本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛The second day, Saturday August 8, we left hotel room at 9:30am, which was an hour earlier than a day before, and today's destination - Saint John, New Brunswick. Booked a hotel room only a few hours ago using free but not reliable wireless Internet access that Quebec hotel had provided. We would stay in Saint John for two nights. It was still a long drive, more than 600km. As usual, we stopped for breakfast and lunch at Tim Horton's, picked up map and travelers' guide from information center in NB. J had no interest on anything, just sit at cube, reading Harry Porter - pretending to be a book worm. She complained the way I coughing, expecting me cover my face with sleeves even though I was driving. And she did show me how for she was coughing, naturally.

On highway 2, my GPS jumped off to nowhere. The female voice repeatedly but patiently announced "Recalculating", "Please drive to the highlighted ground", ... I could see that, on the GPS, my car drove off-road, crossing ground without any landmark or floating on water while the speed was more than 100km. Dam Garmin!, I trusted in you but you give me such a direction when I was thousand miles away from my comfort zone. The good thing was that I should drive more than 300km on highway 2. So just shut down the GPS and went.

We reached hotel at Saint John harbour at 6:00pm, spent almost an hour to check in decause Expedia.ca and the hotel did not exchange information on my last minute booking. The first thing after check-in was go out, searching for food. We went to the market place where we were told that we could find different restaurants. There were only two - one was too expensive even to J, the other one was a pub and we did not like its atmosphere. And J finally tired of Tim Horton's. We went back to the hotel and had a dinner in its restaurant - it was no good, the worst meal in the trip. We ended up cooking noodle in the hotel room again.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Third day, Sunday August 9th, was actually the first day of sight seeing. Booked a whale watching at 4:00pm, then drove to the opposite direction for visiting Fundy Trail. It was 78km away from Saint John. The trail was not worth the time and money, and we had to drive about 200km to St Andrews. GPS told me that we could report to Tide Runner at 3:17pm, two minutes later than expecting arrival time. But I felt sleepy, I had to hand over the wheel to my wife. She drove carefully but slowly, I saw the arrival time on GPS changed from 3:17pm to 3:20pm and 3:35pm ... Then on the single lane road, we had no way of passing local cars which drove exactly at the speed limit. We were the last group reporting to Tide Runner's registration office at 3:47pm. Fortunately, we were on the jet boat which was sliding away from harbour towards deep sea, searching for whales.

We all wore orange colored suits which kept us warm and served as life jacket under emergency situation. An old lady sit at front of me held railing tightly, with eyes closed and lip bitten between teeth. She was scared to death when the roller-coast like jet boat jumping up and down against wave. My wife had a frozen smile on her face, holing a strap of my jacket as a life saving straw. She was no better than the old lady. At a turn, sea water jumped over on us who sat at right side of the boat. And the water pulled directly into my orange suit from collar, all the way down to my pants and then stopped in my water-proof hiking boots. (I did not aware how much water I had taken until undressed the orange suit later.) Cruised about 45 minutes, we saw a whale spray at distance; captain David drove the boat close to where the whale was but it did not show up again. Then, at distance another whale lured us with its back, we closed in again and disappointed again. Finally, we caught close to a whale and the captain shut down the boat, he said we could hear its breath if everyone kept quiet. And indeed, we head a deep puff and then the whale showed its back. It was a minke whale who was about 25 foot long and never did tail flipping. We also saw a few dolphins and seals but that was the only close encounter with a whale during the whale watching trip.

A young girl sit beside me had dropped her head into dream while the captain was still talking about whales. Excitement was over, we came back to the dock and found our selves hungry.

But I had to change my pants, and shoes.

After changing, I decided to try a seafood restaurant that the hotel recommended on its guest guide. This time, led by GPS, we did not have any trouble to find the Steamer's. We ordered lobster for two, and lobster roll for my Daughter. The food was excellent. I asked my wife and daughter what was the highlight of the day. My wife tried to say whale watching but I said to J, it was the lobster dinner, wasn't it? She said "yea...!".

