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Confederation Bridge, New Brunswick side, looking north to PEI
It was the first time we had crossed on the Confederation Bridge, it having been built after we had left Nova Scotia. It was completed in 1997 at a cost of over a billion dollars, spanning the Northumberland Strait for 12.9 kilometers and is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water. We stopped at the first exit, the Cape Jourimain Nature Centre for a picnic lunch but the wind blowing off the strait was too strong to fire up our portable propane stove outside. The wind turbine above us whirred constantly as we stayed inside the camper and ate.
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| Cape Jourimain Nature Centre, NB |
We headed south on the Trans-Canada back to St John and found a campground just 5 minutes from the city centre, Rockwood Park. St John was as scruffy looking and rundown as I remembered it from the early 70s when I spent a summer there doing a ship's refit in the St John Drydocks. It was much cooler and still windy but after setting up our camper we took our bicycles out and headed downtown to do a bit of sightseeing and shopping.
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| Rockwood Campground, St John, New Brunswick |
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| Day of Mourning Monument, St John, NB |
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| carved moose with hockey stick, St John, NB |
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| Marie and St John skyline |
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| Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception |
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| typical St John architecture, sometimes called Eclectic High Victorian |
After leaving St John the next morning we crossed back into the USA in Maine, it now being the 4th of August and time to start thinking of returning home to water the flowers and check two weeks of accumulated mail. Once we started to go inland the temperatures soared and we were soon back in the 30s' We went a different route west this time, following SR6 in Penobscot County for the first time through typical central Maine scenery - lake after lake and winding hilly roads. We stopped in the small town of Lee for the night at what would turn out to be one of the friendliest places we had camped yet - the Sleeping Bear campground. The hosts, Keith and Nancy, made us very welcome in their small, cozy setting in the Lincoln Lakes area. The bathrooms were as advertised immaculate, the campgrounds very well managed. Keith volunteered to bring a canoe for us in his truck down to Silver Lake, a short bike ride away. The lake was crystal clear, clean and warm and we spent more than two hours canoeing and swimming there in the hot sun. This was one place we would certainly return to!
gws
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| Silver Lake, Lee, Maine |
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| Selfie #9, Silver Lake, Maine |
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| Sleeping Bear Campground, Lee, Maine |
