Day 23 - Canadian Maritimes 2026 - St John, New Brunswick - Reversing Falls - Sea Glass Beach

Actually we had a very quiet night at the casino parking lot at Moncton, New Brunswick.  It was nice to have a place to park after a long day of driving. But we really don't see the need to do it again. I suppose some people would take advantage of The Players Club and being a new visitor you get free play money, but we just wanted a spot to sleep and then head on again. Honestly, it was better than a Walmart though. And much quieter. 

I took some video footage in the morning of the casino lot, but it turned out that the camera was stuck on slow motion and I couldn't speed it up or get still shots from it. So you'll just have to take our word for it that we were in a casino parking lot for the night. 

It was time to hit the road and we actually had a beautiful clear blue sky to travel through the gorgeous colors of the changing trees.

Our intended route today would be heading West from Moncton and going towards St John.  We learned that it's important to not add an "s" to St John, as to not confuse it with St Johns of Newfoundland. Two different cities, in two different provinces. But I guess the locals get upset if you don't identify it correctly.

We were pretty excited to have a clear day with blue skies. After having spent the last few days in wind and rain and fog with dull gray scenery, we were really appreciating these gorgeous colors. Of course, I snapped about 50 gazillion pictures. But I will only post a few of them here. 

The scenery was unfolding in front of us and we were enjoying the miles and the smooth roads as well as the gorgeous colors and the sunshine. These are the travel days that we will remember the most.

Zooming along in the motor home, being comfortable and cozy as we were working our way further west. We just love traveling this way.

We took a little break at a roadside stop to work on some breakfast. It's kind of nice to just be able to stop on a whim, whip out a fry pan and some eggs and bacon etc. 

We sat down with a second cup of coffee and went over our bills. Even though we are out traveling, it was still "payday" on the 1st of the month and we needed to take care of everything from back home too. So once the light bill, the phone bill, the Starlink bill,  and the house and car insurance etc etc were all taken care of, we could close down the websites and hit the road again.  It is so convenient to be able to take care of things online and not rush back home to pay bills that arrive in the mail. 

Years ago, we used to make a family member go get our mail, open it all up and read it to us over the phone out loud what the totals were. And then leave them a series of blank signed checks to fill in the amount and mail them off for us. Boy have times changed?

Now, we do have our granddaughter going over our physical mail that does arrive at the house, and she scans it in and sends it to us via email if there's something important.  But so far, there was nothing that needed any immediate attention. 

As we got closer and closer to St John, it was clouding up and getting misty as we are descending down closer to the Bay of Fundy. 

It was like the town was surrounded by swirls of clouds as we got closer to the water levels in the middle of the city.  Up overhead, we could see the blue sky. But all around us was a misty fog with a funny tinge of gold because of the sunlight shining down through the haze.

We had heard of an interesting phenomenon that we wanted to go and look at. Fellow YouTubers Terry and Cindy O'Keefe, along with their Sheltie Ranger, from True North RVing Channel had done a segment about these "reversing falls" in the middle of St John. So we had to go see them for ourselves. 

We found a little spot in the city parking lot further away from the viewing platform. There really isn't any parking for large RVs in the main area, so we snuck down on the far end of the second lot and snuggled into the corner. The rest of the lot was empty except for one car. But we didn't know if other people would be arriving and we didn't want to go crossways and take up four or five spots! We don't want to be selfish that way... 

We made up some lunch and got a few things ready to bring the cameras down to the viewing platforms.  I charge batteries while we are driving, and then I have to get everything reloaded and set up to go walk down by the viewing platforms.

One part of the main platform was closed for construction! That was the one we plan to walk out on. Instead, we were rerouted down a flight of over a hundred stairs!

I opted to not take the stairs, due to my torn meniscus in my knee. It's torn completely free and that means at the tightest bend I don't have anything to help straighten it back again. Also it means when I'm at the straightest extension, I don't have anything to pull it back up. Which essentially, is the most you use when walking up and down stairs. 

