boardwalk and learned of Moncton's first settlers. After French and Indian War, England took over most French new world posessions and gave large land grants to colonials, including Benjamin Franklin. They contracted with 6 families (5 German, 1 Welsh) to come and settle this area as indentured servants. They eventually got land grants here of their own, and some of their descendants still live on some of that land here. While waiting for the tidal bore, a man from a local museum appeared and gave an animated and interesting talk about tides. Tide range here 20-30' because tide sloshes up the narrowing Bay of Fundy and up the river here. Now only at 1/4 moon so not extreme tide or bore, but still impressive: a wave about 3 feet rolled up the river, followed by a fast rushing rising tide. Leaving Moncton, we drove S to campground by Hopewell rocks, absolute highest tides in world. hi ;;5 pm, low tomorrow abt noon.
P.S. rained off and on from 5 p.m. through the night. Had to close up the trailer to stay dry so needed to run the air conditioner at least on lowest setting all night to stay cool enough. First time for that on the trip.
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