On the day I was leaving Prince Edward Island to drive to New Brunswick, the weather was appalling. I had a lay in and leisurely breakfast. I hadn’t had chance to walk the seawall whilst in North Rustico, but when I stopped, the rain made the walk thoroughly unpleasant so I quickly turned round and got back into the car and pressed on to the Confederation Bridge.
I made a stop at the outlet just before the bridge and was very excited to find my favourite ice cream in the whole world – tiger ice cream! It’s orange and liquorice, so orange with black stripes through it, hence the name. It’s very popular in Canada, virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world. I completely overdose on tiger ice cream when I find it in Canada because I know I won’t be able to have any again until I go back. So after eating a huge ice cream it was time to head over the Confederation Bridge and back to New Brunswick.
There is no charge to drive onto Prince Edward Island over the bridge. But there is a charge to leave! It cost $47 to get on the bridge to leave Prince Edward Island for New Brunswick, but you don’t have a choice. I loved Prince Edward Island, but it felt very different to the rest of Canada with the absence of bears and moose, the iconic animals Canada is so famous for. However, staying in West Point Lighthouse and hiking in the National Park were highlights for me on the island.
Once in New Brunswick I drove to Moncton. The weather continued to be awful and it was quite late when I was approaching Moncton, so I gave the city a miss and instead drove to Magnetic Hill which I absolutely had to try out.
By the time I got to the Magnetic Hill Theme Park and Zoo it was almost 4 o’clock, so it was closing soon. I paid $6 to try the hill, but I was able to go on it as many times as I wanted. Apparently the record was 22 times! I didn’t drive Magnetic Hill 22 times, but I did it about 6 times, 4 times backwards, twice forwards and I even videoed it once because the park had closed and the staff had gone. However, the hill was still open; you can access it even when the park is closed. That meant I could do what the hell I wanted now.
There was a car from Quebec and they seemed to have no idea what they were doing, parked up in the middle of the road!
So let me explain Magnetic Hill. The process is that you drive down the hill, put your car in neutral and a magnetic force drags you back up the hill. I drove to the signpost that marked the spot at the bottom of the hill, put the car in neutral and waited. Immediately the car started moving uphill and I was amazed how fast it was, I had trouble keeping the car in a straight line. I tried it a couple more times and then tried it forwards twice as well. I was more used to the speed after the first try and able to steer much better, although it wasn’t so essential after the second attempt, because the staff had moved the barriers from the middle of the road and left for the day.
A brother and sister from Ontario were also at Magnetic Hill doing a few experiments with their car on the hill, so they took a photo of me on the hill outside my car, although without any context, it just looks like a photo of me standing next to my car!
And is Magnetic Hill magnetic? Or magical? It’s neither. It’s an optical illusion. When it appears you are driving downhill you are actually driving uphill and then when you put your car in neutral, you’re rolling downhill. This type of phenomenon is known as a gravity hill where the layout of the surrounding land fools the brain into seeing a downhill slope when it’s actually an uphill one. So it hasn’t got anything to do with magnetic fields and forces. But it is a similar principle to some magic which works on illusions.
This theme was continued at the Magnetic Hill winery where they produced mainly fruit wines, but they were disguised as grape wines. The red wine was a traditional grape wine, the white wine was similar to Pinot Grigio, but didn’t taste quite right to me. That’s because it wasn’t made of Pinot Grigio grapes, it was made of rhubarb and called Illusion. The rosé wine was made of strawberry and they had rhubarb fizz and blueberry fizz, but I didn’t try them. The red wine was very good, definitely good enough to purchase a bottle for later.
The next day I went into Fundy National Park. Today I was going to do some serious hiking. The National Park is on the Bay of Fundy which has the highest tides in the world. As well as beaches and an impressive coastline, Fundy National Park also featured several waterfalls. I love waterfalls. The hikes to Laverty Falls and Third Vault Falls had both been recommended to me and were on my list. I had a couple more hikes on my list and it was unlikely I’d have time to do them all, so I went to the National Parks Visitor Centre to get more advice.
