Saint Stephen NB – Moncton NB
Sat Sep 2, 2023
(~264 miles)

Following our late arrival in Saint Stephen last night, we allowed ourselves a bit of a sleep-in to 07:45. The morning air was chilly, about 48F, but sunny and clear. We’re on vacation, yeah! I retrieved us some coffee from the small front office of the motel, which the proprietress insisted upon pouring for me. While Char got ready, I strolled around the property a bit to stretch my legs and snap a few pics.

There was one other motorcycle in the lot, a BMW cruiser model. When a Quebecois couple emerged from their room to pack things up, I struck up a conversation with them, as they graciously spoke to me in decent but halting English. They were riding down to Campobello Island this morning before turning back and returning north to Miramichi by highway. I wasn’t familiar with the town, so they explained it was north of Moncton (our destination for the evening) so my geographical knowledge leveled up a notch. I wished them safe journey, pleased to have made contact with some Canadian motorcyclists already.

Char and I loaded up and pulled out of the motel about 08:45, headed back into Saint Stephen to find some breakfast. There were a couple restaurants recommended in the NER trip notes, and I’d spotted them last night as we trundled through the dark rainy streets. After fueling up at the local Irving station, we pulled in at Carman’s Diner to see what’s what. It had a neat 50s style vibe going on, with chrome trimmed counter stools and the little jukebox remote selection panels at each booth.

Char opted to stick with oatmeal, while I had a ham & cheese omelet w/side of bacon. I’d give the food a solid 3/5 – nothing special, just decent diner food.

Over our breakfast, we chatted about todays plan and some of the possible stops we’d be making. Unfortunately, it was looking like we’d be passing by world-famous Hopewell Rocks at either the wrong tide (high), or possibly after open hours, which was a bit earlier at this time of year. The rocks are one of the most dramatic locations to witness the Bay of Fundy’s claim to largest tidal range in the world, and were a big item on our bucket list.

Then I quickly did some calculations and realized that Moncton wasn’t all that far from Hopewell and there was a low tide in the morning. There was an outside chance that we’d be able to shoot back down to the rocks first thing tomorrow morning before we continued on our journey. But that decision would need to wait for later, depending on how we were feeling.

After breakfast, I wanted to get a quick look at the town of Saint Stephen in the daylight, so we did a little zigzag through one of the neighborhoods just to scope it out. Lots of standard single-family ranches and colonials, with several larger, older houses on some of the quieter back streets we cruised. Could be any town in New England, tell the truth, with mostly well-kept yards, lawns, flowerbeds, etc. Just those small little differences including the Canadian flag flying. We ended up back on the main boulevard to see “downtown”, riding back as far as the border bridge we’d crossed last night. Nice little town.

We decided to leave town along the St. Croix river for a few miles, just to continue exploring a bit before linking up with the NER US to Moncton route we’d be following today. Taking Ledge and Oak Haven roads (with a nice wooded stretch, better than going back through the town stoplights) we linked up with the GPS route on NB 170, and circled around Oak Bay off the St. Croix River.

Continuing to hug the river, we motored south down the peninsula via NB 127 to quickly reach the small colonial village of St. Andrews, on Passamaquoddy Bay.

Before entering town, we decided to stop at the waypoint for St. Andrews Blockhouse National Site, a recreation of an historic British defensive position helping protect the town and river. Originally built during the War of 1812, the blockhouse itself is a distinct-looking two-story cubic structure with a single upper window on each side, and several musket embrasures. It was closed to visitors today, but the views of the wide tidal river here are very pretty. We wandered around the restored cannon on their swiveling mounts for a half hour or so, reading interpretive signs with other morning visitors.

We found restrooms across the street, then continued our slow cruise into St. Andrews, which was bustling with weekend tourist activity. Lots of historic architecture lined Water Street, with plenty of shops, restaurants and well-kept B&B’s typical of northeast seaside destination towns. Traffic was heavy due to crosswalks for the mile or so it took to get to the end of the road and land, but it gave us opportunity to take in the atmosphere.

Past the downtown, at the point of land, we found a fairly busy seaside campground right across the street from a small public park right on the waters of Passamaquoddy Bay.

