Monday, July 26, 2010

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!

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