After we crossed the bridge from PEI to New Brunswick, we had a short drive to Murray Beach PP where we again had a perfect site looking out over the water. After dinner Sharon hunted for sea glass on the beach while I worked on the blog. She met a seasonal camper who was also searching for sea glass, and he gave her a huge handful of glass since he says he finds it all the time on Murray Beach😉
The next day we drove back through Shediac, that we had visited earlier in the trip, and then took a coastal scenic drive to get to Kouchibouguac NP (pronounced koo-she-boo-gwack, and is Mi’kmaq for river of the long tides) where we were staying for 3 nights. Our first stop was the visitor centre to see the displays and learn more about the park. This park was created in 1969, and the government had to expropriate lands from 228 households (1200 people) to create the park. In the visitor centre they had information on each of the 7 communities that were expropriated to preserve the history of the people living there. Outside the visitor centre they had a cool display with settlers planning their route and showing how beavers live. Once we were setup in our campsite, we did a short walk to see where the river flowed out to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The next day we decided to ride our bikes on several trails and also walk on a couple of others for a total of 24 kms. Most of the bike trails were wide gravel rides but there was one true MTB section called Major Kollock which we really enjoyed with rocks, roots, boardwalks, and bridges over water. We did ride out to Callanders Beach but the mosquitoes were too bad so we returned to a look out over the Major Kollock River that had some red NP chairs. Then we completed the Salt Marsh walk and the boardwalk out to Kellys Beach before returning to the campsite.
It was raining the following morning but stopped so we could do a 30 km ride from South Kouchibouguac campground to Loggiecroft harbour on the other side of the river and through Cote a Fabien campground where we would likely stay the next time since it’s much smaller with prettier campsites. This NP is certainly a great place for bike riding.
When we left Kouchibouguac the next day we were heading to Mount Carleton PP, but our first stop was Miramichi which is listed as Canada’s Irish Capital. We drove to Middle Island in Miramichi which is best known as one of New Brunswick’s most significant Irish‑immigration quarantine sites. The island—about 350 m long, on the south bank of the Miramichi River—was used in 1847 during the height of the Irish famine migration, when the ship Looshtauk arrived carrying passengers stricken with typhus. Unable to reach Quebec, the vessel diverted to Miramichi, and local authorities quickly converted Middle Island’s existing sheds into an emergency quarantine station. Of the 316 survivors who disembarked, 96 died on the island, and several other ships added more sick passengers that summer. A burial ground and stone monument mark the graves of those who perished.
The province purchased the island in 1950, later establishing a public park with interpretive signage in 1967. In 1984, a granite Celtic cross was erected to commemorate the Irish immigrants who died in 1847. Today, Middle Island serves as a cultural and historical focal point for descendants of those immigrants.
The main bridge to cross the Miramichi River was closed for the summer for major repairs, so we had to take a coastal road to another bridge. We took a detour to learn about the shipbuilding history on Beaubears Island since it was a National Historic Site. We read through all the display boards but didn’t have enough time to take the pontoon boat ride over to the island itself.
We had 200 kms to drive from Miramichi through Bathurst to Mount Carleton PP and as we approached Bathurst Sharon had read about a scenic waterfall, so we decided to do a side trip. Side trips don’t always work out as the side road was full of potholes and when we reached the turn to get to the waterfall it was a gravel ATV trail too narrow for the RV. However at least we got to see a beautiful river crossing before back tracking 11 kms on the pothole road😉
We did some shopping and bought diesel in Bathurst before starting the road inland to Mount Carleton PP where we would stay for 2 nights. The road inland was quite hilly which we hadn’t really experienced in a while. At one point I saw an opposing traffic SUV flash his lights at us and then turn his left signal on which was to warn me that we were coming up on a moose on our right-hand side. We had seen one other moose in New Brunswick earlier in the trip, but this was the first one we got a photo of.
