Have you ever heard of The Bay of Fundy?!

Reading a book can sometimes lead to an unexpected and wonderful discovery. That is exactly what happened one day in homeschool as we opened up our National Geographic book entitled "5,000 Facts About Everything". In the book we were intrigued on the subject of "tides". I had never heard of The Hopewell Rocks located in The Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick Canada. We read that this seemingly remote location was home to the highest tides in the world! Raising over 50 feet in high tide and the ability to walk the ocean floor at low tide was something I had never read about before let alone seen. We had to add this to our travel bucket list, and that's just what we did.

Traveling from Florida, it took us several days and many other stops to get all the way up there but as we crossed the border, we are excited at the prospect of making that far. Now I have to tell you that this area is very remote and driving at night became a challenge as an eerie and over powering mist rolled in. We literally could not see 3 feet in front of us so we had no idea the topography of the roads. I had booked a "cottage" at http://captainslookoutcottages.com/index.html  and we arrived at nighttime so we had no idea of how beautiful the surrounding area was until the next morning. The cottages were quaint and cute and the grounds were hilly with flowers and scattered with raspberries and sea views. It was beautiful. Having said that, the mosquitos at dusk were something out of a science fiction novel so it was either move inside or take a short ride to Cape Enrage https://www.capeenrage.ca/en/ and sit out under the stars with the ocean breeze and be mosquito free! 

We made our trek up to Hopewell Rocks http://www.thehopewellrocks.ca/ which was not more than 20 minutes drive from our cottage and honestly the prettiest drive we had ever driven. You can see the tide pools along the shore with horse farms and bright purple flowers throughout the road banks. Little school houses that looked as if they had been there for centuries and houses on hills overlooking the bay. As we got to Hopewell, you could see the tide schedule posted clearly so as to know when you could walk safely out to the ocean floor. There was a restuarant and several hiking trails leading up to the grand finale and man it did not disappoint! Giant rock formations that are nicknamed "Flower Pot" rocks towered over us as you roamed the ocean floor in amazement that within just hours would be 50 feet underwater! It was hard to wrap my head around. Walking around is essentially mud, so proper water shoes is a must (especially with kids). We explored for hours out there and then had a little picnic lunch on the grassy spots back up the trail. It was Summer so it was crowded but if you walked further out from where the stairs went down, the crowds thinned. What could possibly top this...well there's more.

The next day we headed out to Fundy National Park https://www.pc.gc.ca/en/pn-np/nb/fundy  which was about 15 minutes south and through a little town named Alma. When I say little, I mean it. There is not even a grocery store so if you travel up there, make sure to stop and stock up on food otherwise you have a choice of about 6 different restaurants and although they were all very good, were pricey. I had looked up the park for hiking trails so I had a general idea of which ones were suitable for kids. We choose Dickson Falls (easy terrain, beautiful creek and waterfall) and it was easy to find because it was the 1st left into the park past the lookout spot into the bay. The other one however was not so easy to find and was actually several km away past Chignecto campground. This one was very popular though and the parking lot was in overflow so we had to wait until people left before we could get in. Laverty Falls was the name and swimming under a incredible waterfall was the reward. I made the mistake of not wearing suits under our clothes so we had to improvise when we got to the bottom and let the kids swim in their undies. There was a good amount of people there but everyone was in their own little area and the falls were incredible! Our kids 6 and 7 were so pumped up to swim after that long hike and we were proud they did it with no complaints. The whole park was a true nature lover's paradise and even watching the boat's in the harbor resting on mud at low tide was a sight to be seen ...at least once in a lifetime.