July 22 - Fundy to Murray Beach

July 22, 2010 through July 25, 2010

This blog entry gets you a 4-fer. One blog entry for four days of the trip. 

View Fundy to Murray Beach in a larger map

On Thursday the 22nd, we left the Bay of Fundy and headed for the Murray Beach Provincial Park on the Northumberland Strait. We were headed to a gathering of small fiberglass trailers at the provincial park. We were going to "crash" a gathering of Boler trailers from the Atlantic Provinces.

The Boler trailers are "vintage" fiberglass trailers. The last one came off the line in 1988. 

On the way to Murray Beach, we passed through the small coastal town of Cap-Pele (they pronounce it cap a-lay). At a bakery in Cap-Pele, we found fricot and poutine a Troue. Fricot is a chicken soup/stew that is simple, rustic and really good. Most things called "poutine" in eastern Canada are French fries covered with a brown gravy and cheese curds and topped, sometimes, with bacon. The poutine a Troue, however, are a wonderful fruit filled ball of dough - apples, raisins, cranberries, walnuts - yum!

Sunset at Murray Beach Provincial Park

At Murry Beach, we set up the Scamp and settled in for four days of meeting and visiting with a whole bunch of Canadians from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia (plus one adventurous couple from Alberta.). The ocean water at Murray Beach is very shallow for a long way out into the Northumberland Strait. Consequently, the water is warm and very comfortable for a leisurely wade. 

I've posted photos here. 

At Murray Beach I found, to my surprise, that the location completely and totally threw my internal GPS into a tail-spin. There I was, on the east coast of the continent, looking west watching a beautiful sunset. That felt - well - wrong. In my mind, I could of course puzzle it out. For everything other than the mind, however, it just wasn't right. 

(Edited October 13, 2010 to add the following.)

Cape Jourimain Light and Confederation Bridge

While camped at Murray Beach, we took a side trip to Cape Jourimain National Wildlife Area which is located at the New Brunswick end of the Confederation Bridge. The bridge is eight miles long and is the longest bridge in the world over ice-covered waters.

We also went a little further down the road to Cape Tormentine, a tiny village on the coast, where we could get another view of the bridge.

Back at Cape Jourimain, we explored the nature center and had a pleasant lunch in their Iceboat Landing Restaurant. After lunch, we climbed the observation tower for good views of the bridge and of the Cape Jourimain Light.