Bay of Fundy, Part II

High: 78° F

Low: 55° F

Conditions: Unlimited sunshine

We spent a good part of last week camping at the Fundy National Park in New Brunswick, home of the highest tides in the world. It's also home to some great flora and fauna, including this pernicious little creature who took great delight in tourmenting one caninaturalist in particular:

Since lounging isn't much of an option when rodents are yelling at you, Ari agreed to join us on a 10-mile hike that looped through the southeastern most part of the park.
We began just above the confluence of this stream and the bay. The covered bridge is a recreation of a 1902 bridge that once stood on the site, a time when this locale was dominated by mining and timber camps. Both did a fair amount of environmental damange, but in the last 10 years, the area has seen the return of Atlantic salmon and eels, along with bald eagles (we counted five!) and the original upland forest.

The trail took us up a steep ridgeline, where we had several miles of fantastic ocean views. We were particularly taken by the halo of sandstone floating just off-shore.

From there, we descended to this fabulous (and completely empty) pebble beach. Unlike our first park, this one didn't prohibit dogs on the beach, so the three of us had great fun taking a cold swim, having a picnic lunch, and lounging as we watched the tide engulf this expanse of land.

From there, our trail turned us back towards our temporary home at the campsite. We passed through this lovely meadow, which was positively blanketed in goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace ,before it returned us to the shadow of a hardwood forest:

Hugging both the ridge and the ocean shore, these woods existed as a micro-rain forest in the otherwise temperate region. We found scads of ferns (good for sniffing) and moss (great for rolling):

Best of all, we confirmed a simple yet beautiful truth: where there is rain and quick elevation loss, there is much moving water.

I think all three of us fell in love with the Bay of Fundy on this trip (though it took awhile for one of us to realize that we were not going to be eaten by squirrels, bears, or dinosaurs). We return refreshed, revitalized, and ready to embrace the new semester.