St. Andrews and Saint John, New Brunswick

We arrived in New Brunswick yesterday afternoon and headed to St. Andrews-by-the-Sea, a small, quiet, quaint resort area of about 2,000 inhabitants. We were able to find a campground right on the foggy Bay of Passamaquoddy. I could hear ship's horns and know they were out there somewhere, but I couldn't see them! This morning Bob took a run through the little village, and I accompanied him on my bike. The town has such a relaxed atmosphere, that even at 10:30 in the morning it was super quiet. I think only about three cars passed me in the hour that we were out.

This town was originally settled by Loyalists who were fleeing America. They had originally built houses in Castine, Maine, but found out that it was in the US, so had to move! They took apart their houses and barged them up to St. Andrews! Several of the houses have plagues on them explaining how they got there and who originally lived in them.

There are beautiful flowers everywhere, many nautical themed stores, and a lot of the stores that have murals painted on them of sea life or village life. There was even a mural painted on one of the buildings in the campground.

In the afternoon we drove to Saint John, which is the biggest city in New Brunswick with the population of the total metropolitan area being over 130,000. We wandered around downtown, but it was really too "city-like" for us - we prefer rural areas. The "uptown" part of the city, which is the oldest part, reminded us a little of Vancouver. After lunching on some seafood chowder, we headed out of the city to see the "reversing falls." These are not really falls at all, but a large white water rapid that flows in one direction or the other, depending on which way the tide is going. Since this is in the Bay of Fundy, the tide changes are pretty large. We then went to Irving Nature Preserve to get a close up view of the ocean, and also to spot some wildlife.

While in Saint John we tried the local delicacy - dulce! Dulce reminds me of a Spanish word that means sweet," so I was surprised to find out that here Dulce is dried seaweed. I do like Korean seaweed, so I thought I'd give dulce a chance. Hours later I was still spitting out half-chewed seaweed! It was a little like chewing on fish-flavored cardboard - yuck!

Here are more pictures!