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Hitting the Open Road

 

One of my favourite pass-times for as long as I can remember is hitting the open roads and since I have been able to drive, there haven’t been many idle days. If I could have only been smarter along the way and had a camera with me, I could have taken some beautiful pictures.

I have travelled over most of Canada and the Eastern US. But the most picturesque places I have been to is New Brunswick, luckily enough for me, I also get to call it home.

In this post I am going to put up some pictures of recent road trips around New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

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I saw this boat while waiting to the ferry to Deer Island, NB. This is a beautiful little harbour located in the Bay of Fundy. The water was quite calm on this day in August ’14, the boat seemed to be meandering around its mooring buoy.
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This cottage has got its own little slice of heaven. It sits on the edge of one of the small Fundy Isles. The Deer Island ferries pass it all day long along with fishing and dulse boats. I am not sure what is going on in the foreground with the yellow buoy. This place also gets to see all that the Bay of Fundy tides have to offer, with their highest highs and lowest lows along with the power this body of water creates.
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Head Harbour Lighthouse located on Campobello Island, NB, has got to be the most photogenic lighthouses in the whole world. I was lucky enough to get this picture from a friends boat while bobbing around in the bay watching for whales. We couldn’t have had a better day on the water, it was nice and calm, the sun was warm and the wind was low.
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This boat was sailing between East Port, Maine, and the New Brunswick islands of Deer and Campobello. The captain of this vessel had great wind on this day in August, the boat had a great lean and the sails were full of air. I changed the colour to black and white with the exception of the sails which made it jump right out of the picture.

 

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This place is very well photographed, this is St. Geroge, NB. This was the first time I had been there in the spring time and WOW, what a rush, there is a lot of water that moves through this gorge. You can see the dam in the background, is owned by St. George Power. A few of the really cool things about this dam is that you can actually stand beside the dam’s gates as the water comes through, as well as there is a fish ladder that allows the fish to go upstream of the dam.
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Anyone who has been to Fundy National Park, has probably been here, this picture was taken on the wharf in Alma, NB while the tide was in. The easiest way to tell if the tide is “in or out” in Alma, is that if it’s “in” the boats are a afloat, and if it’s “out” the boats are on the floor of the Bay of Fundy. This picture was taken during a road trip in the spring of 2014, the village was a buzz with people preparing for summer, a lot of the seasonal stores were open, but more importantly the bakery. It’s not a trip to Alma unless you come home with the famous sticky buns, one of my Step-Dad’s favourite treats.
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This is the Cape Enrage lighthouse. There is an entire adventure centre located here now. They used the existing buildings that were built for the lighthouse keepers and their families. This picture does not do this area justice, I’m sorry to say. The beacon is on top of a very large shale cliff that has been cut out of the Bay of Fundy and the mouth of Chignecto Bay. The coast that is visible in the background, is Nova Scotia. It’s very accessible and the adventure centre does a great job in the upkeep of the area.
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This is the brook that feeds into Hays falls on the Maliseet Trail, this is located just south of Woodstock, NB at about 20km’s and north of Fredericton at approximately 80km’s. Although this is not the falls itself, my girlfriend and I had hiked in to the top of the falls which is just under 2km’s in. There is a nice picnic area, unfortunately we had gone out there on a very buggy day, there was no shortage of mosquitoes. It’s a very majestic area and the trail is in really good condition, wet in places but otherwise not bad at all.
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This is a portion of the Maliseet Trail itself, in places it feels like the trees are almost folding over the the path. This picture was taken before Tropical Storm Arthur had come through, I’m not sure what shape the trail is currently in. It is something worth checking out though, I’d highly recommend it.
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Ahh what would New Brunswick be without a winter picture with snow in it. This road is usually very well worn during the late spring into the fall. This is called the Sunpoke Lake Road. It connects Rusagonis with Geary, it passes by and over a few different bodies of water (Sunpoke Lake, Oromocto River, and French Lake), that all feed into the St. John River. In this picture it looks as if the road has not been touched by anything since the previous fall. I used a polarizing filter to bring out the blue in the sky.
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This beach is one of my favourite places in the world, this is Tor Bay Beach, located in Tor Bay, Nova Scotia. I have many memories at this beach, as it was a place my mother and father had started taking me to when I was just a small child. There are large massive rocks on this coastline, as you can see. The winds don’t have to be very high to create waves like this. I have been there on bright sunny days and even a hurricane and there has never been a bad day on this beach. The sand itself is soft and white, almost like something you would see in the Caribbean, although the water is quite cold. The beach itself is accessible by board-walk, although many people don’t really use the beach. It is looked after by the province and is actually a provincial park.
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This is the coastline as you head into Cheticamp, Nova Scotia. This is located on the amazing Cabot Trail. Although I’m not exactly sure where this picture had been taken, I do know it was before Cheticamp. It was an amazing drive into the small Acadian Community, some of the sights are breath taking and that was before we even entered the actual National Park.
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We saw this small fishing boat steaming towards home, not far from where the last picture was taken. The water to me looked somewhat rough, but for them I imagine was pretty calm day. It was quite cloudy at the time this picture was taken but was not long clearing off and although it didn’t get really warm out it still made for some great pictures.
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This was a Cheticamp Sunset, I don’t ever remember watching the sun sink into the ocean before but I know why Tom Cochrane had written a song about it (Sinking like a Sunset). We found this spot as we drove around village, it was on a dirt road, somewhat off the beaten path, but I’m very glad we went down it.
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I have seen this picture many times from different photographers, this is my version. The day we headed into Highlands National park there was a bit of a haze in the sky, but it didn’t take away from the actual journey itself. The road is narrow in places, the hills are steep and the speed is slow, and all for good reason. I would not recommend taking a vehicle on this journey that had bad brakes, you are going to need them. I saw a sign in a tire shop today that made a lot of sense after taking this journey “Saying a Bridgestone (I think it was Bridgestone) Tire is just a tire is like saying the Cabot Trail is just a winding road”. This is a road-trip that everyone should take at some point in their lives.

 

This was from a road trip to Saint John, NB. This is Partridge Island. This place has always intrigued me, for two reasons, 1) I have an Irish heritage, and although my family did not come into Canada through here, many had after escaping the Emerald Isle as it battled the potato famine, it has still created somewhat of an attachment for me. 2) Is that the island has a military heritage as well, being Saint John's principle military fortification from the 1800s to 1947, as reported on the islands Wikipedia page. This island sits right in the mouth of the harbour and keeps an eye on all in and out-bound ships.
This was from a road trip to Saint John, NB. This is Partridge Island. This place has always intrigued me, for two reasons, 1) I have an Irish heritage, and although my family did not come into Canada through here, many had after escaping the Emerald Isle as it battled the potato famine, it has still created somewhat of an attachment for me. 2) Is that the island has a military heritage as well, being Saint John’s principle military fortification from the 1800s to 1947, as reported on the islands Wikipedia page. This island sits right in the mouth of the harbour and keeps an eye on all in and out-bound ships.

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