Day 2 - Hawkesbury, Ontario to Edmondston, New Brunswick - July 14, 2010

Checked out of the Best Western L'Heritage at 9:15am and drove into town to find some breakfast. We had a full days drive ahead of us through Quebec and we didn't want to have to make any unnecessary stops. We found the L'Escale Restaurant which looked nice. You can tell the French influence spills over into Ontario once you get close to the Quebec border.

I had the $6.99 breakfast which consisted of scrambled eggs,bacon, ham and sausage, (which was the best ham and sausage I have had in a long time) home fries, pancakes, toast, and all kinds of fresh fruit. The plate was loaded and I couldn't even come close to finishing it. John had the blueberry waffles and the waitress asked if he wanted cream for on it. It's an english cream and I wished he would have at least tried it, cause it sounded different. His plate was overun with blueberries and he had maple syrup on the side. He couldn't finish his either.

We didn't sit outside because we didn't want to be bothered with the bugs. That is a window behind me in the photo, but unfortunatly the doors were open and there was quite a few flies inside. Needless to say, it was good food at a great price.
There was a group of about twelve little old French women who came in for breakfast. Had we known this, we would have sat outside, as you couldn't even hear yourself think. The restaurant had a beutiful view of the Ottawa River.

Filled the car up with gas and were on our way at 10:38. We kind of doddled so we wouldn't go through Montreal at rush hour, but we were not so fortunate.
We crossed over a bridge on the Ottawa river and were heading for the crazy traffic of Montreal. We were stuck in traffic for almost two hours.

Then we had to cross the St. Lawrence seaway to get accross to the eastern side of Quebec, and that would be through a tunnel to La Fontaine. We had heard on the news the night before that there was a freighter that went aground and they were trying to contain a spillage and the seaway was closed. The tunnel was scary, only because it looked like it was falling apart and had chunks of concrete falling off the sides. We were finally out of the traffic at 12:24, almost two hours later for a stretch that should have normally taken 15 minutes.

Once on the other side of the St. Lawrence the terrain took a whole different look. Strange looking mountains in the middle of nowhere. Actually the further north we got, Maine was not too far away.

The photo below is a view of Quebec City on the western side of the St. Lawrence taken from the eastern side.


We saw this license plate from the Northwest Territories, which is shaped liked a polar bear. They were far from home!

Further north the St. Lawrence really opens up. It was beautiful! (below photo)

Crossed over the border into New Brunswick. Our cell phones automatically jumped ahead one hour for the atlantic time. Arrived at the Quality Inn in Edmundston, NB at 5:30 pm which was now 6:30 with the time difference.

The restaurant, Victoria Steakhouse was excellent. The best steak we ever had. We had an Angus Old Montreal Filet and could subsitute a caesar salad for the vegetables, which we both did. John opted for fries and I had the baked potato. As I was finally in a Maritime province, I had to finally try some seafood and ordered some fried scallops with my meal and they too were great. We were offered ployes insted of bread but took the bread since we didn't know what ployes were. We were told they were some kind of crepe like thing. Two drinks each and our bill came to $64. which is really good considering the prices we usually pay in the Toronto area.

Again since the province of New Brunswick borders on Quebec, there was a lot of French influence, but at least they have to speak English to you. And again they were noisy in the restaurant and in the hallways in the morning.

Day 9 - Halifax, NS to Digby, NS & Ferry to St. John, New Brunswick - July 21, 2010

It was sad leaving Halifax and the Radisson as everything was so nice here and our advertures were nearing the end. We checked out of the Radisson Halifax at 10 a.m. We could have stayed until 1 p.m. which is a great time for check out, but we wanted to have lunch in Digby and be in time for the ferry departure at 4 p.m.

It was a very scenic ride. I haven't seen anything yet in Nova Scotia that I didn't love.


Arrived in Digby at 1 p.m. It's a beautiful little town!

We were suprised that the town did not smell fishy, after all this is the towns livelihood. You can see from the below photos the main fishing docks where all the daily catch's come in.

The below photo, if you click on it to enlarge it, you can see the refrigerated trucks drive right out to pick up the fresh seafood right off the boats.

Looks like low tide to me.

Since we were in Digby, I had to have their world famous scallops for lunch. Luckily for my husband we found a great restaurant with an outdoor patio and view of the bay.

The view from our table.

Fishers Galley, photo below from their website.

After a yummy lunch we had about an hour to tour the town and pick up some souvineers.




Click here for a webcam of Digby, NS

We arrived at the ferry terminal at 3 p.m. An hour ahead of time, as they recommended.

My reservation was great, and we had our tickets in less then 5 minutes. Then it was out to the parking lot to line up our car for boarding. The scary part for me was looking at all the tractor trailers lined up to get on the ferry. I was thinking that has to be a lot of weight!!!


John was thinking, man this boat is OLD! The Princess of Acadia Ferry was built in 1971.

A typical Nova Scotia fishing boat pictured below.

Scenic view leaving the Digby Harbour.

