A Day in Saint John, NB

Lordy, lordy another sunny day. Jill got up first and waved goodbye to our neighbor Biker John leaving as I dragged my achy back into a nearly upright position. For a pair of thrill seekers we got on our way a bit late.

The road out of the campsite was being worked on so we had to go the "long way round" about way through Rockwood Park. At a fork in the road I took a left that led us through an older residential neighborhood. Like winding through West Van I chose to follow the streets that had yellow centre lines.

With luck we wound up on a road that felt like the right way to go but not knowing east from north we stopped in at a Petro Can for fuel. A fellow with a Harley T shirt rode in on his riding mower to fill up too. He had long wild blonde hair trailing out from his baseball cap and a wide full of beans grin. Jill commented on his unknown model of Harley and struck up a friendly conversation. Telling him that we were looking to see Reversing Falls he indicated that we were but a mile or so from it. At that time I realized that I had forgotten my wallet at the campsite. While Jill went to pay, the Harley mower guy gave me instructions on how to find our way back to the campground. Following his guidance and recognizing some of the streets we had been on we took the"long way back" and eventually found my wallet.

Once again I had to retrace our way back to the corner with the gas station. (Jill interjects... these back street are bumpy with potholes right down to the bedrock. Must have been murderous on Grant's back) We got lucky as this addled brain is not always reliable. We did get to Reversing Falls but missed the most impressive tide change. This is a spot where the waters of Grand Bay and Saint John Harbour meet and depending whether it is high or low tide one body of water is higher or lower than the other. This makes for a water fall at this point. Boats do not pass through it during that time.

We left Reversing Falls and headed to Hampton going east on Hwy 1 which felt like west to me (talk about your reversing falls). A swift ride for about 40 kms and we turned into the town of Hampton.

There was a visitor centre there so we pulled in. I asked if the road by the centre went into the heart of town to which the young man said 'this is the heart of town'. Kitty corner there was a grand old building that could have been a church or town hall. I found out it was a law office. The lad then pointed out on his map a route that is a very nice motorcycle loop to take. It goes toward Kingston and up to Belleisle Bay. So we headed down the road to Kredl's Corner Market and hung a left to check out this ride. The road was fair but by no means good. As we got up into the countryside some of the houses and properties were amazing. Not the kind of thing you would expect off on an old country road. As we turned from Kingston toward Belleisle Bay there were some openings in the trees and views from some large lots. The Bay was glorious and the views that some of these houses had were what some people pay a million for.

The loop took about an hour and we wound up back at Kredl's Corner. We stopped at for an ice cream and decided to buy some groceries too. While there I overheard a fellow commenting that he had just managed to stay ahead of the rain in his convertible, I guess the top didn't go up. He said it was coming from Saint John. We could see that the wind was picking up outside and some clouds had come in. Oh well we would have to take whatever came. But as luck would have it we hit no rain at all and only some parts of the road that looked as though it had sprinkled a bit earlier.

So we were in luck, and to further that the road that leads up to our campground is an exit off Hwy 1. Back at our campsite there was no evidence of anything but sun all day. I took a rest and a pill for the back and now we will sit down for a lovely campsite dinner.