So the next best thing was to hand Steve the camera and tell him "go at it"!! 

So he walked all the way down the stairs only to come face to face with a large group of people. He tried to get some video footage but all they did was talk, talk, talk in the background. They were actually talking about how to swing themselves off to the side of the platform to urinate? So I had to delete all the audio on the footage! Geez! 

The view from down there really wasn't all that good either. I stayed up on the top and walked along the railing of the parking lot. The views up from the top were a lot better. (Through the foggy haze). 

The river is clearly going from right to left. That is UPstream! It is running up over the rocks technically being a reversing waterfall. We were told that if we go on the other side of the river and further up on the other bank you can see it even more clearly with more rapids and more rocks.

Now the reason for this phenomenon is because the Bay of Fundy has the highest and lowest tides of anywhere in the entire world!!! It has a range of 28 ft from high tide to low tide. 

Twice a day, the massive incoming tide from the Bay of Fundy overpowers the Saint John River, causing the river to reverse its flow upstream.

So here we worked our way over onto the other side of the river. Here the water is flowing from the left to the right this time, which is also UP steam.  You can even see the waves...

We stayed there for a while and watched it, and then we decided it was time to move on and head towards our next stop. 

Steve decided to find a gas station to fuel up. The New Brunswick prices are a little bit better now. We fueled up at $2.68 a liter which converts over to $7.14 a gallon in US funds. We are averaging about 12 and a half MPG with all the hills and rough travel over this last tankful. Our next tank will probably be a bit better? 

When we were done fueling up, Steve spotted this sign on the corner at the gas station. Hmmmmm?  He wanted to get rid of all the filthy grime and mud that had accumulated on the motorhome over the last few days.

Over in the back corner of the lot was another sign, and this one is situated near a little garden shed building. Next to the shed is a line of cars waiting to get washed. Two gentlemen are outside with long brushes and a hose and they are washing each car in line. 

Their garden shed has a hose running over to the back of the gas station faucet. In the garden shed is a generator and a propane on demand water heater. They have buckets with soap and long-handled brushes. It's a self-contained car wash in a little movable garden shed!!! 

Steve walked over to ask "Jed" how much it would be to wash both our motorhome and our cargo trailer? He looked at it and said probably $45 or $50. That sounded good to us and we had Canadian cash on hand, so we got in line.

When it was our turn, Jed and his partner went right to work. They soaped us up and scrubbed us down. They said the cargo trailer was so dirty it needed work four times of getting scrubbed! 

They worked quickly but thoroughly and made sure everything was wetted down, scrubbed thoroughly with soap, and then rinsed free. 

Jed went round and around, removing all the grime and even some of the bugs that we've had with us ever since we left Wisconsin. This other guy was able to reach way up over the front windshield to the eyebrow of the motorhome. With his long handle he scrubbed and scrubbed until he got all of the bugs off.

When they were all done, everything was spic and span. It was amazing how much dirt came off, and how much lighter the motorhome looked.  It was really bothering Steve how grubby it was looking over the last few days. He takes a sense of pride in keeping it in good shape.

Steve had tucked three Canadian $20 bills in his pocket. Because he was quoted between $45 or $50 he thought he would have enough then for a little tip. But who knows how much it was going to cost? 

So he went over to talk to the guys while I was taking some pictures. They looked at him and said only $35!!  Well well well, for the good job that they did, and actually charging less than what they quoted, Steve gave them all three of the $20 bills and told them to keep the change. I think it made their day...

I went over on their side to take a picture of their setup.  I asked their permission to put the picture here on the blog and on YOUTUBE. They said *YES* because they want to become famous!!! 

Notice the one guy, putting all of his tip money into a plastic Ziploc bag for stowing in his sweatshirt. That's because they get so wet doing their work that I am sure his money would be soggy by the end of the day. Smart guy. 

