A Whirlwind Tour of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island

Jim's sister, Joanne, came to visit us from Edmonton. She's been to Fredericton before, so we decided to tour some other parts of the province. First stop, a trip to St. Andrews by-the-Sea.

It was really low tide...

It is such a pretty little town with lots of shops and lots of history. It was a very rich seaside resort in the early 1900s with many wealthy people arriving by private railcar for summer holidays. It is also close to where Samuel de Champlain spent a memorable winter in 1604 on tiny St. Croix Island.

It was a lovely but cool day. We would have had our infamous bread pudding, but the restaurant was closed until the evening.

Joanne had her eye out for derelict buildings to photograph so that she could paint them later. There are no lack of them on the road between Fredericton and St. Andrews.

I spied this one as we were driving past and Jim turned around so we could have a closer look...

You won't get any more derelict than this! A girl walking on the road saw us looking at it and told us it used to be a very popular place...the local bootlegger.

We decided a day or so later to go to Campobello Island. We had never been there ourselves, so I was really looking forward to it. All I knew was that it had been the summer home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

You can access Campobello either by taking the car ferry from St. George, NB to Deer Island and then taking another ferry to Campobello, or you can drive into the state of Maine and access it by bridge. It seemed quite funny to go through customs to get into the States and then back through Canadian customs to end up in Campobello.

Taken from the tourist information stop in Campobello, you can see the town of Lubec, Maine. If you go there, do not miss a visit to Monica's Chocolates! Not only are the chocolates amazing, but Monica was born in Peru and you can buy beautiful Peruvian made sweaters.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a one-year old baby when his parents first visited Campobello in 1883. Wealthy families from Boston, New York and Philadelphia vacationed here, arriving by private yachts or by train. Franklin's father, James, bought several acres of land and built a cottage there, starting what were many happy childhood memories for Franklin.

Franklin's parents gave him and his bride, Eleanor, a 34-room cottage as a wedding present. From the tourist information centre, we could see it in the distance.

With many lovely flowers to admire on the way there...

The cottage was completed in 1897 and the inside remains pretty much as it was when the Roosevelts vacationed there. It had 6 bedrooms for the family, 6 for staff and 6 for guests.

Almost all of the furniture is original to the cottage. They lived a simple life here without electricity or telephones.

After Roosevelt was stricken with polio at the age of 39, he rarely returned to Campobello, but Eleanor visited several times with their children and, later in life, returned by herself. The property was eventually sold to the Hammer brothers, who promised Eleanor she could visit any time she liked. The property was later bequeathed to the US and Canadian governments and a 2800 acre International Park was created.

Nearby is the Hubbard Cottage, which you can also tour, and have "Tea with Eleanor."

The lady of the house saw a window like this oval one on a trip to Europe and had one delivered for their cottage. It provides an impressive frame for the incredible views.

A lovely large verandah would have been perfect for enjoying the view.

I wasn't sure if these carvings were actually from the 1930s, but they looked pretty cool.

As I was standing there, I could hear this persistent "cheep, cheep, cheep." I was looking in the trees for the source, until I figured out it was coming from near my feet. This little guy was determined that I was going to notice him.

St. Anne's Anglican Church is Campobello's oldest church, built in 1855. Roosevelt and his family attended services during the summer stays.

The East Quoddy Lighthouse is on this island, which is accessible only at low tide. You can see the tide line on the rocks and on the stairs. As these waters are part of the fast tides of the Fundy, you don't want to take any chances getting stuck on the island when the tide comes in.

Beautiful scenery...

We were told to take a short walk for a better view of the lighthouse, so off we went. These look like natural stairs...

The East Quoddy lighthouse is the second oldest lighthouse in New Brunswick, built in 1829.

We decided we had better get moving. The sun was starting to set and we were still ambling around.

These abandoned boats caught my eye. It's most likely been a few years since they have done any fishing.

Even less left of this one...

A stop at another lookout revealed a picture of Friar's Head rock formation with "easy" instructions on how to get there. Joanne and I set off telling Jim we'd be back shortly.

Daylight was fading and I did briefly question our decision, but heck, it wasn't far, right? These are spooky tree roots.

It was about a 10 minute walk down to the beach, and this was no easy beach to walk on. These rocks weren't going to get away...

And we walked and walked...maybe it was just around the corner? We then realized we couldn't get around the corner because of the tide and all of a sudden this was no longer a good idea. Was it ever? We admitted defeat and trudged back up the trail.

At the top, Jim calmly told us that we could have seen it from Roosevelt's cottage. What? Next time!

The sun set on a terrific day. We loved Campobello Island and would return in a heartbeat. It would be nice to stay over night and really do it justice.

The next day we decided to visit the rocks at Hopewell Cape. We passed this field which was a lovely shade of red.

And here we are with the tide still a little too high for exploring. This photo was taken at 2:36 pm.

With a small area of beach showing, we went down the steps...

A beautiful bright sunny day...

More people were arriving as we waited for the tide to go out...

This park employee rebuilds these inukshuks every day. He must know by now how every rock fits together.

I did wonder about being too close to the rocks in the event something came tumbling down...

The arch is almost open...3:07 pm

Amazing rock formations in the Bay of Fundy, home of the world's highest tides.

There was a lot more room for moving about now...

3:27 pm...you could easily walk through the arch now.

With our exploring over, we decided to hit the road for our overnight stay in Moncton. This is 53 minutes from the first picture. The tides do move quickly...

We had talked Jim into walking down the trail to visit the rocks, but wisely took the trolley back up. That was fun!

The next day, we headed to Prince Edward Island. Joanne hadn't been there since she was a child and Jim and I hadn't been for about 10 years. This is the Confederation Bridge, an amazing engineering feat. The 8-mile long bridge opened in 1997 after Island residents narrowly voted yes to a fixed link.

Victoria-by-the Sea, a lovely seaside town...

And the Leards Rear Range lighthouse, which we quickly toured.

PEI is so pretty...we had forgotten how beautiful it is.

Lovely sandy beaches... We had another objective on this tour, which was to find cottages for a family reunion in 2015. What we discovered is that in order to preserve the beach area, there are few cottages actually on the beach.

The red rock of PEI...

After much searching, we settled on the Blue Crest Cottages, near Rustico and Cavendish.

Lots of cottages for everyone...

Close to nearby Cavendish beach, but also with a small beach of its own.

Bikes to use...it should be a fun weekend.

And with that mission accomplished, we spent the night in Charlottetown and headed home the next day. That was fun!