Fundy National Park - August 3-6

Erika and I headed Fundy National Park for the long weekend. I left Halifax for my last solo trip to Moncton, as Erika has now finally moved back to Halifax. Once I picked Erika up, we made way for Fundy. We left early on Friday afternoon, so we're on a roll. That's four tents in a row that we've been able to setup in the daylight. It is certainly easier than fumbling around in the dark.

We have recently bought a number of new hiking and camping toys including a mini-stove, new sleeping pads and a new sleeping bag for Erika. So once we had the tent setup, we (mostly me) were eager to try out the new toys. The stove worked out very well; always nice to cook pork tenderloins and tomato alfredo in the middle of nowhere and have it turn out tasty!

We spent the first night relaxing around our tent and chopped up some wood for a fire. Erika's parents were staying at the chalets, and they found our spot and hung around for a little bit of the fire. We planned our trek for the next day and hit the hay. We woke up to a weird day, but no rain (yet) so we hit the trails.

Our plan for the day was to hike through Matthew's Head and then head for the old copper mine trail. Matthew's Head is a looped trail that follows the coast along the edge of steep cliffs overlooking the Fundy tides for about 5km. First we walked through some wooded areas that had some small streams and nice views of open fields.

After the fields and wooded areas, we made way to the coast the views of the bay. However today was weird, there was a pile of fog over the water and you could hear thunder off in the distance, so we did not get the spectacular views that we were expecting. However, the fog made for some interesting photos.

We sat at the edge of one of the cliffs for a few minutes, and we could watch the fog roll in and fall back with the waves. The sun would burn off a little bit of fog, but then the waves would bring it right back in.

After watching the fog for a few minutes, we got back on the trail and got to experience some more thunder. Erika had to curse it by "isn't it weird how there's no rain with all this thunder?" Knock on wood, the rain started about 10 minutes after Erika brought it up. It wasn't too bad though, as it was quite warm and we were pretty well covered by the trees along the cliffs. This was good, because we had left our rain coats in the car to keep them nice and dry while we were on the trail.

After a few more km along the coast, the trail headed back into the woods, and helped cover us from the rain even more. The trails in the woods were really interesting. You could really see how glaciers had carved out areas and deposited features in this area; there were massive rocks just sitting in the midst of trees. Then there were the streams running through the trees surrounded by moss and clover that made for some good photos, too.

After a quick break for lunch, we headed for the old copper mine. The mine was started in 1892 in an old quartz vein. Generally, where there is quartz, there is gold. This place was no different, so why was it a copper mine? Well, they found gold, but only enough to get people looking for more. All they found afterwards was copper, so copper mine it was.

The whole way into the mine there was root-covered trail and a continuous climb. This would have been a terrible way to make a living as it was almost 3km in and another 3km to get back out, all for one dollar a day. The terrain made for some neat steam areas and as it had been raining for a few hours now, the streams were running well. After a very steep climb to the mine entrance, all that remained of the mine was the steam boiler and a small opening from where they had back-filled the rest of the entrance. All the tailings from the mine were scattered all over the area and made it a lot more obvious that a mine was there, not just an old steam boiler.