The ShoreXplorers: Fun Days Hiking, Driving and Kayaking Along Fundy – St. Martins New Brunswick [July 9 & 10, 2018]

One of the St. Martins sea caves at low tide...

...and at high tide.

Our last stop on the Bay of Fundy was easily the best stop. The tiny, scenic village of St. Martins, New Brunswick (population <400) has sea caves that you can walk to at low tide, two covered bridges, and one of the few kayak outfitters that will take you kayaking in the Bay of Fundy. It also is the entrance to the spectacular Fundy Trail and Fundy Trail Parkway.

The harbor and covered bridge (to the left). Note kayak group that stayed in the protected harbor.

Other covered bridge (both bridge photos from top of the lighthouse Visitor Information Center)

The Visitors Information Center in downtown St. Martins is located in a re-purposed lighthouse next to the protected harbor. A few feet to one side is a covered bridge, and a few feet to the other side is another covered bridge. At high tide, the fishing boats float along side the wharf, and at low tide they sit on the muddy bottom of the harbor. A classic Bay of Fundy scene. We camped an easy bicycle ride away from the harbor, so peddled down a couple of times during our stay.

High tide in the harbor

Low tide in the harbor

Just outside of the harbor are the majestic St. Martins sea caves. At low tide, you can walk across the gravel sea floor and climb inside the caves. At high tide, you look across at the waves splashing against the cliff face. The breadth of the caves is created by the constant pounding of the tidal motion and waves. The height of the caves is caused by ground water seeping through cracks in the sandstone and freezing and breaking off chunks of the cave roofs. The caves are quite an attraction and tour buses come from the city of St. John 42 km away to see the caves and to have the tourists eat at the two seafood restaurants located on the beach. Both claim to have the best seafood chowder, but the best chowder this trip for us was made by our cousin in Weston VT.

Part of the Fundy Trail coastline

And this untouched beach

At one time, St. Martins had a thriving wooden ship building industry, with the 3^rd highest production in Atlantic Maritime Canada, producing a total of 500 ships. You can learn about this rich heritage at the Quaco Museum in town. When wooden ships were no longer being used, the region turned to harvesting the plentiful trees for wood and paper until the 1950s. The area where a lot of the lumbering took place has been left alone since and is now part of the longest undeveloped coastline on the Atlantic Coast of the US or Canada.

Craggy cliffs

Over the years, a rugged 41 km hiking trail was built here, connecting St. Martins with Fundy National Park. The hike has very steep ascents/descents and crosses several tidal rivers. The demanding, isolated trail (or footpath as they say in Canada) takes 3-4 days to complete.

Crossing the suspension bridge over the tidal Big Salmon River

Tides that go out forever at Long Beach

Most recently, they have started building a motor parkway that follows the same coastline path as the trail. 30 km (19 miles) are done with overlook pull outs and hikes along the way. In some places the mountain has been hacked away to provide cut-throughs for the road. In others, you ascend a 16% grade, which you will descend when you return at the end of the day, a challenge when driving a many-ton motor home. Scenic vistas of coastline cliffs and pristine beaches await around many corners. It is an exquisite drive. You can walk across a suspension bridge and you can use cable “stairs” to descend down the sides of cliffs for better views.

Kayaking Bay of Fundy! It looks calm, looks can be deceiving

Yup, just 2 boats for this excursion

On our last day in St. Martins, we explored the sea caves by kayak. You rarely see any pleasure boats on the waters of the Bay of Fundy. The water is hypothermia cold, and the currents and tides are powerful and dangerous. We were fortunate to go out on a kayak excursion with just one other tandem boat that also had experienced kayakers. Our guide took us on a more challenging paddle than he would have taken novices. We paddled around a point of land to caves that you can only walk to at the lowest tides. Russ had walked to them the day before, the scramble to get to them on foot was beyond Dana and Tiki.

Cave with water in it

Same cave, no water, note the beach at the end.

Inside the cave, looking out

The paddling was spectacular and the views of the cliffs from the water were marvelous. There are red cliffs of sandstone, and grey cliffs that are what is left of deposition from an ancient river that flowed there during the times of Pangea. We learned even more about the geology of the region from our guide, supplementing the bits we have been learning along the way. Once again, we wished that we had studied geology at some point in our pasts. We pushed our nose inside a flooded cave, and beached our boats on a secluded beach for a snack and a rest.