Continuing our loop of the peninsula, we rode back west through a quieter part of town and right through the middle of the Algonquin Resort, a classic grand hotel property, sitting beautifully on the heights of land within the town. We pulled over for a minute or two to take in the architecture of this surprise architectural treat. I especially loved one long section green-painted panels filled with 19th century multi-pane windows, which I think is the hotel’s restaurant.

We continued under the hotel’s lovely skyway bridge, picking our way back to NB 127 and off the peninsula. We headed north and east up to Highway 1 to get past the head of the bay. Route 1 is a big fast divided four-laner up here, and traffic was sparse. After just a few miles, we exited into the village of St. George to take a look at a millhouse waterfall, which is optional on the NER route. I’d included it for us since we were going to miss out on some of the low-tide attractions today and had plenty of time to spare.

Just before the village center, we turned down a steep grade towards the long narrow inlet of Passamaquoddy Bay that stretches out to this little hamlet. We crossed a nice steel truss one-lane bridge over an outlet gorge, spotting the waterfall off to our right. At the far end of the bridge, we parked in a small off-kilter dirt pulloff (not room for a lot of bikes here).

The bridge includes a sidewalk on one side and a small bump-out observation platform on the side facing the old mill and falls, to stand out of traffic. The multiple cascades of the Magaguadavic River here make for a very pretty sight!

On the downstream side of the bridge, we spent a few more minutes watching a bunch of seabirds fishing the rushing waters and swirling eddies that flowed out from underneath us into the bay, scouring the shorelines to bare granite cliffs.

All told, a worthwhile 15 minute detour. When we’d had our fill, we mounted up and headed back up the sloped streets to pick up Highway 1 again at the same exit. In several more miles, we exited on NB 175 to pass through the fun-to-say village of Pocologan, hugging the shoreline for our first proper views of the Bay of Fundy. A few more miles and we turned off 175, following the GPS and the signs to Lepreau Falls Provincial Park, to check out our second waterfall of the day. We had the place to ourselves during our stop here.

There are two viewing areas with a short walk through some lovely evergreens in between. We loved the wooden bench with carved relief graphics explaining some of the complex geological history of the area, and how it helped create features like these falls. We hadn’t realized that the Maritimes had such a tectonically interesting history!

We retraced our steps back out to route 175, then turned south on NB 790 to tour another section of rural coastline by the bay, routing down along Dipper Harbour. More pretty water views of the bay and a small fishing/lobstering community. We hit a couple miles of construction gravel on the way to Chance Harbour, before turning north back up to Highway 1, which is actually the only through-road for this small section of the coastal region.

We soon entered the urban landscape of St. John, which is Canada’s oldest city and the second most populous in New Brunswick after Moncton. Our next planned stop is to check out the famous “reversing falls“, a unique phenomenon that occurs due to the giant tidal range. As the tide comes in from the Bay of Fundy into the St. John River, the volume of water overwhelms the river current, essentially reversing the flow over some geological ledges located on the river bottom, creating a slight waterfall effect from the ocean. As luck would have it, we arrived in St. John very close to high tide so this was at least one tidal feature that we would get to enjoy on our first Bay of Fundy adventure.

Exiting the highway onto local streets by a shopping mall, we dealt with the busier, though by no means intolerable traffic, following the GPS line to manage our way across the river. We skipped past the tourist visitor center, due to time concerns, and made directly for Falls View Park on the opposite shore. It was easy to find, and the park is free and open to the public, with a short loop road and plenty of parking along with some picnic areas. One of the things we picked up on quickly during this trip, is that Canada seems to love putting picnic tables everywhere!

It was about 13:30 and there were quite a few other visitors in the park to witness the high tide spectacle, but it wasn’t crowded at all. We meandered long the short paved footpath, looking at the water and interpretive signs that helped us understand the geologic history of the area and explanation for the reversing falls effect.

The water was rushing quickly from left to right in front of us, coming in from the Bay of Fundy to fill the portion of the river called Grand Bay. The “falls” aren’t really that obvious at first, with such a large expanse of water in front of us, but we were able to pick out some areas where there was a definite drop in elevation as the water flowed around the hillock-shaped rocky islets. It really looks more like rapids than a waterfall, but still pretty cool!

The lush foliage and wildflowers of late summer along the riverbanks made for an interesting contrast with the paper processing plant across the water, belching white plumes of smoke into the sky. Someone spotted some seals paddling around close to the main observation area, though they weren’t more than small bumps on the roiling surface of the eddy they rested within.

