Day 15 - Canadian Maritimes 2026 - Into New Brunswick , Pabineau Falls and Loggieville Wharf

It's time to start moving away from the Gulf of St Lawrence and cut through the center area of New Brunswick. We are now going to be entering hillier areas with different texture of terrain and landscape.

As much as we really enjoyed this stop at the Belladune boat ramp, we really should be moving on.  We were kind of dawdling around in the morning and organizing some things. The day was beautiful, the sun was shining, and listening to the waves lap the shore was so peaceful. We sipped our coffee and got some breakfast going while looking out at this beautiful scenery.

Steve was outside stowing some gear and a little old local man came wondering up with his walking stick. Turns out that he owns the campground down the road, (which is closed for the season) but he invited us to come and stay there if we wanted to. How nice was that? Steve told him we were moving on today, but he appreciated the offer. They chit-chatted for quite a while. It seems he was a local government official for many years and well-known in the community. He said when he opened his campground, mostly his family came to take up the seasonal spots. He comes from a large family with seven boys and all of their children and grandchildren love to come to his campground. How nice is that? He chit-chatted with Steve for quite a while while I finished stowing away the gear inside. 

They said their goodbyes and he hobbled on down the shore with his walking stick. Quite a picturesque scene of local life in these remote areas of New Brunswick. 

We have been welcomed and treated so well by all of the Canadians that we have been in contact with so far on this trip. Everyone seems so pleasant it makes us feel right at home. Even the storekeepers and clerks are pleasant and help us struggle with translations. The smiles and the laughter are rewarding when they see our limited knowledge of the French language.  Most everyone is bilingual and helps us along with communication. 

We pulled on out and headed more south on our inland route. We were seeing things now that looked more like our native terrain of Wisconsin. A lot more hardwood trees and hills. There's a very large lumber industry in New Brunswick. We drove through quite a few mill towns that the big logging trucks come and unload and have the wood milled up into lumber.

The miles rolled by on this very pleasant day. 

We had earmarked a waterfalls as a place to go visit today and potentially spend the night in the parking lot.  It's called Pabineau Falls, located south of Bathurst on a little gravel road. We found our way back there but we were a little dismayed to see a few cars in the parking lot. We had hoped to maybe overnight there. But it wasn't a very big lot. We didn't want to take up too much space...

We parked in along the edge and walked across to the beautiful waterfalls. The day was just beautiful and I cannot think of a better place to sit on these stones and watch the water flow by.

As the water cascaded over the rocks, the sound was mesmerizing and the sunshine was hypnotizing. I think we could have fallen asleep and taken naps on those rocks.

It maybe looked more like a rapids than a waterfall, but there were quite a few different levels to the water. I guess it qualifies as a waterfall?

Little eddy pools have worn away into the rocks creating these little depressions trapping water in some of the pretty leaves that are falling. They formed little puddles in the rocks.

I think this photo exhibits the gurgling and splashing of the water. But really you have to go to the YouTube link below and click on that to hear the sounds that we were hearing while sitting on the rocks.

After all, how many still shot photos can you take of something as moving and lively and beautiful as a waterfall?

We are so fortunate to be able to travel like this and see such pleasant things in our Golden Years.  Sitting here with the love of my life, who enjoys doing this as much as I do, holds a very special meaning in my heart. Life wasn't never like this in my previous marriage. These last 30 years have been absolutely amazing and something to cherish.

We hung out there for the rest of the morning and decided to walk back up to the motorhome to make our lunch. I snapped this parting shot downriver. I think it's so pretty and I will hold it in my memories of where we were on this beautiful autumn day in New Brunswick.

Just as we were walking up the path, a few more people were coming to see the waterfalls. I'm not sure where the other people were from the cars that were already in the lot. Maybe further up in the woods? We were happy that we had a chance to have the place all to ourselves.

The woods are turning into an absolute fiesta of radiant colors. These fire red leaves caught my eye as we walked on back to the parking area.

Yup ... It's Fall!

We got back up to the motor home and I took out the two croissants we had bought at the bakery the day before. I know in these French communities, this is just standard bread for them. But for us it was a special treat. Buttery and flaky, these were going to be our lunch today.