Well, we found our way out of St John, and wound our way further to the West. Things were still pretty foggy on the highway, and we were potentially missing out on some beautiful views. We worked our way along the Bay of Fundy, sometimes seeing the edge of the water, but other times driving more inland.

Our next place on our agenda was something pretty special too. We worked our way back through some tiny crossroads and rural roads until we reached a place called Black's Harbor. This is where the ferry boat leaves to cross over to Grand Manan Island. 

Right next to the ferry harbor, is a special little place called Sea Glass Beach. We had to bypass the ferry toll booth, and explain we weren't actually going on the ferry, but we wanted to go to Sea Glass Beach. The very sweet attendant inside not only waved us through for free, she told us exactly where we could go and where we could park for the night too! 

Remember, I said the tide can raise as high as 28 ft.??? Here it is at it's highest point. The waves are right up to the shoreline and this is as high as it's going to get.

Even though it was only about 4:00 p.m., things were dark and hazy and it felt very late. We watched some of the vehicles load up onto the ferry boat that was going to depart at 5:30 p.m. The foghorn was plaintively sounding it's sad sound every few minutes. It was something we would have to get used to if we were spending the night here...

There was such a rugged beauty to this area. There weren't any houses nearby, and of course it really isn't a tourist spot or a vacation destination. But the local people know about the sea glass, and that's why they come here. 

Actually, as we were out walking with the dog, a local came by in a car and stopped to talk to us. He wanted to be sure we knew that we were at the famous Sea Glass Beach! And he said when the tide goes down you can even go around a loop of the harbor and find a second beach with even more sea glass! 

Ahead of us was a little gravel parking spot full of potholes. We didn't want to drive in there. Right ahead of this area was the sea glass beach.

But, for the evening, we were parked in the paved parking slots along with another motorhome and a fifth wheel. This would do for the night, especially since it was free!

We looked out over the surface of the water, not really sure what we were going to see tomorrow morning when the tide was out...

(I'll give you a little hint right here:)

WOWSERS!!!!!

Go back to the night before. We started to get used to the sounds of the foghorn every few minutes. That's a necessary thing when you have such craggy rocks and cliffs. The ferry left and went on it's way out to Grand Manan Island. One or two semi trucks joined us in the parking lot further over in the loop. But we were fine in the little corner that we were tucked away into. Nick did not like the sound of the foghorn, so he decided he needed to cuddle up tight with his little reindeer and get ready for bed.

Yup, that sounded good to us, too!

Here is the YouTube video post that goes along with today's blog:

141 miles traveled today

3,023 miles traveled so far

Day 22 - Canadian Maritimes 2026 - Beach Morning at Cheticamp, Casino Boondocking in Moncton NB

While pouring our coffee early in the morning at the beach by Cheticamp, we pulled open our mini blinds to look out at the ocean. 

And what did we see???

Oh my goodness! This beautiful golden eagle was standing on the shore, looking around in the morning light. I ever so carefully grabbed my large camera with the zoom lens...

What a magnificent bird! He stood there for a while looking around. After I snapped a few more photos, I switched over to video mode. And I kept the camera aimed right at him.

We stayed as quiet as we could within the motor home, with me just pointing the camera out of the open window. If you look at the video at the end of this blog post, you can see him eventually flex his wings wide apart and push himself up into the air, ever so gently and gracefully. Watch as he moved forward to fly up over the roof of the motorhome!

We watched him land further down the beach to look around again. I don't know if he smelled our breakfast cooking or not, but he sure seemed curious about what we were doing inside of the RV. 

I'm so grateful that we are able to get these glimpses up close of such beautiful wildlife. We surely wouldn't be getting that if we were staying in a crowded campground. But because we were out here on this remote beach in a peaceful quiet setting, we were able to get this little moment with such a magnificent bird.

Now we opened up the rest of the window blinds and looked around. The sun was coming up over the mountains to the background and a long narrow band of mist was rising from the land. Oh my, such a beautiful spot...