Leaving the park and heading into St. John back to the highway, we noticed a distinct rocky hill within the city landscape with a big “Saint John” sign in Hollywood-esque letters. There appeared to be some sort of historic fort up there, so when our route took us near the base, we decided to explore a bit and try to find our way up there for a view.

Turns out this is the site of Fort Howe, a British fortification built during the American Revolution to guard the mouth of the Saint John River, now a city park. Following a narrow driveway winding up the back of the ridgeline, we emerged to a small parking area with some great harbor views, a monument about the fort, and the flags of New Brunswick, Canada, and the UK. whipping briskly in the ocean breezes. The NB flag has a cool Viking ship on it.

After enjoying the view, we wound our way along the rest of the driveway through the small park, passing another replica military blockhouse (looked closed) at the far end of the hill before heading down to rejoin local traffic. We found the nearest onramp to Highway 1 and followed it a couple miles to clear the city before diverging once more onto local roads running past the St John Airport. The route turned us south on NB 825 for another rural swing down along the coast, for more scenic riding by the mouths of large creeks emptying into the bay.

The single-lane Tynemouth Creek Covered Bridge is a picturesque sight in the open seaside landscape where the creek widens dramatically into a huge tidal basin just off the main bay.

In a couple miles we joined NB 111 east to St. Martins, where we turned on Main St. While still a small community, the famous sea caves here seem to have driven a bit more opportunity for outdoors tourism and commerce in an otherwise quiet region.  We rolled past an Irving fuel station, local general store, and then an ice cream place and some kayak rentals by the small harbor.

The faux St. Martins Lighthouse museum is located right here across from the harbor and was mobbed with tourists. After quickly scanning a nearby sign and realizing it wasn’t a real lighthouse, plus noting the crowds, we didn’t stop. Apparently the structure was built in the 1980s to display the lantern from an older incarnation of nearby Quaco Head Light.

Within throwing distance of the lighthouse museum, the double-barreled Vaughn Creek Covered Bridge is a modern-built structure spanning the full two lanes of the road where the creek flows into the harbor. It is wider and probably taller than any other covered bridge I’ve seen, able to easily accommodate tour buses and tractor trailers – at the same time if need be! Quite a unique sight.

Following the road out of the harbor and around the curve, we quickly came up on the famous sea caves area and the Caves Restaurant, which was our chosen destination for what was now a pretty late lunch.

As it was fairly breezy out and the afternoon sun bright and harsh, we decided to dine inside, out of the elements. The restaurant wasn’t too busy at this time of afternoon, just past 15:00, so we scored a prime table by the windows with a lovely view out to the caves, which were still half-submerged at mid-tide. Upon being questioned, our friendly waitress informed us that by the time low tide hit, the water line that was currently just outside the restaurant would be a few hundred yards further out and the caves fully exposed for people to walk out to. Nature is pretty amazing up here on the Bay of Fundy!

I had to try their “famous” seafood chowder, which only comes in a full bowl size, along with a Caesar salad. The salad was OK, tasted like bottled dressing. The chowder was hearty, but very bland. Char got a fish sandwich that she said wasn’t good at all and didn’t finish it. Pretty hard to mess up a fish sandwich when you are a seaside restaurant at a world-famous tourist location. With the high prices ($52US total), I’d say this place is cashing in on the location rather than the food quality. Probably would NOT stop here again for a full meal. 👎

The scenery WAS amazing though and we enjoyed the atmosphere and listening to the French spoken by the large family group seated nearby while their two small children ran around the restaurant, noisily looking to get into mischief. It caused me a bit of reflection back on my own history as an adolescent miscreant who didn’t want to sit still. 😬

By the time we’d finished up our mediocre lunch and headed back outside, the tide had already dropped noticeably, though the waterline was still quite some distance from the caves. Looking far left down the beach, we could see a lot of people hanging around, waiting on the tide. We had to keep moving, however, and mounted back up.

In a couple miles, we arrived at the entrance kiosk to Fundy Trail Provincial Park and the western end of the fabled Fundy Trail Parkway. This renowned scenic drive alongside the coastal cliffs of New Brunswick was only recently completed as a fully paved road in the last couple of years. So now we would be able to ride all the way through the park and continue our way east rather than turning around as I’ve heard was necessary/recommended in the past. After paying the $20US total for the both of us, we bid the friendly attendant farewell and motored up the parkway.