Checking the weather on the Internet, the next three days would be raining in all Maritime Provinces. Even though I had encountered thunder storm , snow fall and hail on my hiking trips, I would like to keep my family at sunny side. Since we did not even have a plan A, it was not difficult to draw a plan B. We would visit Gaspe on the north east corner of Quebec.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛We still had another day to spare in NB. On Monday August 10th, we went to Fundy National Park, 120Km north from Saint John. At Wolf Point, we watched tide fill into the cove. Rocks submerge under water gradually; and stream disappeared when sea water took over the beach. J did not want to leave; she wanted to play rocks and collect shells on the beach and watch for tide covering the whole area. But we planed to go for Hopewell Rocks, another hour drive from Fundy Park. When we reach there, we already hungry and decided have lunch first. But there was no restaurant to be found. We had to set up camping stove in the parking lot; And J wanted sausage, a lot of sausage in noodle. After lunch, we brought tickets and went into the park. The first thing we saw was a restaurant. J was yelling, saying I lied to her on purpose.

Had a purpose or not; the game was over.

Hopewell rocks was famous for Fundy tide eating away their trunk just like beaver cut down trees. When tide was low, visitors could walk on the sea floor and check Hopewell rocks closely; when tide was high, as when we were there, kayaks could paddle through Hopewell Rocks. The difference between high and low tide could reach 48 foot or 4 story high that made Fundy bay the highest tide on the world. The reason was that Fundy Bay had a big mouth but narrow throat. When tide rushed in from the big mouth; all water was pushed through the narrow throat and force water level gone up dramatically.

Before night closing in, we reached Moncton, a "big" city in NB. We decided to find shelter there for the night. GPS showed a list of hotels near by along the Main Street. When we drove on Main Street, we could feel actions of a city - constructions, police cars and shops. And hotel price definitely told us where we were. We have to turn away from down town core. Only five minutes drive, we found a so called Midtown Motel. The price tag was in acceptable range. But everything else was extra. Washing clothes cost $6. My wife was not happy; she got a mosquito bite and complained about it to the owner. I knew it was not about the mosquito bite but the downgrade from a hotel to a motel.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Checking the weather again, and found that the weather pattern had changed. No rain in Cape Breton in the next few days. So we would execute plan A again.

We drove from Mocton towards Cape Brenton, Nova Scotica. It was Tuesday August 11. The plan was to drove the whole Cabot Trail and stop at camping site for two nights. But I still had not decided whether I should do it clockwise or counterclockwise when we crossed Canso Causeway and drove on HWY 105 towards Baddeck. We stopped for gas and directions for my GPS was suggesting me make shortcuts. The lady we asked said you could go both directions. clockwise for the mountain view and counterclockwise for the sea view. And when you done one, come back and do another one in the opposite direction. Well, I would if I had time. The decision was made when I missed a left turn to Margaree; so we could only do counterclockwise route which was actually my preferred route.

The first stop on Cabot trail was at St. Ann's Bay. I took pictures of beautiful bogs while my wife cooked lunch there. Then we drove around sea shore and the view was fantastic. We stopped at lookouts and wished to spot whales. But whale watching was not what you could expect in a few minute stops.

Finally, we stopped at Broad Cove camping site. Asking for a camping site, the girl in the booth gave me a map and asked me to find a camping site we liked before booking. So we drove all the way to the beach, picked a site closest to the beach. My daughter was excited about the beach. She went when we were setting things down. When we joined her, she was throwing rocks into the wave with smile that I had not seen during the trip so far. I asked her to come with us hiking a trail at Middle Head. She was not willing to but followed us. The sun already went down to the hill on the west and it was cold with the wind from the ocean. When we reached the trail head, J refused to go and preferred stay in the car reading Harry Porter. My wife and I went to the trail but it was really getting dark. So we turned back to the camping site.

After diner, we carried headlamps and went to the beach again. Shut of headlamps and sit on rocks in the dark; wave rushed to the shore break the silent of darkness; stars popped up into sky and suddenly, we saw a dim light on the horizon of the sea. We thought it could be a camping fire, but there was no land on horizon. It was the moon rising from the clouds. It lit up clouds around it; and sometimes thick clouds overtaken the reflection from the moon. Watching the change of light and darkness over the ocean, we sit on rocks for a long time until the moon jumped out of clouds and spray shine layer of light on the wave.

It was the first time that J expressed she want camping instead of hotel.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Next day morning, when every one was still in dream, I woke up and carried camera to the beach. The sky just had a brush of read on horizon, and the red changed quickly both in color and in shape. The sun was going to rise up against thick clouds. The wave now socked with warm golden-red while it was still as strong when it hit the rocks. The rocks also reflected the golden color when it facing the wave; did not yield an inch. This was my best experience of sunrise around water edge.

