Post date: Aug 9, 2015 4:16:40 PM
This turned out to be one of the most amazing places we visited and yet we had never heard of it before! Two natural wonders, the Petitcodiac River Tidal Bore and the Hopewell "Flower Pot" formations, are both the result of the tides on the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tidal range in the world. Twice a day, a river tide rolls past Moncton, coming and going into the Bay, some 30-40 miles away. This is called a "Tidal Bore" and it is no small thing - people surf on it! They have platforms along the river bank from which to witness this. Once the tide passes, the river level is several feet higher or lower than before. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Then there are the Hopewell rock formations about 30 miles south of Moncton.
They are called "Flowerpot" rocks, sculpted by 100 billion tons of water moving in and out of the Bay of Fundy, every 24 hours over millions of years. We walked down steps to the beach in the morning when the tide was out and returned in the afternoon in time to see the beach rapidly disappear as the tide came roaring back. Unfortunately, by the time we drove a few miles further, a thick fog has come in and we couldn't even see the lighthouse at Cape Enrage when we got there. Good place to put a lighthouse!
Aside from the natural wonders of the place, Moncton was a nice, middle-sized city with good restaurants, stores, etc. (We took our Chevy for servicing there.) Nothing man-made in Moncton worth mentioning, but what Mother Nature created is magnificent.