I made up some tuna salad and got out some romaine lettuce and sliced tomatoes. These were going to be huge sandwiches that would probably tide us over well in to the evening. Maybe we would have a small dinner after such a big lunch.

But we decided with four cars now in the parking lot, this would not be a good spot to overnight. There were signs saying that we could disperse camp there, but we felt if it was that popular in the middle of the afternoon, we might have people coming and going all evening or into the night.  Some of the reviews on the Park4Night app said that the local kids come up there and "party". So we will cancel Plan A and move on to Plan B. 

The next spot we had on our potential list was down a little logging road and to the right in a clearing. It wasn't far off the highway and looked really pretty. We even saw a bear on our way in there. We drove back through the gorgeous fall leaves of the hardwood trees and found the spot that was noted to be available for a quick overnight. Plan B it is. 

No sooner did we get all set up, I didn't even have a chance to take pictures, and up drove a pickup truck that stopped in front of us. Out got four hunters and all of their gear and a couple hunting hounds. Steve talked to them and they said they hunt in that area regularly and we should stay right by the RV and not go into the woods. We decided we would give them their space and we would move on. After all, it was a grandfather, a son, and two grandsons and we didn't want to intrude on their family tradition. We can always find another space. But we don't want them to feel like we were intruding. 

So now on to Plan C???

We put on some more miles and headed down towards the town of Miramichi. There were a few spots that we could potentially scout around, but then I found one more a little bit further out of town along the Miramichi River that flows out into the Gulf of St Lawrence. 

This little place was called The Loggieville Wharf. There was a large gravel parking area with two different boat ramps, a wharf, and some dry dock harbor areas with boats up on stands.  We found a nice spot along the beach and there was nobody else around. Perfect! 

So plan C was going to work very well for us. Sometimes three times is the charm? 

We relaxed in our lawn chairs in the afternoon sun. It was pleasantly warm in the high 60s or maybe the low 70s. A seagull flapped on down to hang out and check us out. He kept us company for a little while.

The shoreline was dotted with clumps of flowers here and there, these wild roses we could smell from the side of the motorhome. Everything was delicate and dainty this time of year. But we know soon that in a couple months it would be frozen solid with ice and blasting winds and miserable cold temperatures. What a diverse landscape to have such beauty and yet such rawness.

Because we had eaten so much for lunch, we decided to prolong dinner and instead enjoy a beverage of our choice out in the sunshine. I love my little wine glass (my Big Girl Sippy Cup) with the lid. The bugs don't get in it, plus if I happen to knock it over, I don't spill it. It was a gift from Steve's former boss at High Cliff State Park. Thank you, Linda!

I don't think we have ever had such a relaxing vacation as this... Look at our view and you can see why we are enjoying this. Not only that, it's all free!!! 

So far we have only paid for two campgrounds on this entire trip. Even then, both of those were donation fees, we could have probably stayed there for free. But we did donate at both of them because it's important to continue these wonderful facilities for traveling RVs. 

The sun started dipping towards the horizon off to the West. I went inside to start up a small dish of chicken alfredo with steamed vegetables. We had picked up some fresh broccoli and cauliflower from a farmers marketplace stand on the side of the road. I had some carrots to add to it as well as some cooked up leftover chicken in the freezer and some penne noodles. So much nicer to make our own than to buy a premade freezer meal of chicken alfredo.

While the noodles were cooking, I had time to sit back out in my chair and put up my feet. It's pretty easy to cook when it's only a few steps away into the motorhome. I'm glad we could be enjoying this shoreline of this river and the setting Sun.

Our quick little dinner was soon ready, and we could eat outdoors looking at the scenery. It sure was tasty and Steve enjoyed the crunchiness of the garden fresh veggies when they are steamed. That's the best way.

The sun was going down and it was just kissing the edge of the horizon. I started snapping pictures as it was slowly sinking. There weren't any clouds to add dramatic effect to the sunset, but it was still beautiful and very peaceful.

There it goes...