I knew from pre-trip research that there would be many scenic vista pull-offs (called look-offs or lookouts up here) and other interesting stops along the parkway, and that there wouldn’t be time enough to stop at all of them. We did pull over after rounding the first corner up high over the bay waters, at Fownes Head Lookout. to get a nice first glimpse at the magnificent cliff shoreline.

We continued along the exposed cliffside before the road turned inland with some nice curves to cross over a small river. The surface of the parkway seemed to be more of a chip-seal rather than solid asphalt. I didn’t detect any slippage and it didn’t seem very loose, but I proceeded cautiously for now until I got a better feel for the handling.

Not 10 minutes after that first vista, we came upon the small lot for Fuller Falls and decided to stop in there too, to see our fourth waterfall of the day!

Access to the falls is down a narrow wobbly flight of stairs held together by steel cables and chains. That was kind of fun and unique and dumped us out on a nice solid wooden observation deck overhanging the stream just below the falls, as it continued to cascade down towards the bay, which was barely visible through the trees. A beautiful spot, worth the trouble to stop!

 

The platform was fairly small and other tourists were trickling through to take photos of the falls, so we only stayed 10 minutes or so before making our way back up the swaying staircase. Back on the bike, we now tried to get in a groove of enjoying the continuous wonderful curves and stunning vistas that popped out as we traced the contours of the shoreline cliffs. There was surprisingly little traffic, maybe due to the late hour, so we were able to get some nice leaning in as the pavement quality increased the further west we got.

After the final dramatic view at Martins Head Lookout, we turned inland to head out of the park and circle around those magnificent seaside hills. Shepody Road was a sinuous ribbon of blacktop winding far into the distance across a landscape of scrubland and heath. With few other vehicles to be seen, we wound it up and covered the miles here quickly, still exhilarated from the twisty fun of riding the parkway.

Picking up NB 114, we turned southwest again towards the coast, passing through Fundy National Park woodlands and emerging at the seaside community of Alma. The Forty Five River runs into the Bay of Fundy here and Alma seems to be one of the more populous tourist towns along the Fundy coast, with plenty of services and local businesses. The tide had continued it’s relentless march out to sea in the past couple hours, and it was cool to see a large lobster boat left sitting on the exposed sea floor in the small harbor. This is a popular photo I’ve seen in several places over the years. I’d like to stop in here for an evening’s stay the next time we travel up this way.

For now, however, we motored straight on through the village, veering west onto NB 915 and rounding along the exposed seafloor of Chignecto Bay.

The NER route includes an optional waypoint for a side trip to the Cape Enrage Lighthouse, and I’d decided to include it in our plans as long as we were doing OK on time. We were, so when we got to it, we turned right to follow Cape Enrage Road south to the point. This is a very pretty detour, a narrow windy lane with nice views of salt marshes.

Near the end of the road, the road straightens out a bit with a large gravel parking pullout for Pebble Beach. With the high cliff of Cape Enrage as a backdrop, we had to stop and take some photos. The rocks that compose this beach make it an interesting stop just on its own, as they have been worn into flat rounded disc shapes as big as plates (or much bigger). It was almost like a rock garden, and previous visitors had built a few stacked structures that put normal cairns to shame.

After playing with the rocks a bit, we continued on up the final sharp bends of the headland to reach the end of the road at Cape Enrage Light. The light station here was built at a critical location in upper Fundy Bay for seafaring trade of old, with a treacherous reef of rocks close by, and tidal currents that run contrary to prevailing winds. Like so many lighthouses after mechanical automation and GPS, this one was rescued by concerned local citizens and now exists primarily on the non-profit funding of the on-site restaurant and adventure activities like ziplining and rappelling that are offered to tourists.

The main parking seemed to be closed at this time, but there were several vehicles parked outside the gates and we found a spot in front of a camper van to park the bike for a nice shot with the lighthouse. The views of the surrounding bay and shoreline are beautiful from up here and we soaked it in, very glad we’d made this detour.

