Day 12 - 2025 East Coast Adventure - Swimming in Canada!

7/29 - Fundy to Hopewell rocks to Fundy

Today was largely the reason this trip was designed.  The bay of Fundy is an incredible, once in the world, natural phenomenon and being able to experience this incredible daily water flow is something I could remember since my trip as a kid. Needless to say, I didn't have any issues getting out of bed!  Of course, it didn't hurt that I had fallen asleep around 9:15 and we had a low of 57 degrees. 

Anyways, I was running us on somewhat of a schedule since the natural timetable of low tide was what we were aiming for as we headed toward Hopewell Rocks for the day.  As such, we opted for an easy-ish breakfast of bagel/egg/cheese sandwiches and some fruit. 

After a quick 40 minute drive, we pulled into Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park. As it turns out, so did all of the rest of the province!  Seriously, there were a LOT of people that were all ready to take a trip to the ocean floor.

We paid our entrance fee and, before we headed down, we got our first glimpse of the Hopewell Rocks. While the rocks are neat, the fact that at high tide you can kayak around them and at low tide you can safely walk around their foundations is simply mind boggling.  It is the largest tidal swing in the world and is certainly the only tide I've seen where I can visibly see it come in. If you have time, check out YouTube - they can explain how amazing it is. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbU0c9798sY&ab_channel=KevinSnair

Anyways, we weren't hear to be on the top, we were here to walk down the 99 steps to get to the ocean floor.  We made it down there and got our necessary family picture. 



Then we wandered around the ocean floor heading toward diamond rock but had to stop because Sebastian spotted a pair of peregrine falcons!  We watched them and snapped some pictures and then headed on. We made it to Diamond Rock right at official low tide (10:06). It's still hard to believe that each person in the pictures below are completely underwater for 4-6 hours a day.


With the tide starting to come in, we started back towards the stairs. Our return trip was substantially slower, not just because I wanted to watch the tide, but also because Robinson was in heaven since there were dogs everywhere!  There were so many, I was afraid his petting hand might get a blister!  

Eventually the rest of the family grew tired of the tide watching and so they headed up the 101 stairs (not a typo, there are a different number of stairs up then down). I stayed down to watch more of the tide. I also climbed up into a sea cave that was available when I went into it, but 6 hours later would have been underwater. After some final exploring, I took headed back up the stairs. 

Up above we found a few last dogs before having a quick lunch and then heading back toward camp. However, before we made it to camp, we stopped in Alma for some souvenir shopping. We didn't find anything, but got some good ideas. 



Back at camp, we reorganized and then decided to go to the pool.  That's right, Fundy National Park has a pool. And, it's saltwater and solar heated!  It even has a diving board!  So, after Robinson jumped in about 20 times, even Sebastian got into the spirit and braved the diving board.  Before I knew it, they were both doing flips!!!  I did a few dives myself because diving boards are seemingly rarer and rarer. 





Amy wasn't into swimming and so she left the pool and went for a run. Later, she came back to check on us. Since the boys weren't ready to go, she went to get firewood for the night. Just as the pool was started to close (and the temperature was beginning to fall), the boys and I packed up and headed back to camp. 

We had a quick dinner of Mac n cheese with veggies and a rice dish. Then the boys and Amy went back into Alma for some ice cream. I cleaned up camp and then, with nothing else to do, headed out for a jog. 

I had a route planned out, but while I knew the approximate distance, I did NOT know the profile. I ended up with 1,247 feet of elevation change in just 5.5 miles!  However, my reward for this challenging route was a completely empty beach!  



I made it back just as the fire was getting started. We enjoyed the fire, wound down the day (I put on the cubs game on radio) and called it a day. Thank you bay of Fundy for keeping me fascinating in nature!

Trip mileage - 1,845
# states - 12
# provinces - 1

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