DAY 54 : August 30/22 Tuesday. Petit-Rocher, NB to Kouchibouguac National Park, NB.
<< note that I will try to upload some photos when I get a chance. I do my best to type these out in the NOTEPAD on the laptop when I can, then upload when we come across some decent wifi... photos these days are a much larger task to upload... I'll do my best to get the pics on here when I can. check for updates!>>
Jonathan was up first and made a coffee and walked to the pier. Lots of big fishing boats and friendly fisher peeps. He chatted and got some intel on bass and mackerel fishing. Apparently anyone could fish for striped bass and mackerel off the docks and shore without a licence as long as their catches were within certain size and catch limits. There were a few people fishing from the end of the dock with buckets of fish they’d caught.
When he got back to the rig with his news, the kids and I got dressed and went back with Jonathan to check it out. He was a bit confused because a lot of the fish he’d seen minutes ago were now gone. That’s when we noticed that the Conservation Officer from the DFO was there chatting with some of the fisher people. Super friendly and giving advice to a boy just a bit older than Ollie about what size mackerel can be kept and helping him measure it correctly. He appeared to also be handing out small measuring tapes for the purpose. We were standing near the end of the dock watching a guy fish for mackerel. The guy offered for Ollie to take the rod and have a go. Ollie was a bit shy at first, but the guy had a fish on and handed the rod to Ollie to reel it in… four fish on the line! Pretty neat. All too small to keep, but a neat experience and such a kind guy to be so friendly.
We also saw the officer laughing and taking pictures a few minutes later as one of the women had caught a spoon! A silver cutlery spoon. That was a pretty funny catch.
As we walked away back down the dock, a guy stopped and chatted with us. He said that some of the people had fish not within the limit and he’d put them back in the water so they didn’t get fined.
Back at the rig, Jonathan made eggs while I looked at maps. Lots of cormorants here. We saw a flock of mergansers, and some herons.
By 10:20am and 110765km on the odometer, we were leaving the lovely Petit-Rocher, and drove down the “strip” then up to the NB11 again towards Bathurst to Hwy85.
By 12noon we entered the Kouchibouguac (Koo-She-Boo-Gwak) National Park! We went into the office/visitor centre and looked around and asked about the camping. The woman gave us a map and also gave the kids a Park Ranger book for the area that they could complete activities and come back for a special dog-tag. We couldn’t decide if we wanted one or two nights, and she said we could drive a few km into the park to the South campground and have a look there and talk to the front desk who would be able to answer questions about the campground better. We could also purchase our park pass there too, so that’s what we did!
The park is quite large and we drove maybe 10km into the park before getting to the South campground office. We paid for two days park pass and two nights camping, with the assurance that we could always come back tomorrow before 11am and get a refund with no cancellation fee if we decide to stay one night only.
We parked in our dry camping (no water/electrical) site and it was warm and muggy. We were somewhat regretting taking a site with no electrical because it meant not having an easy plug in option to run the A/C to cool it down. (Luxury!) We were hot and decided to fill the kite bag/backpack with some towels, water, beach toys and a beach blanket and hop on our bikes to ride the 2.5km bike path to Kelly’s Beach. On the route, Amelia was ahead of me riding and screamed… I looked down and immediately screamed too because I thought I ran over a snake. When I looked back, it wasn’t there, so I hoped that he was okay and I didn’t kill it!! Yikes!
Parked our bikes at the bike racks beside the concession, and walked a fairly lengthy boardwalk over the beautiful salt marshes to get to the sand spit of Kelly’s beach. We saw lots of herons and adorable Piped Plovers (protected here in the park). It was a beautiful, if not hot, walk to the beach and we were surprised to see how many people were there! And how hot it was! We set up our blanket in a section of sand available close to the water and immediately went into the ocean. It was cold, but not too cold. And the humidity in the air meant that when you got out, the water didn’t evaporate off you and make you cold. The breeze was warm. It was the perfect way to cool down after a hot muggy drive. We ended up unexpectedly spending hours on the beach since the alternate was to go back to a hot RV with no A/C! The kids were having a blast playing in the water snorkelling, digging in the sand and playing. They found large hermit crabs in the water, and Ollie found a live crab with a shell the size of his hand.
We decided there was no need to leave, so we left our stuff on the beach walked the boardwalk to the little cafe for an ice cream treat and then back to the beach. At the cafe, my ice cream dripped everywhere and the kids teased me that I was feeding the wildlife. A little red squirrel was definitely scurrying around looking for handouts.
Back at the beach we swam and Ollie also got buried in the sand up to his chin by Jonathan. We also were fascinated by the Terns that were flying over the water and diving headfirst like dive bombers into the water for fish.
A lot of people had left the beach by this time (maybe 6:30sih?) and there was a couple near us that had ventured into the water a little earlier when Meems and I were in. It was definitely cold to get in and we shared some smiles. Back on shore, Jonathan had struck up a conversation with them. Super lovely couple from South Chicago, Illinois… Michelle and Rory. They were traveling around the maritimes with their dog and would be on a similar route to ours… perhaps we’d bump into them again in the Maritimes!
We packed up our beach stuff and walked back to the canteen. There we could rinse our feet and I ventured to check out the showers but the mosquitoes were out in full force so we jumped on the bikes and rode like the wind to our campsite. Tiny detour through some campsites by accident. The bugs there were just as relentless. It confirmed to us that we’d only last one night… we’d had such a great beach day, and even a decent shoreline bike ride we could not imagine another night with these bugs.
Jonathan rode his bike straight to the campground office to get a refund for the second night camping and day pass. Kids and I went through a short path to the shower block to rinse off all the salt water and wash our hair. When Meems and I walked out of the building, we saw Jonathan drive by in the rig!?? He didn’t hear us when we shouted. Confused, we waited for ollie outside his shower and then hustled back to our site wrapped with the towels around our legs to protect us from the mozzies.
The RV was gone, but the bikes were left, and the kite bag that held all beach stuff before. Jonathan had left a campground map with the new site number highlighted. We gathered our stuff and hopped on the bikes, swatting mosquitoes the whole way and found Jonathan and the rig at the new size 57 that had electrical for an extra $4 a night. He had the AC going already. A good trade up. The girls at the office had said that Jonathan was not the only one cashing out due to the high number of mosquitoes. Apparently the hot sun and the large rains had made the mozzie population skyrocket recently.
We cooked veggie burgers and ate inside the RV, but ventured out for a brief walk in the dark to gaze at the beautiful stars above. Then back to bed for a nice cool night’s sleep.
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