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kmusserA travelogue of my recent trip to Maine and New Brunswick with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
radiant_one on our quest to see the Bay of Fundy. Pictures are over here or Michele's pictures are here.
Day 1 - Just travelling
So we took off on our adventures on a Wednesday night, flying in to Manchester, picking up the rental car and heading out. Did dinner at a pub in Portsmouth, which looked like a neat town, might be nice to see in the daylight some time. And continuing on to Portland for our first night.
Day 2 - Surprises
So we have a lot of driving to do today with only the Attention Moose signs to keep us company. Michele gets some practice driving on I-95 finally *grin*. Autumn colors are lovely. For lunch Yelp steers us to a place in Brewer called Eagle's Nest. I'm not sure why they bother putting other things on the menu, the thing to get here is the lobster roll, seriously, there are pictures, they are monsters, probably 2 lobsters worth of meat piled up there. Thus fortified we continue to the Canada border where they need to look up our life histories before letting us in, but we get there 15 minutes before the chocolate shop closes, so all is well. Chocolate is obtained. Also find out our fancy new phones don't really work over here, doh! Hopefully not critical. Driving on in this strange place where the signs are in km and they let construction people work without having 5 guys standing around watching them. We reach St. John where we had tentative plans to have dinner - we're running a little late so just stop for snacks and a McDonald's to make use of their wifi (yay for McDonald's having wifi) and press on to our final destination of St. Martins.
We arrive at our B&B . . . and no one is home. Calling our host we can hear the phone ringing in the obviously empty house. And we have no Internets to e-mail them. We stop at the two other B&B's on the same street, one no one is home, the other is closed for the season but does have someone home - he tries to help us track down our hosts but to no avail. Rather frazzled and hungry we prepare to go back to St. John and stop in a convenience store. The clerk there is able to point us towards another B&B that is open! Fortunately the Weslan Inn is able to take us in. Huzzah. Sadly there are no restaurants open so have a makeshift dinner gathered from the convenience store and then fall over.
Day 3 - St. Martins
Our somewhat eccentric British host makes up from the previous night by providing an excellent breakfast. We had planned on doing 3 days in St. Martins, but besides our resevations not coming through we find the town pretty much closes up once cruise ship season is done. We decide we're going to cut our stay here short, but today we'll see what there is to see. A short drive down to the beach and there is the Bay at high tide. It is lovely. In search of more we head down the Fundy Trail which is also closed for the season, but we hike in anyway, and are rewarded with some stunning views - I think most of the pictures in our galleries are from this hike. For lunch we hit Sea Side, the only restaurant still open in town, fortunately it's a good one, so we won't mind doing multiple meals there. In the afternoon we driveout to a neighby lighthouse (cleverly placed on lighthouse rd., so we could find it) and enjoy more views of the Bay. For evening it's back to Sea Side and dinner as we watch the tide go out, it is pretty amazing. We turn in early to prepare for an early launch the next day.
Day 4 - Tidal day
Today we get up at the crack of dawn to go down and see the Bay at low tide. Wow. You know hearing that the Bay of Funday has extreme tides still doesn't really prepare you for seeing it. The shoreline is probably about a mile further out than it was at high tide. We go hiking out across the exposed beach/tidal pools/seaweed and take a look at the now open sea caves along the cliffs that face the Bay. The geologist in me really enjoys the raw landscape. Soon we go back to the B&B and have another great breakfast and then say farewells to our host.
Back to St. John, we figure we'll spend our extra day there. Check in to a hotel, with Internets! Take a look at the "reversing falls," a section of the St. John River where there are rapids flowing upstream due to the Bay's tides, not really falls, but still kinda freaky. We wander around downtown a bit, visit the City Market and have yummy foods for lunch, including the best Tzatziki sauce ever, and buy some elderberry port, because apparently I can't go on a vacation without buying booze. We also stop at the site of Fort Howe which has a nice overlook over the city.
The evening we are left without much to do, St. John apparently doesn't have any nightlife - only thing we find on the Internets is a folk group performing at the local UU church. Figuring the worst that'll happin is I'll have Cerridwin's flashbacks we had out. What a treat, I think there were maybe a dozen people in the audience, but the group, Different Folk, were amazing. They don't have a website, but here's a sample. Lots of sea shanty goodness.
Back at the hotel the clerk mentions that snow is expected tomorrow. Snow!
Day 5 - Winter is coming
So apparently a Nor'easter is descending on our heads. That was not in our schedule. We had planned on doing a half day in St. Andrews before heading across Maine. With the weather forcast full of DOOM we decide to forego that and give ourselves the whole day to drive. Fortunetly the weather isn't quite as horrible as forecast, we have a couple hours of white-knuckled driving, but I've certainly gone through worse. Stop for lunch near the border (sign of a good diner, the weather is crap and the parking lot is still full) and continue on. Reach Brewer in time to do dinner at Eagle's Nest, yum.
Day 6 - Homeward bound
The day after, not really much sign left of yesterdays storm, just a thin layer of snow. On the way back we stop in Freeport to pay homage to the LL Bean mecca. Do a bit of shopping and lunch, and try not to get overrun by trick 'n' treaters. We're running a bit late, but so's our flight so all is well, back to Manchester and then a fairly smooch flight back home and then we collapse.
P.S. our original B&B hosts did try to make it right afterwards, they caught up to us while we were in St. John and had e-mail access again, apologized profusely and have offered a free stay in the future, the place did look very nice, maybe I'll go back.
radiant_one on our quest to see the Bay of Fundy. Pictures are over here or Michele's pictures are here.Day 1 - Just travelling
So we took off on our adventures on a Wednesday night, flying in to Manchester, picking up the rental car and heading out. Did dinner at a pub in Portsmouth, which looked like a neat town, might be nice to see in the daylight some time. And continuing on to Portland for our first night.