These are the type of mornings that we want to remember. To preserve forever in our minds. To look around and gaze upon such beauty. This is different than what we see in Wisconsin. It's also different than what we see out in the desert, or up in Alaska, or when we were in Oklahoma and Texas. The beauty of being able to travel in our rv, allows us to wake up in different places all around the country and see different things.

The peacefulness all around--- of total quiet and tranquility, only broken by the sound of the waves on the shore. As the gentle waves would hit the shore, little bits of gravel would push ahead and then recede. It made almost a rattling sound. 

There's some really nice beach and wave action footage on the YouTube video link at the end of this blog. Watching those waves lapping on the shore is almost mesmerizing.

We walked along the beach after breakfast and enjoyed the soft breezes blowing on our faces. We could look backwards over the route that we had come as it wound it's way down amongst the craggy rocks and hills to get down to this level. It had been quite an awful day of driving the day before, and we were glad to be done with that part of the Cabot Trail. If the weather had been nicer, or less windy and rainy, we might have enjoyed that section more. But we did endure a lot of construction and muddiness and just waiting for pilot cars.

We had only put on 79 miles yesterday, but they were rugged and long and slow. It was not one of our best travel days. I think that made us relax and enjoy the morning even more so. We felt kind of "battered" from the day before. 

As we walked along the shoreline, Steve found this little yellow agate. These are the kind of rocks that we were looking for up in Alaska. This one is not shaped perfectly, there is a gouge out of one side. But it still was pretty cool. We didn't see any Sea Glass in this area. But (hint hint) that would come at our next stop!

We wandered among the clumps of seaweed here and there on the rocky shore. The seaweed has a distinct odor to it. Not really stinky, but salty and kind of vegetation-ish. Definitely not the smell of dried autumn leaves that we have in Wisconsin as they decay. The seaweed has a odor of rotting wood in my mind. We looked among the clumps to see if there were any interesting creatures. But I think that the tide had been out for so long that anything interesting would have scuttled away by now. Or eaten by the eagle?

As we walked back towards the motorhome, I snapped what I think is one of our absolute best photos I have ever taken of it. I know I take a lot of pictures of our rig, we are kind of proud of it. But this one to me looks almost like it should be in a magazine ad!

Yep, that's what traveling is all about. Having our comforts at hand to stay at places out in the rugged wilderness. Long gone are days of ever wanting to be backpacking or in a tent or sleeping on the ground. By having our own soft bed, our own bathroom, and our own cooking facilities and safe transport of food.

We had downsized 3 years ago from a 40 ft luxury diesel pusher. We had only purchased that one because we thought we would be living in it full time in our later years. But as things change, and we bought a home base, back closer to the children. Then it was decided to sell that larger motorhome. By downsizing to the smaller 25 ft motorhome, we are able to get into littler places, maneuver around easier, and just maintain it easier in our old age. It is much easier than the larger motorhome. It was a wise choice. 

Pulling the little cargo trailer behind has added a lot of comfort to taking the possessions along that we need. Because the 25 ft Winnebago View has such a limited cargo carrying capacity, having the little cargo trailer really helps us. Now we can bring along extra gear and our bikes and additional supplies as needed.

But when we traveled to Alaska, we did it all just within the motorhome. And that was a little tighter and restrictive on what we could take along.

Adjusting and adapting is necessary when we travel in an RV. But I think we are extremely grateful for what we do have. We don't take it for granted.  Sometimes, when walking back towards the motorhome, we just smile and enjoy the fact that we are able to travel around in such a beautiful RV. Not bragging, just appreciating it.

Steve grabbed my camera, and swung around and snapped one of Nicholas and myself. I don't often get photos of myself, because I'm the one always taking the pictures! I'm glad Steve took this picture, cuz I will always remember where it was and what we saw and what a great morning we had at Petite Etang Beach.

The weather reports did not look good for the next three, four or five days. It was going to rain rain and more rain in this area of Cape Breton. So we looked at the maps and decided we would get off the cape, cross that Port Hastings, and work our way back into New Brunswick. Time was running out and this was our return trip now that we were no longer heading East. As we head West, we are thinking ahead to getting home, seeing our children and grandchildren, and getting out of here before the weather turns too cold.  This is the approximate route that we are going to want to travel today...

