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