We went inside and curled up for the evening on our love seat. We enjoy having our Starlink along so we can tune in to our favorite YouTube

Channels, mostly about RV traveling or living in Alaska. We had subscribed to some of them prior to our trip last summer, and now we keep watching them even though we're not planning to go back to Alaska again. Some of them are homesteading families, some of them are just people that live up there and travel around to beautiful places. Sometimes we see them go to places where we were. It's kind of nice to watch. So much better than the garbage on regular Network TV... That's just our opinion, yours may vary.

Steve decided that we needed popcorn! We used to carry an electric hot air popper along, but we eliminated that. Instead we bought this little bowl from Walmart for $12 that you can put in the microwave. It works just as good and takes up a lot less space. 

Again, now that we have additional power since we upgraded the lithium house battery and added our Bluetti power station, we don't have to worry about using things like the microwave drawing down our batteries right before bedtime. We need the batteries the most for running the fan on the propane furnace. That really draws down the most power overnight. We used to wake up cold in the morning because the batteries went dead. Not anymore.

Time now to sit back and enjoy our popcorn and watch our YouTubes! 

(Nick in the background---- he only likes the popcorn pieces that have butter on them. If you give him one that's just air popped with no butter, he spits it back out!)

Right before bedtime, Steve took Nick outside to do his last call. He looked across the parking lot and the sailboat in dry dock was all lit up! We thought we heard two guys and a pickup truck earlier that were over there working on it. I don't know if they accidentally left the lights on, or if they meant to. We didn't see them around but maybe they were staying in the houseboat that was parked next to it with the additional lights?

Wasn't that pretty? 

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

Please join us tomorrow as we cross over onto Prince Edward Island!! 

106 miles traveled today 

1,976 miles traveled so far

Day 14 - Canadian Maritimes 2026 - Finished Lapping Gaspe Peninsula, Entering New Brunswick - Belladune Boat Ramp

Paspebiac-Est was the perfect place to wake up in the morning. The sun was rising up over the water and everything was sparkling. Inside the motorhome everything was glowing gold and silver, just like the water and the sun.

Maybe this is what Heaven feels like? 

It was such a relaxing morning to look out over the sparkling water and we were dawdling and taking our time. This is the beginning of our third week of travels. Sometimes we have to slow down a little bit and enjoy what we have. An extra cup of coffee while we look out over the water, listening to the birds, and just reminiscing over the past two weeks of our travels.

Even Nicholas seemed reluctant to get out of bed. I went to go make the bed and he had taken up the center of it with his little toy Reindeer. His Reindeer goes with us no matter where we go. He just suddenly latched onto it since last Christmas (it was a present from the grandkids) and he carries it everywhere. He even tries to carry it outside and we won't let him.

We could hear the waves gently lapping against the shoreline, all along the edge of this cliff. What a great spot for them to put this beautiful little picnic grounds, with such amazing views. It's nice when a city or a town designates some of the prettiest property for public use. 

The people that had been in the other RV also seemed to be reluctant to leave this morning. They stood outside with their cups of coffee admiring the sunrise, and crawled back inside their RV too. Usually we try to clear out early and find somewhere else to cook breakfast. We don't want to overstay our welcome when a town generously allows overnight parking. There's plenty of room in the lot, but we don't want to ever abuse the courtesy that these small towns offer for traveling RVers.

We finally pulled in the slides and got ready to roll. We knew we would be needing propane soon. Every time we had stopped the day before where they had propane bulk tanks by their stations or stores, they didn't have anybody able to fill our on-board tank. We don't have just the small 20 lb. barbecue tanks that you can exchange like travel trailers or pick up campers do. We have a built-in propane tank underneath the motorhome that needs to be filled from a bulk tank with a hose. 

Every station Steve stopped at and went in to ask for an attendant, he was told "PROPANE 2:00 P.M." or "PROPANE TOMORROW". It was almost getting comical that five or six places in a row did not have anybody on duty that was capable to fill our tank. 

We did manage to find a Canadian Tire that had an experienced attendant able to fill our tank. It was good to get it filled back up because we had been running the furnace a lot more than we originally expected. The nights are getting colder already in September. 