Mount Carleton is a fairly remote PP (zero cell coverage) and was extremely busy on the Sunday when we arrived but by Monday night it had pretty well cleared out. Before dinner we did a walk along the beach and beside the lake to see the cool reflections. There were many hiking trails in the park, but you needed to drive long distances on dusty gravel roads to get to many of them. We decided the next day that we would hike around the lake from the campground and then do the Mount Bailey summit trail which was listed as a difficult trail since it went straight up the mountain. They really weren’t kidding with the description because it truly went straight up with very few switchbacks to ease the vertical climb. We did a total of 13 kms that day (since we were coming from and returning to the campground) with an elevation gain of 502m! However, the hard work paid off with spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, including Mount Carleton which is the tallest mountain in the Maritimes. We were very glad we had brought our poles to handle the climb and the rocky sections. At the bottom we stopped into the lodge so I could have a beer and Sharon could have an ice cream cone to celebrate our achievement on the hike. On the way back to the campground an eagle flew extremely close overhead and then settled in a distant tree so we could get a photo.
Wendy had told us about Grand Falls so when we left Mount Carleton, we did a bit a of a back track to see it. There wasn’t as much water flowing over it, but it was still spectacular to see. We walked around the entire gorge to see it from many angles and watched the people zip lining across the gorge. We also went through the museum to learn about the various bridges that have crossed the gorge and the hydroelectric project built in 1928.
Our last park in New Brunswick would be Republique PP which wasn’t open when we had passed by in May. When we got to our campsite the electric post had an open ground fault and it took the park manager and his electrician over an hour to figure out what was wrong and fix it. We then went for a walk around the campground, and we could see why it was so popular with families as it had a swimming pool, a basketball court, and a mini golf course. Next door was a botanical garden, but we just looked around the outside gardens since it was starting to rain. They even had a stained-glass display that reminded us of Grandma Wildfang and her love of the Blue Jays and Edie with the Butterfly. There was a long bike riding trail system connected to the park, so we’ll check that out on another trip.
We needed to be in Ottawa by Wednesday so both Tuesday and Wednesday were going to be long driving days. From Republique PP in New Brunswick we were heading to Port Saint-Francois Quebec which was just south of Trois Rivieres. I had planned that Sharon could help with the driving on the Tuesday but as we approached the Gulf of the St. Lawrence, we started to encounter horrendous winds so she wasn’t comfortable driving. It was so bad that we decided to get off the Trans Canada and take a coastal scenic road along the water. Then we learned that there were tornado warnings ahead of us! We started monitoring the radar map and decided to stop at a lookout tower near Sainte Anne de la Pocatière to park and wait for the storm to head further south. As it turned out there was a takeout food building in the park so we tried the lobster roll and the octopus roll and both were phenomenal. Another LTV pulled in directly beside us as they were doing the same thing to avoid the storm and have lunch. As we got nearer to the bridge for Quebec City, we finally went back onto the trans Canada highway where we encountered traffic and heavy rain but at least the tornado warnings had passed through. Our destination was Port Saint-Francois which was a private campground as opposed to a PP. After dinner we went for a walk to the marine wharf to see the St. Lawrence River.
The next day we drove from Trois Rivieres through to Ottawa and the drive was relatively uneventful other than a bit of traffic in Montreal. It was nice to get back to Ontario where diesel was 30 cents per litre cheaper than in Quebec. We stayed at our friends Linda and Phil’s place in Ottawa for 2 nights and took the opportunity to take the RV to Mercedes Benz for service B work that was being called for on our service menu. Phil and I also cracked open my 22-year-old Glen Breton whiskey that I had filled from the cask directly at the distillery😉 On Friday we went to leave and a family of wild turkeys were wandering around the neighbourhood.
On the drive from Ottawa to home, we stopped one night in Balsam Lake PP. The campground was very busy since it was a Friday night. We walked around the campground and along the beach and read about the history of the park. Overnight it was absolutely pouring rain, so a lot of the tent campers were packing up on Saturday morning and leaving. We cleaned out our tanks before finishing the drive home since the RV would now sit until our RV rally in September. We did stop at a new restaurant to us in Stayner and tried out their Mediterranean food which was very good. Good enough that we even bought some of their frozen meals to bring home, the advantage of having the RV freezer to put things in.
What a phenomenal trip to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and PEI. Our GPS logger didn’t pick up the final 2 legs as we went from Ottawa to home but here is the link that will show you all the other places we visited on this journey: RV Trip 15 – East Coast . We travelled a total of 8,802 kms over a span of 78 nights. As you will see from the full map, we definitely covered a lot of the coastline areas. We enjoyed visiting friends, eating tons of seafood, and exploring most of the provincial and national parks in the 3 provinces. We hope you enjoyed following along on our journey through our blogs. Now we will begin planning next year’s trip to Labrador, Newfoundland, and the Gaspe area of Quebec.