Wednesday, June 29, 2016

St. John, N.B. - June 29, 2016

Yesterday evening the fog moved in the St. Andrews’ area and was still there this morning.  We moved a little farther east today to St. John, a rather short 68 miles along a foggy coastline.  We are camped at Rockwood Park Campground owned by St. John Horticultural Association.

After setting up and eating lunch we drove to Fallsview Park within the town of St. John.  This park has a good viewing area of the reversing rapids, a natural phenomenon caused by the Bay of Fundy tides.  These tides are the highest tides in the world.  As the St. John River flowing through a narrow gorge to St. John Harbor meets up with a rising tide it creates a reversal of the rapids.  When we were at this viewing area the tides were at low tide so no reversal was in effect.  The flow of the St. John River was extremely strong.  We planned to come back during high tide.

The Reversing Rapids at St. John, NB at Low Tide

The Reversing Rapids at St. John, NB at Low Tide

We then drove to the downtown Market Square that has some shops, restaurants, a library and the New Brunswick Museum. 

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Market Square in St. John, NB

We went into the Museum which was interesting.  We saw a movie playing and went in that room to watch this movie about the Bay of Fundy that was very interesting.  We then walked through the exhibits displaying the history of New Brunswick, art and natural history.  A nice museum.

Before returning to the campground we returned to the reversing rapids but the tide was not at high tide yet.  We have since learned that high tide should occur at 7:55pm.

About 7:30pm we drove again to the Fallsview Park in pouring rain to see the effect of high tide on the rapids of the St. John River .  It was absolutely amazing that the current was now flowing swiftly in the opposite direction from earlier today due to the high 25 foot tide.

The Reversing Rapids at St. John, NB at High Tide

The Reversing Rapids at St. John, NB at Low Tide

Earlier today when we were at the rapids we observed ducks in the water coasting along with the flow of water and then flying up  and landing farther upstream to repeat the coasting and relocating,  like a game.  This evening with the current going in a different direction these same type ducks were doing the same thing but now coasting the opposite direction.  In spite of wearing raincoats this evening we returned to the campground with wet clothes which we soon changed to dry clothes.  And the rain has continued pouring even harder.  Temperature at 9pm is 60 degrees, temperature today was in the low 70’s.