I'm not sure what these things in the water are, possibly tanks for holding the bait? If anyone knows leave a comment please!


Once out into deep water, about midway, we had a whale watching class. We didn't see any whales.

There was a lounge on the ferry also and a video lottery terminal. Thats what they call a slot machine here.


St. John, New Brunswick in the horizon! The ferry ride was three hours long!

Now the fun part, wander back to the bottom of the ferry, and drive off.



The Country Inn and Suites was just a short drive from the ferry terminal about two miles or less. A quick drive but through what we call a "Malfunction Junction". It would have been a simple left turn according to google maps, except for recent construction, that left turn would have been a disaster since the road was now one way at the "Malfunction Junction" with traffic lights, and stop signs and certain parts of the intersection had the right of way. CRAZY!

We received a good rate on the room of $137. per night for a 2-room king suite. The hotel was dated, carpeting throughout was worn, the ice machine broken, TV reception just awful on most channels, but what they lacked in this, they made up for in service.

We couldn't get the TV's to work in the room, so we were moved across the hall to a nicer room with a front view. There was a cool machine in the lobby that disbursed current DVD's for free, and although the ice machine was broken, all we had to do was ask, they filled our ice bucket for us. The breakfast buffet was very nice also!

Since we checked into the hotel at about 7:30 p.m. we called it a night and ordered some Papa Johns pizza for delivery. We also tried the donair sauce for our dipping sauce. In Canada whenever you order pizza, you always get a dipping sauce for your crust. Mostly we order creamy garlic. We didn't care for the donair sauce, as it was a very sweet creamy garlic. Tomorrow Reversing Falls. We are staying two nights here in St. John.

Day 10 - St. John, New Brunswick - Reversing Falls - July 22, 2010

Today we had planned to go see the Reversing Falls, and then maybe tour downtown St. John. It is not actually a waterfall, but the phenomenon of the Bay of Fundys highest tides in the world meeting with the St. John river and at different tide periods the river reverses. We headed down to the Reversing Falls, which was only about 2 miles away. We walked around and checked out all of the views and observation decks. It was very scenic and we saw a movie about it with an admission price of $2.50 each.

We hung around until 3:48 p.m. to see the low tide.

The observation decks and restaurants are located at the foot of the bridge, and you can see downtown St. John not to far in the distance across the Reversing Falls Bridge.

To get a hands on look, there is the Reversing Falls Jet Boat Tours thrill ride. They also have sightseeing tours.

The jet boat tours are located on the east side of the gorge in Fallsview Park, photo below. You can see the rail bridge, which is located next to the road bridge.

The Reversing Falls Gardens Restaurant, below photo, is where we saw the movie on the lower level of the building. I don't see this restaurant advertised as much as The Reversing Falls Restauant with the observation tower right at the foot of the bridge. This restaurant is located at the far end of the parking lot.

John took a walk down to the lower observation deck which is located between the two restaurants.

A tree stands on top of a hill in the parking lot. We did not walk up here either, but I'm sure it was a great view of St. John.

The Irving Pulp and Paper Mill is just across the street from the Information Center. Irving is a big name around here as St. John was where the company was founded. Coming into St. John on the ferry we noticed IRVING refineries all over and in the maritimes there was Irving Gas Stations. It was announced today that JD Irving the President and CEO had passed away yesterday.

Although many say the Reversing Falls is over rated as a tourist destination we were loving it. I have noticed that some of the tourism sites are beginning to call it the Reversing Rapids, as too many people are expecting to see water falls.

We were under the impression that there were two times we should view this natural phenomenon, low tide and high tide, but after seeing the movie and learning more at the information center, we didn't want to miss the third, which was slack tide, as you can see from the above photo. Slack tide is in between low and high tides, when the river and the bay even out. Slack tide is the only time that boats such as sail boats and boats not equipped for the rapids can come down the river into the bay. We decided this was something we had to see, so off to the friendly people at the information desk to ask about shuttles and/or bus routes from our hotel. They advised us the best bet was to take a taxi, which was about an $8 fare, since we wanted to come back and have dinner with a view and a few drinks:-)

After making an 8:30 p.m. dinner reservation, we drove back to the hotel after stopping at Subway for a snack and for some beer and wine at the NB. Its NL in Nova Scotia and NB here in New Brunswick. In Ontario its the LCBO.

On the top of the restaurant is an observation deck.

We returned later in the evening around 7 p.m and you can see the slack tide happening.


The Irving Paper Mill takes on a differnt look in the evening. There has been a lot of controversy about this mill being in such a lovely tourist destination. I agree, I thought St. John was not as scenic as Nova Scotia, as everywhere I looked in this town I saw industry. But you have to have it somewhere.

During our dinner we watched the high tide coming in and the river reversing.


We had a wonderful dinner. It wasn't anything to brag about, but was good. I had fried shrimp and scallops with a baked potato and my husband had a chicken stirfry which he enjoyed. We were ready to cab it back to the hotel at 9:30 p.m. For those who says its over rated, we enjoyed spending the whole day here!