But before we could leave this little village of Cheticamp, we had to stop at the bakery on our way out of town. We had passed it on the way to the beach, so we knew exactly where it was. 

Remember, this is Steve's new hobby. Visiting bakeries! He is searching for an elusive cinnamon roll that equals the one we had at Tetsa River Lodge on our way to Alaska while we were driving through the Yukon. I don't think he's ever going to find that, but he is sure going to have fun trying.

We wandered in, making our selections. 

The segment of inside the bakery is on our video link down below.

We chose a variety of things to restock our cabinets before heading on out. The day was going to be intermittent sunshine and clouds. I was hoping to maybe get some nice pictures while we were traveling. The trees are becoming more deciduous so we are getting a little more color. Further out on the cape it has been mostly pines and cedars, so we weren't getting quite as much color. 

We were totally enjoying the rolling landscape and the cute little neat houses spaced here and there throughout this area of Nova Scotia.

We see a lot of houses with gingerbread type trims, the cute little bric-a-brac features. Our little farmhouse back at home in Wisconsin has some bric-a-brac on the screen doors that we put on all three entrances. We have been inspired now by looking at the passing homes, and we think we are going to add some gingerbreading to the front porch on our own home once we get back to Wisconsin.

Again, I reiterate that everything seems so neat and well taken care of as we cruise on through the countryside. All of the houses are pretty and proper. Pride of ownership is evident and you don't see clutter or junk or dumpiness. I think people are appreciative of what they have, and take care of it to the best of their ability. 

Even public spaces, like this little harbor and pier. Everything is neat and trimmed and you don't see anything junky or weedy laying around. In the morning light, this bright blue boat struck my eye.  I think everybody else went out fishing, but this guy decided to stay moored up to the dock. Just in time for me to snap a pretty photo...

As we meandered along, I just happened to have the camera in my hand as we saw this beautiful yellow home and outbuildings across the water. The reflection was absolutely perfect! 

There's no filter or alteration whatsoever on my photos, and this is exactly what we saw and it's exactly what the camera captured. Wow!

As we roll along through the countryside, every curve and every twist and turn reveals a new scene. Being a horse nut ever since I was a little girl, I always have my eye out for horses in pastures or paddocks. Whenever I snap a picture of one, I also send it to my friend Vicky back in Wisconsin. Fellow horse nut.

Even though the skies were clouding over, some of the colors were still presenting themselves along the roadsides.  It's hard to get the true effect of autumn colors on a cloudy day. But it's also hard in bright midday sun as well. Late afternoon evening Golden Glow is probably the best time. Well, this was the middle of the day, and this is the best you're going to get from me.

I'm also attracted to Old Barns. Their sturdiness and utilitarian structure also has a certain amount of grace and peaceful blending with the countryside around them. I think of the days they were first built and how farmers were so proud of their newest barn. Seeing them maintained and taken care of over the years shows the appreciation and need of maintaining their structures as part of their livelihood.

This one appears to have cedar siding that is slowly battered by the salty sea air over the years. It still is in good condition, and I see the newer addition on the right. I think about the family who said to themselves: "now that we added three more dairy cows to the herd, we better have a milk house to store our milk in before we sell it to the creamery". I have a silly imagination like that. But that's exactly what it looks like, somebody increased their dairy herd and needed a place to store the newest equipment for chilling and pasteurization before the milk truck comes to take it away.

We wound our way down along the shoreline and then worked our way back up into the hills again. When we dipped down near the ocean, things were foggy and cloudy. The mists were not rising very high off of the surface of the water. At times we were literally driving through the clouds!

This is really beautiful countryside, and I wish we had a little bit more sunshine while we were driving through. But that was not to be. 

