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!