Bay of FUNdy

We were still tired from our long 180km day into Moncton and a wiser group of cyclists would have taken a day off but that we are not and we had already planned on being in Alma the next night, so we instead took a chill morning. We slowly packed our things, had breakfast at Hynes Family Restaurant (which doesn`t look like much from the outside, but has great food) picked up some stuff from the local bike shop, then just when we were about to leave realized that the World Junior Track and Field Championships were being held in Moncton for the week. We made a small detour via the ticket office to pick up tickets for when we returned to town and by the time we had finished all errands combined with our lazy morning we finally headed out of Moncton around 3:00pm. The 90km to Alma in theory should have been relatively easy, but with our late start, relentless hills, and fatigued muscles, it felt like a VERY long day. We finally rolled over the last hill into town around 8:30pm, just as the sun was setting. We pulled into Cleveland Place B&B, where Jane had given us a place to set up our tent through warmshowers, we made some dinner (pesto pasta), showered, and fell asleep. The next morning Jane made us delicious waffles with fruit, and bacon. Mmmmmm. During breakfast we began to chat with her B&B guests, Julie and Adrian, who offered us a ride to Hopewell rocks in their rental car, which worked out perfectly for us, as it was pouring rain outside. Hopewell Rocks is a collection of flower pots along the Bay of Fundy. During high tide most look like tiny little islands that you can kayak between then as the tide recedes you can walk on what seams and is referred to as "walking on the ocean floor." It is a perfect spot to really see the amazing tides of the Fundy Bay. We also later did some hiking around Fundy National Park, just some short little walks to water falls, old mine sites and historic covered wooden bridges. As we came back into town we stopped to see the Alma harbor with huge docks and fishing vessels literally sitting on the ground. The fishermen can only leave or return while the water is high enough for them to reach the docks, this means timing departure and arrivals based tides which change everyday making each workday different than the last. We spent our last night in Alma learning the fine art of drinking black russians and playing euchre, our gracious teachers Adrian and Julie even "let" us win the final winner take all game. The following day was a beautiful sunny day and we made the 90km trek back to moncton stopping to grab the low tide pictures of Hopewell rocks (your admission is good for two days.)