Touring New Brunswick......

Our Location: Walmart Front Parking Lot, Bathurst, New Brunswick


We left Edmunston after a rainy night. We shared the parking lot with numerous other RV’ers and something I noticed that was odd to me truckers had no issues blocking some of the exit/in roads to the parking lot in the middle of the area. Instead of parking across the lines they just blocked the driveway. I found that odd, and they looked at us odd as I didn’t park that way. Interesting. 

 

Riley noticed this fellow just hanging out while we were leaving Edmunston.

Cool, wet, damp and overcast was again the weather pattern for the day. Our goal was to reach Bathhurst on the north east shores of New Brunswick. One must be careful not to assume all roads on the map are actual roads, some are logging roads and with that in mind we continued on TransCanada 17 South until we veered off onto NB11 which took us north, then east, and finally south to our destination. 

 

Some of the long sweeping views as we left Edmunston on Provincial 17.

 

The sky doesn't look it but heavy rain is not far in the offing. Construction is minor.

 

We managed to fill up with the Big Dog’s drinking bowl for $1.24 per litre, best price we’ve seen the entire way. The previous fill up was $1.39 per litre. Huge difference. The green here is new, very much early spring colours and multiple just opening and soon to open blossoms such as crab apple, cherry, etc. Tulips and daffs are still the flower of the day. So we are again experiencing the cool temperatures of early spring. The wind is getting more noticeable which is to be expected nearer to the ocean which we managed to see on our journey today, snips and snaps of it at least. With the rain falling hard at times it was difficult to get any good pictures. However we did manage one or two. A quick stop in the small town of Saint Quentin for a break in their lovely little park  turned out to be the only place to stop during our drive. No other road side areas except one at a small town named Kegwick  which was literally 10 minutes down the road for S.Q. 

Lovely views, can't beat those green colours.

The over cast is getting more noticeable.

 

New Brunswick 11 was for the most part a good highway to drive, it had some extremely rough patches in places but over all it was good. Well signed, lots of moose warnings, although we haven’t seen any live moose, just a number of statues. NB11 reminded Riley and I of the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains in some ways, although the hillsides here are much less populated and more dense with foliage. The views were stunning in many places. We passed places like Campbellton, Delhousie, Belldune, and on into Bathurst. Cousin Ruth lives in Belldune but was at work when we passed through the outskirts of her town. The drive was beautiful with the wonders of mountain driving along with the vast sweeping views that comes from reaching the high points in the road way. In many places it was forest and only forest with the small clearings here and there for roadways and houses/towns. In a few places there was the open fields of the farms starting to show their first green of spring plantings. Just like a light fuzz on the ground. The mountains here are nothing like the Southwest USA but they are mountains in their own right. The Appalachian Mountains to be exact.  We’ve all commented a number of times about the various shades of green in the distance, the views different at each high point as the growth mixture changes to more of one green than another. Few very short passing lanes on NB11 as well. Some beautiful views of the water as we rounded the corner at Campbellton and headed south. We would catch glimpses here and there of the waters off to our left.

The grades become steeper and steeper as we go along.

Similar views, but still very pretty.

Bathurst is showing the first signs of english since we left Ontario. Even on the edges of New Brunswick such as Edmunston we found we were still dealing with more french than english speaking people or heavily accented at least. Signs were a bit more multilingual near the provincial borders but here in the town of Bathurst are in english which is helpful if it’s language signs and not visual signs. We all noticed that Quebec had NO BILINGUAL signs which I thought was mandatory since both french and english are the official Canadian languages.

Some pretty views, see the slash in the trees,t hat's the road way.

A small pond by the road side.

 

So if it  seems like we aren’t actually sight seeing I’ll tell you why.We’ve discovered that we are too early due to the late spring to enjoy the gardens, etc. We’re too early for the summer events, which actually don’t really interest us anyway.  The rain is a definite factor and it’s rained pretty much each day of travel since North Bay, our second day’s location. Some times down pours, some times mist like air and all points in between. It’s very cool here with temps some times dipping very close to the single digit numbers even during the day, the wind in that case also plays a factor as it’s a chilly biting wind. The few sun shine spots have been rare and usually while we’re driving which limits our ability to take advantage of it. The other thing as mentioned above, due to the late spring everything is late. A number of the museums and such listed along the way haven’t interested us in the least but we figured that when we set out to see this side of the province. While we could have gotten off NB11 and gotten closer to the water we opted to wait until we are much lower down in the province due to the crisp winds. Which is one of the reasons we haven’t gotten ourselves into a campground either.  In a day or two we will be in Shediac which is lower in the province and hopefully more seasonal in temperature. We’ll be staying a couple of days in a park there and getting out with just the Dogsled which will be fun, much easier to get around and see things as well. I’ve been thinking about getting out my heavy coat to even just walk around the parking lot. Even Riley is in long pants. 

 

I'll take these views.

Yes that is the wiper blade you can see in the corner and rain drops on the bottom. All pictures have rain drops in them.

So there you have it, nothing exciting but some good views and we are having fun enjoying this outing. Always an experience when traveling!!! Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed your visit. 

 

The town where we'll be spending the night.

Until next time …… take care, be safe,

 

The town of Sainte Quentin has a definite western flavour.

The town of Saint Quentin little road side park.

 

 

Deb