J wanted to stay on this site for at least another night, but we had a tight schedule and wanted to explore other places. We did a short hike of the trail called
Jack Pines. I was told that from the trail we could go down to a nice beach but found the section of the trail had been closed. Since I had promised J go to a beach, we drove a back a little to a sandy beach. It was a nice beach, a lot of kids as well as adults were playing or swimming around the beach. J and I went a little off from the crowd was and found a perfect sand beach between two piles of big rocks. We jumped into water and the wave rushed to hug us. This was my second time swimming in the sea and it was the first time to J. We spent about an hour before drove on to the next spot.

The next spot was Skyline Trail. It was a well maintained trail, almost flat except at the end of the trail where there were board walks going down to edge of cliff. On the way in we spotted a male moose sit in the forest. The light drew an outline of his huge horns, providing a beautiful silhouette in the natural setting. We also saw two female moose across the trail, going home, less than 10 meters from where we were. J was very excited and even wanted to go and touch them. But moose made a warning sound from her nose. And we all stood still let them go for peace. On Skyline trail, we could see the Cabot trail zigzag
along the sky. I would guess that was how the trail got its name. J collected blue berries on the sides of board walk and enjoyed their freshness.

That night, we camped at Corney Brook Camping site. It was a self reservation site. We filled in a form and placed cash with the form into an envelope and deposited it into a metal post. There was no running water although there was a stream accessible from the beach.

The good thing about this site was sunset. Watching a red fire ball sinking down at horizon, the sky was painted into golden-red and fading. And then night took over, with camping fire dancing along the rhythm of wave, we felt into sleep with peaceful dreams.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛It was already day 7. We were on last portion of Cabot Trail.

When we stopped at a view point at Pillar Rock, a group of people were gazed at sea. They spotted whales. We were searching at the horizon of the sea, and there were circular water marks created by movements under water. Then we saw something jumped out of the surface, and another... It was whales hunting for fish.

We were told that these might be pilot whales judging by the circular water mark. Pilot whales works as a group, they circle around a school of fish and drive them upwards. Then catch them mouth full. We saw at least 5 whales jumped out of water surface at same time.

My daughter would rather believe they were killer whales. Her argument was that the white reflection from whales - only killer whales have white patched on their body. Even though it was too far to take clear picture of these whales, we were all excited seeing whale hunting in full motion. It was much better experience than whale watching tour we had done in New Brunswick.

Leaving Cabot Trail, we were heading to PEI.

Passing Confederation Bridge, seagulls guided the bridge every 50 to 100 meters. Cars were so close to them but they did not move, only focusing on sea for any possible target or cleaning their feathers dusted by tail-gas from cars.

Then, there were PEI specific farmer land, decorated with farmer houses and cows.

We went all the way across Queens Island to the PEI National Park; only found that the Cavendish camping site was full. So we drove to another camping site of the park and luckily we got a camping spot there.

On the other side of park road, there was a sandy beach. The sea as well as the sky were calm compared with Cape Breton's. The water was shallow, we could walk far from the shore and stood on a sandy patch, watching gentle wave come from all directions.

J was trying to find some sea shells, but under busy traffic of bare footed kids and their parents, none could be found.

We could not see sunset from the beach, only seing pinkish-golden sky casting a even lighter color over the sea. It was a peacful night.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net

本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Day 8 - It's time to go home. I had a business trip on Monday, so have to cut the vacation one day short. We spent few hours at beaches in the park. While J was swimming, I wandered around to a broken dam and found live Jerry fishes flipping their bodies in water. I switched my camera to continues mode and took some pictures of them; wanted to make an animated video.

Before leaving PEI, we went to Charlottetown for a last lobbers treat. I was aiming Lot 30 who claimed no freezer in its kitchen. The funny thing was that it could not be found from my GPS. So I had to ask local people for directions. A group of people running a charity booth told us where it was, but they suggested another restaurant instead for Lot 30 could be expensive. So we could not refuse tips from nice local people and went to the restaurant at at Price & Water st. We were disappointed. The raw oysters were fresh, but too salty for they did not drip off sea water. Lobster was not as good as we had had at Steamer's; and it was expensive too. So net time if you go, go to the famous ones.

After lunch, we drove back to confederation bridge, and then all the way across New Brunswick. We reached the Republic Provincial Park near Quebec board. We set up tent quickly in the dark with only headlamps as light source. And then rest our sore bodies in the tent.

Day 9, I did not much to say. Just drove back to Toronto and had a much needed Chinese dinner before going home. On the way to home, J asked: "Daddy, when can we go for camping again?"更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net