Day 2 - Surprises
So we have a lot of driving to do today with only the Attention Moose signs to keep us company. Michele gets some practice driving on I-95 finally *grin*. Autumn colors are lovely. For lunch Yelp steers us to a place in Brewer called Eagle's Nest. I'm not sure why they bother putting other things on the menu, the thing to get here is the lobster roll, seriously, there are pictures, they are monsters, probably 2 lobsters worth of meat piled up there. Thus fortified we continue to the Canada border where they need to look up our life histories before letting us in, but we get there 15 minutes before the chocolate shop closes, so all is well. Chocolate is obtained. Also find out our fancy new phones don't really work over here, doh! Hopefully not critical. Driving on in this strange place where the signs are in km and they let construction people work without having 5 guys standing around watching them. We reach St. John where we had tentative plans to have dinner - we're running a little late so just stop for snacks and a McDonald's to make use of their wifi (yay for McDonald's having wifi) and press on to our final destination of St. Martins.
We arrive at our B&B . . . and no one is home. Calling our host we can hear the phone ringing in the obviously empty house. And we have no Internets to e-mail them. We stop at the two other B&B's on the same street, one no one is home, the other is closed for the season but does have someone home - he tries to help us track down our hosts but to no avail. Rather frazzled and hungry we prepare to go back to St. John and stop in a convenience store. The clerk there is able to point us towards another B&B that is open! Fortunately the Weslan Inn is able to take us in. Huzzah. Sadly there are no restaurants open so have a makeshift dinner gathered from the convenience store and then fall over.
Day 3 - St. Martins
Our somewhat eccentric British host makes up from the previous night by providing an excellent breakfast. We had planned on doing 3 days in St. Martins, but besides our resevations not coming through we find the town pretty much closes up once cruise ship season is done. We decide we're going to cut our stay here short, but today we'll see what there is to see. A short drive down to the beach and there is the Bay at high tide. It is lovely. In search of more we head down the Fundy Trail which is also closed for the season, but we hike in anyway, and are rewarded with some stunning views - I think most of the pictures in our galleries are from this hike. For lunch we hit Sea Side, the only restaurant still open in town, fortunately it's a good one, so we won't mind doing multiple meals there. In the afternoon we driveout to a neighby lighthouse (cleverly placed on lighthouse rd., so we could find it) and enjoy more views of the Bay. For evening it's back to Sea Side and dinner as we watch the tide go out, it is pretty amazing. We turn in early to prepare for an early launch the next day.
Day 4 - Tidal day
Today we get up at the crack of dawn to go down and see the Bay at low tide. Wow. You know hearing that the Bay of Funday has extreme tides still doesn't really prepare you for seeing it. The shoreline is probably about a mile further out than it was at high tide. We go hiking out across the exposed beach/tidal pools/seaweed and take a look at the now open sea caves along the cliffs that face the Bay. The geologist in me really enjoys the raw landscape. Soon we go back to the B&B and have another great breakfast and then say farewells to our host.
Back to St. John, we figure we'll spend our extra day there. Check in to a hotel, with Internets! Take a look at the "reversing falls," a section of the St. John River where there are rapids flowing upstream due to the Bay's tides, not really falls, but still kinda freaky. We wander around downtown a bit, visit the City Market and have yummy foods for lunch, including the best Tzatziki sauce ever, and buy some elderberry port, because apparently I can't go on a vacation without buying booze. We also stop at the site of Fort Howe which has a nice overlook over the city.
The evening we are left without much to do, St. John apparently doesn't have any nightlife - only thing we find on the Internets is a folk group performing at the local UU church. Figuring the worst that'll happin is I'll have Cerridwin's flashbacks we had out. What a treat, I think there were maybe a dozen people in the audience, but the group, Different Folk, were amazing. They don't have a website, but here's a sample. Lots of sea shanty goodness.
Back at the hotel the clerk mentions that snow is expected tomorrow. Snow!
Day 5 - Winter is coming
So apparently a Nor'easter is descending on our heads. That was not in our schedule. We had planned on doing a half day in St. Andrews before heading across Maine. With the weather forcast full of DOOM we decide to forego that and give ourselves the whole day to drive. Fortunetly the weather isn't quite as horrible as forecast, we have a couple hours of white-knuckled driving, but I've certainly gone through worse. Stop for lunch near the border (sign of a good diner, the weather is crap and the parking lot is still full) and continue on. Reach Brewer in time to do dinner at Eagle's Nest, yum.
Day 6 - Homeward bound
The day after, not really much sign left of yesterdays storm, just a thin layer of snow. On the way back we stop in Freeport to pay homage to the LL Bean mecca. Do a bit of shopping and lunch, and try not to get overrun by trick 'n' treaters. We're running a bit late, but so's our flight so all is well, back to Manchester and then a fairly smooch flight back home and then we collapse.
P.S. our original B&B hosts did try to make it right afterwards, they caught up to us while we were in St. John and had e-mail access again, apologized profusely and have offered a free stay in the future, the place did look very nice, maybe I'll go back.
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squee!
Date: 21 Nov 2011 00:13 (UTC)Now I really must write up my travelogue. I've been slacking, or ridiculously busy.
*smooch* Thank you Love!
no subject
Date: 21 Nov 2011 16:23 (UTC)