As we got closer to Port Hastings, the clouds increased as well as the fog when we got down to sea level. We crossed over the causeway to get back onto the mainland of Nova Scotia, it almost felt like night time. But it was only 11:00 a.m.

We drove on in a northwesterly direction, heading towards New Brunswick. Most everything now was rural farmland and agricultural as we moved away from the seaside. We were now done with our magnificent ocean views. 

We fueled up and got propane as well at a Walmart stop at New Glasgow. 

The diesel fuel prices are coming down a little bit as we get more inland. After the exchange rate and calculating from liters to gallons, we are paying about $6.94 a gallon. We are averaging about 13.2 miles per gallon even with all the hilly twisty turns. That's not too bad. Sometimes we get up in the 14 mpg range, but not with this many hills.

Our Park4Night guide app mentioned a gas station that also had a dump station and free water fill on the back corner. It was quite hidden, and you would have to look for it. It was specifically not marked with signs or arrows, I think reserving it just for their own customers. There isn't even a knob on the faucet spigot, and you are told to bring your own pliers!  So of course we patronized them by filling up with diesel fuel, and then swung around the back side of the building to find this elusive Debert dump station:

Mission accomplished, our tanks were now emptied and we were able to refill with fresh city water. Although we filter our drinking water, and for Nick's water dish, we do appreciate city water in our tanks that has been filtered and processed, rather than questionable well water from rural parks or wells at campgrounds. 

Actually, after getting our fuel, we took a little break at Walmart and took a nap. We were putting on more miles than we normally do in a day. But we figured with such gloomy dark rainy weather, we might as well get some miles underneath the tires.

We entered New Brunswick at 6:16 p.m. Goodbye Nova Scotia.

We had to pay a toll on the Trans-Canada Highway because we were not New Brunswick residents. For the motorhome and trailer we had to pay $10. That was surprising. We had never encountered that type of toll before.

We were putting on quite a few miles in one day. We tried to only do 200 miles or less. As we were reaching the 300 mile mark, Nicholas was telling us he thinks he had just about enough traveling for the day. He grabbed his little reindeer and said it's time to go to bed!

We ignored him for a little while, but he kept pushing his little reindeer at us and insisting it was time to stop driving and do something else. His little doggy brain was getting a little bored after 300 miles. So it was time to look for a place to spend the night.

It was getting darker, and we are still in the Atlantic time zone so night time hits an hour earlier than what our bodies are used to.  Through the waning daylight, we could still see the pretty trees, is the colors were flinging by us on our way towards Moncton, New Brunswick.

We have decided to try something different for the night. We were going to overnight boondock at a casino! We have never ever done this before, so we can call ourselves "Casino Virgins"?  

We don't gamble or buy scratch offs, so we really don't ever have the need to hang out at a casino. But we do know that they have facilities available for RVs. We looked up online and this is the photo of the building that we were looking for in the almost darkness:

According to their website, we needed to follow the signs and park in their RV area. Then we needed to go inside to register. Okay. That sounds good to us.

It was just getting dark and we found our way to the front of the casino, then we followed signs around to the back. There were plenty of street lights to illuminate our way around the building. Even then we really couldn't find the designated parking spot and didn't see any other RVs. So I went on Google maps and did an aerial view to see where the RVs are parked. Found them!

Once we got settled into a spot and got ourselves level, we set Nick up in the motorhome with his food and water. Then we locked the doors and walked all the way around the building to the front entrance to be able to enter to register. 

It was a long day and we certainly didn't want to walk all the way around but we had to. We got inside and spoke to the security guard. Go figure! He said that during the off-season we don't need to register and just pull in and enjoy and that was it. Ugh! All we wanted to do was get back to our rig and make some dinner and go to bed.

Which is exactly what we did...

Here is the video that goes along with today's blog: 

Join us tomorrow when we work our way over to St John to see an amazing natural phenomenon of a reversing waterfall! Then we end the night at Sea Glass Beach by Blacks Harbor.

307 miles traveled today

2,882 miles traveled so far