March 26 – Hopewell Rocks to Truro, NS
Mar 28th, 2018 by rallyadmin
Breakfast and on the road. We’re on our way to somewhere in Nova Scotia and Marc and Mark want to stop by at Hopewell Rocks which is a provincial park on the Bay of Fundy. Our route today is going to bring us up one side of the Bay of Fundy and down the other side.
If the tide schedule had worked out we would have waited for the arrival of the tidal bore. The tidal bore is the sudden arrival of high tide as a good sized wave. The bore wave is the result of geographic orientation of the Bay of Fundy and is quite a sight but it only happens twice a day and we don’t have time to wait.
The Hopewell Rocks are along the way. We can’t figure out if the park is actually open this early in the year but we’ll give it a try. We pull off the main road and drive up to a closed gate that bars the entry into the parking area for the visitor center. Strategy session ensues. “We cark here and walk around the gate.” Getty has already scoped out the gate and found that the gate chain is not locked.
I point out that the way down to the rocks below the cliffs that the visitor sits on is difficult in the summer. Without snow and ice. I’m sure that if the visitor center is closed that the trail isn’t cleared.
While we’re discussing options, a worker clearing snow with a tractor chats us up and says the yes, the ccenter is closed but you can go in at your own risk. After reading this warning sign. “But there’s a road the goes down to the beach back where you turned off the main road. You park at the beach and just walk on to thje beach without a hike down the cliffs. And it’s open.”
Back in the cars, down the road, take a right on to the “beach” road, through the open gate. Just a half a click down the road there’s an old Pontiac mini-van stuck in the snow. M & M are already at the mini-van talking to the driver. We park the truck and walk up.
The mini-van has absolutely no reason even trying to break his way through some snow that had drifted across the beach access road. The driver has been trying to back his way out but his right front drive wheel had slipped off the pavement and dug a very nice hole, deep enough to high center the van. He’s not going anywhere.
M & M have been trying to help him free the truck but the driver isn’t following instructions. When he get’s out to greet us, he looks so weird that we realize that left to his own devices he’ll never get out of here. And if we don’t get him out of here we’ll be stuck with him. THAT we don’t want to happen. He’s that weird.
Bring the truck down and pull out the winch cable. I hand him the hook to attach it to his car and he refuses to attach it. “I don’t know anything about doing this.” Now we don’t want to attach it either. Things are getting weirder by the second. Finally, Mark hunts around under the car and hooks up the cable to the frame somewehere.
I start retrieving the winch cable M & M goive him instructions: “Straighten the front wheels.” He turns more to the left. “Easy on the gas. Just give it a little gas.” He stomps on the accelerator and immediately spins the drive wheels.
Stop the process. Pull out more winch cable. Back up the truck. Start over. “Straighten the wheels. Easy on the gas.” Wheels turned the wrong way, wheels spinning.
But the 3rd time is the charm. He finally gets it together and we get him back on the road.
He thanks us. Nearly clobbers Rabbit 2.0 while trying to back up the road. Once he’s finally clear, he stops and offers a bottle of gin as a thank you. “No thanks. Just pay it forward. Someone helped me in the past. I helped you. You help someone else.” “Well, I really appreciate it. Thanks, again.” Please go away.
We head down to the beach and finally get to see the rocks. The Hopewell Rochs are a series of rock pillars where the bases of the pillars have been eroded by the surf. You can only see them when the tide is low because the high tide come up to the bottom of the cliffs.
Last summer, Barbara and I had walked along the bottom of the cliffs below the visitor center. The layers of the cliffs have the occasional exposed fossil. But we never saw the Rocks proper. They were out of sight north of where we were hiking.
We take ur pictures and notice how quickly the water level is dropping as the tide goes out. Time to go.
Back on the road to the Trans-Canada. The a straight run east into Nova Scotia. We stop in Truro, Nova Scotia and try for rooms in a Hampton Inn. They have some convention in the hotel and don’t have rooms for us. But they call a close by Best Western that does have rooms and a decent bar. We check in and head for the restaurant.
We’re closing in on 2,000 miles already in the last 3 days. Tonight’s an earlier night. Good thing. I need some sleep.
Obi-wan