We drove on up to a little Visitor Center that was not yet open. But they had a large parking lot that we could stop at and maybe cook up our breakfast. 

Since we upgraded our lithium battery and also hooked up our Bluetti power station, we have plenty of power to run things like our air fryer or microwave. Steve likes doing the hash browns and toast in the air fryer while he fries up the bacon. At the end, I do the eggs. Before you know it, breakfast is served.

We got moving again and headed on the road further to the West.  In almost every little town we saw the tiny fish markets, called "poissonnrie" in French. This one even had some neat emblems on the building, so there was no doubt that it was a fish market. Lol! 

We walked into this cute little shop. The clerk was so pleasant and greeted us. Everything smelled clean and fresh!... Have you ever walked into a large grocery store that has an open counter with fresh fish? It's always stinky--- but this place was clean and fresh with sunlight and music playing and all of their fresh fish displayed in a clean nice case. 

We looked over the rows and rows of large bags frozen seafood. Oh I wish we had room in the freezer to bring some of this back home. But we might have difficulty at the border. 

I told Steve we should have one of those 12 volt freezer cooler chests and turn it all the way to freeze. Then we could fill it up to the top and bring it all the way home.

Instead, we settled on two frozen hunks of halibut and one big slab of fresh Atlantic salmon. That would have to satisfy us for now.

If they had fresh halibut on hand, we would have bought that too. But frozen would be just as good because it is going to have to wait a couple days before we would cook it anyhow. We were planning on cooking the salmon first tonight.

Oh, they also sell fresh live lobster. But we really don't have a pot big enough to cook it in the motorhome. There was one sad little lonely lobster in the tank. I felt sorry for him.

After we left the fish market, we drove a few more miles into another town. There Steve noticed a bakery.  "La Boulangerie" in French. That's his new "hobby". So we parked across the street at the IGA Grocery store, and walked across to the bakery so he could find some new delectables.

This place was more of a deli than a bakery, but they did have some nice items for display in their case.  He picked out a few things and I grabbed a couple croissant rolls for lunch. They didn't have any bread or buns like a traditional bakery would. Just a lot of sweet stuff.

Steve was happy to take his little treasures back to the motorhome parked across the street. The day was warming up and we were promised to have some nice sunshine and beautiful weather for the next few days. We had had a couple rainy stormy ones, so this was going to be a nice stretch coming up.

We drove on further in a Westerly direction to get around the end of the Bay of St Lawrence. We really want to go East, but first we have to go West, to loop around the far Western end of the Bay.   Makes sense?

We crossed over this bridge into New Brunswick right about noon. We were now going to see more agricultural land and less of the high hills and craggy cliffs. At least until we get down to Nova Scotia. So we waved goodbye to the beautiful hills as we crossed the bridge into New Brunswick.

We rolled along the southern edge of the Bay of St Lawrence. Twisting and turning our way along the edge of the water through little villages and seaports. There's a lot more shipping going on in this area then up on the Gaspe Peninsula. Almost every town has some type of harbor or seaport along the shore. We also have a lot more large logging trucks rumbling on past. Many of them are double towing with a big trailer behind loaded up with huge logs. 

Of course that's why we noticed down in the New Brunswick there's a lot more of the hardwoods mixed in with the pines. That gives us some beautiful colors coming up and some wonderful contrast in the countryside.

The weather was cooperating quite well on our trip. We have really only actually had a few days of rain. And they've really been at night more than during the day. That's the best way to have a vacation when the nice weather during the day is when you want to move around and do things.

We rolled along, mile after mile. It was beautiful watching the scenery unfold in front of us. Everything is going quite well now that the motorhome tire sensor was fixed and the cargo trailer tires were swapped out for new ones. Let's hope that there's no other reason to have a malfunction or breakdown. It was time to concentrate on why we were there. To explore and enjoy.

By the time we hit about 150 miles, we thought we might want to slow down and find a spot to rest for the afternoon and evening. Besides, we wanted to cook our fresh salmon. 