After another fun run back out along Cape Enrage Road, we continued circling north on 915 to cross the Shepody River and reconnect with NB 114 at Riverside-Albert. Within a few miles, we came upon the entrance for Hopewell Rock Provincial Park and decided to turn in just to check things out even though we had just missed the posted closing time. Other hopeful Hopewell tourists were also turning up the long driveway and faced with a closed set of gates. Some intrepid folks were parking their cars along the edges of the roundabout and heading off across the huge parking lots on foot. We briefly wondered if this would be a worthwhile endeavor and whether we should attempt the same, since who knows when we might be back up here to see one of the world’s natural wonders?

After scoping the situation out for a few minutes, we decided that based on the late hour and being fairly pooped from a long day exploring the coast, we would just continue on to our hotel. Plus, there was still the option of trying to come back here first thing in the morning if we felt like waking early enough. So we headed back out to 114 and continued on past Hopewell Cape and beyond the head of the bay at last, turning inland.

Now we were heading NNW paralleling the Petitcodiac River, amongst a bit more local traffic than we’d been used to dealing with most of today. We passed slower cars when able, and enjoyed a few sparse views of the river and some deep grass-lined gullies for tributary streams that the road traverses on the way up to Moncton.

To my surprise, this stretch only took us about a half hour (don’t bother calculating that based on speed limits 😏), before we saw the taller buildings and lights of Moncton just ahead over the river. By now the gears were really turning in my head about getting back to Hopewell Rocks tomorrow morning, if I could just convince my pillion. 🙂 It was right before sunset and the greenery of the riverside park set a pretty foreground to that big yellow star settling slowly towards the horizon.

It felt a bit strange dealing with traffic signals again, but they more or less worked the same as traffic signals do, and we crossed the bridge into Moncton proper without issue.

Within a couple miles and through a couple more lights, we pulled into the parking lot of the Rodd Moncton hotel, right on the banks of the river. This was the recommended hotel for the NER route, and it had been completely booked when I’d originally tried booking it in July. Other nearby hotels seemed either lower quality or too high in rate.

As a side note, I have noticed in researching my few forays north of the border that many Canadian hotels do not include parking in their quoted rates, which I still find annoying and frustrating. Parking is always either free or included in the rate with most US hotels I’ve ever dealt with, even in smaller cities, so it seems rather disingenuous to me. 😠

Although we’d then booked an AirBnB on the other side of town, I’d thought to check again last week and rooms had become available, so we changed back to the original plan, to be closer to the downtown restaurants. This worked out well and the Rodd Moncton definitely seems a great value at the right times of year.

It was already 19:45 by the time we checked in, so we got quickly up to our room to settle in and clean up. The hotel is right on the river and next door to a park from which you can watch the famous tidal bore effect. Unfortunately, the tides foiled us yet again, with the next high tide and incoming bore coming around midnight. Disappointing, but we tried to be philosophical in that it would make a good reason for another trip up here in the future. Also, I’d read there may be other less dramatic places to see the bore later in our trip.

Due to the late hour, it was tough finding a restaurant close by that was: a) still open; b) looked appetizing; and c) would have a decent vegetarian option for Char. After a light breakfast and only picking at her fish sandwich for lunch, she was craving a good meal. The Keg steakhouse was just down the street and seemed to fit the bill, so we dressed and got moving.

The restaurant was about a five minute walk. While it seemed a bit more upscale than our jeans/hoodie/fleece apparel displayed, our options were limited and our money is good, so why not enjoy it! Once we were in the dining area, our casual dress didn’t seem too far out of place with the other patrons after all. Our young waitress was extremely personable and struck up easy conversation, asking about our trip when she realized we were up from the states.

Char ordered the vegan meatloaf, which is what had caught her eye on the online menu. After being reminded that I couldn’t order a medium-rare steak in this country (boo Canada!), I splurged on a nice piece of prime rib (the exception to the rule) with veggies and onion strings. Both meals were delicious!

We were in and out in less than an hour, strolling back to the hotel while fireworks lit the sky beside us over the river. We weren’t sure of the occasion, but maybe they’d heard they had some visitors from Massachusetts tonight? 🙃 We stopped to watch for a bit on a bench in the small town park along the way, while letting our stomachs settle. It was rather nice to be on vacation walking the streets in a new city (and different country!) after being in the saddle all day.

Here is a photo gallery including more photos from today’s ride.