Dickson Falls is the most visited trail in the National Park, so I started with that one as it was relatively short. I had invested in hiking poles for this holiday and they did help a lot. I didn’t realise how much they were helping until I went on a hike without them! I did the longer Dickson Falls route, but it didn’t take very long. It’s quite nice to start with a short hike, you get to see something after a relatively short time. However, now it was time for the serious hiking.
I went to the parking area for the Laverty Falls trail. It wasn’t a particularly difficult hike. I went to the viewing point at the top of the falls and then I continued for a while, but I was now on the Moosehead Trail which was quite a long loop. I decided against continuing, it was quicker to turn back and that would give me time to do the other trails. Besides which, it was better to do the Moosehead Trail first so you were going downhill, if you did the loop in the opposite direction, you had a steep climb back to the car park.
The Third Vault Falls was a less popular trail and classed as a difficult trail. Most of the trail was actually fairly easy, almost flat for a lot of the way. It was only the very last part that was difficult, the ups and downs were bad enough, but the stream crossing was horrible. I hate stream crossings. If the National Park Service put wooden steps in close to the stream, why don’t they just continue and put a bridge across the stream instead of leaving visitors to try and make their way across on slippery, pointed stepping stones? I had to sit down to get across; I knew that I would slip if I tried to balance on these wet, pointed stones in the stream. Getting my feet wet didn’t bother me at all, it was a hot day so they would dry fast enough. I was worried that if I slipped I might twist or even break my ankle. It was a long way back to the car. It had taken me an hour and a half to walk here, with a twisted ankle it would be impossible.
The Third Vault Falls are the highest in Fundy National Park and I spent 10 minutes resting and enjoying the view. Then I walked back to the car. The stream crossing was even worse going back and the hiking poles were no help at all. After that the hike was okay, I didn’t even mind going uphill and the poles did help me on the ascents and descents on the return journey.
The ranger at Visitor Information had recommended that morning that I try and fit in the Matthew Head Trail because it was a coastal trail rather than a forest one. As the other trail had been classed as difficult and had been mostly flat except for the last part, and this trail was classed as medium, I decided to leave my poles behind. This is what you call a mistake! Without the poles I realised how much of a help they had been on the other trails. I actually also thought that this was a more difficult trail than the Third Vault Falls because it was up and down all the way. My knees were suffering now and 1.7km seemed a very long way on this relatively steep trail with numerous inclines and declines.
I got to one of the red chairs in Fundy National Park and there was an amazing view out over the headland. There was a tourist from Toronto who said his car was at Wolf Beach which was a long way away. He seemed to be hopelessly off course on his loop. It was getting late now and as he had obviously taken a wrong turn, I didn’t want to risk doing my loop in case I ended up way off route myself. Even though I hated the idea of going back the same way I’d come because it was hard going, it seemed to be the only sensible thing to do. It actually wasn’t as bad as I expected going back. My knees held up fairly well. When I got back to the car park, my car was the only one left in it. I’d walked over 15 miles of trail and for six and a half hours too. So I’d certainly fulfilled my resolve to do some serious hiking today.
Now I had to drive to Saint John. It was a long drive. Longer than I thought it would be. And I had to be up early for the low tide. Time to get on that road and to my accommodation in Saint John for the night and say goodbye to the beautiful Fundy National Park.
I travelled around Atlantic Canada in June 2018.
Magnetic Hill is located at the Magic Mountain theme park and zoo complex, 12km from the city of Moncton. Entry to Magnetic Hill is $6 and you can drive on the hill as many times as you like for this fee.
Fundy National Park is located on the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. Daily entrance fee is $7.80 per adult. I bought an annual Parks Canada Discovery Pass which gave me entry to all National Parks in Canada and cost $67.70. It is an hour’s drive from Moncton and an hour and a half’s drive from Saint John.
I stayed at Peck’s Colonial House Bed and Breakfast which is ideally located 30km, less than a half hour drive from the entrance of Fundy National Park.
Check out my posts about my other Canadian adventures.
North Cape Coastal Drive Part 1
North Cape Coastal Drive Part 2
Charlottetown – Pocket Capital of Prince Edward Island