As we neared the community of Belladune, off to the left there's a little Wharf Road leading to the Belladune boat ramp. It's so tiny you almost miss it. We drove back towards the ramp, which is in disrepair at this time. So nobody really is using the area and RVing people have been known to spend the night there. The village has thoughtfully included a porta-potty and a garbage can and a street light at the Wharf.

There were two cars there when we arrived with some people picnicking and playing on the beach. But the rest of the area was totally wide open for us to park wherever we wanted.

For some reason the end of the concrete on the ramp has buckled. I'm not sure if it's going to be repaired or just be discontinued. But for sure, there wouldn't be any fisherman coming to load or unload boats with it in this condition.

We got set up in the beautiful sunshine. The crickets were chirping in the grass and there were butterflies fluttering around from blossom to blossom near the motorhome. The gentle lapping of the waves on the shore was peaceful and soothing. This was going to be a great place to spend the night.

Yes, I took a picture of the little porta potty 

 and trash can and street light. 

I upload these to an app called 

Park4Night

 that helps other travelers find spots like this.

Especially if you are a van dweller or a car camper, having a porta potty and a trash can is really important for an overnight stop. We don't need those things when we are in our motorhome, because we are self-contained.

Before starting supper, we walked down along the beach and admired some of the beautiful scenery. There were big hunks of driftwood and craggy rocks here and there among the hunks of seaweed and native flowers. I put some of them in the YouTube video that's linked at the end of this blog.

It was so beautiful and relaxing to be out here in such a nice quiet place. So much better than staying in a busy city or crowded campground or even a provincial park. I am really glad that we are finding places like this to stay overnight.

The people who had been down along the shoreline packed up and left about dinner time. Now we had the place entirely to ourselves. 

Oh, I am mistaken. We did have a couple of these little guys come to visit...

Nicholas really didn't understand seagulls. One flew off and he thought he could jump in the air and fly after it. They were pretty darn big birds, he said, and he didn't think he could follow them. Fortunately, Steve has him tightly clasped on his long flexi lead so he can't get away.

There were so many things to sniff and explore on that beach. Nick really seemed to enjoy wandering along and learning new things. He doesn't like the water, but he sure likes the sand. Even gives a couple spurts of joyful digging and flinging it all over, which he never does at home in our dirt.

It was time to prepare our fresh salmon from the Atlantic ocean. I put it on a tray with some tin foil and a light coating of cooking spray. Then we spiced it up with some of our Harvest Blend Seasoning. It's like Mrs Dash with no salt.

https://www.twinpinesfarmct.com/all/harvest-blend-seasoning

Ingredients: dehydrated onion, garlic, carrot, tomato & parsley, spices (including mustard), lemon & orange peel, citric acid, natural flavors, silicon dioxide added to prevent caking.

Steve set up the air fryer outside. That way we wouldn't get a fishy smell in the motorhome while we were cooking. Like I said before, it's nice now with our larger lithium battery and our Bluetti power station that we can use electric appliances like this. He put the fish in and relaxed in his chair with a beer while he took care of the outside cooking duties.

Inside the motorhome, I was able to run the microwave to steam up some ears of corn. I also made us up each a crunchy salad to go along with our meal. We sure like to eat good when we travel, cooking our own food and usually try to stay healthy. Not counting Steve's bakery treasures this morning...

The salmon cooked really well. Being a thicker piece we had to test it and decided to cook it just a little bit longer. It came out perfectly on the second try. Flaky fall apart delicious flavor without any fishy taste at all. We could really tell this was fresh salmon. 

We were treated to a glorious sunset out over the water. The crickets were chirping and we relaxed outside with our beverages until the sun had set below the horizon.

It really was the end of another peaceful day of traveling in such a beautiful country. We are so thankful that we are able to do this now at this time in our lives. Yes, we are pinching the pennies and the diesel cost is quite expensive. Today we had fueled up at $2.85 a liter which converts over to $7.68 a gallon. And yes, that is after the exchange rate from Canadian to US currency.  But this is a once in a lifetime trip, and the more that we find free places like this to camp, it saves on our budgeted $35 a night Campground fee that we had originally planned on. So it all evens out in the end.

And it's so worth it...

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

156 miles traveled today 

1,870 miles traveled so far