Cruising up the river.......

Grand Falls.

An early start this morning took us on the River Route, a scenic drive from Fredericton up to Edmunston, some 150 miles. We followed the St John River all the way, avoiding the freeway, and our first stop was at Nackawic. Here they boast the largest axe in the world, standing 50 ft high on the banks of the river. It must be a reminder of their lumberjacking past, as you can see, it's blooming big!

As has become the norm this trip, it rained again, off and on, and it was cold. But the visibility was quite good, enabling us to see the river well as we went along. There were a couple of dams controlling the river, obviously not navigable up here, one in particular quite big with a 50 metre drop, and a large lake behind. I would think this would be the drinking water for the area.

This seems to be the place for superlatives: a little later we came to the 'longest covered bridge in the world'.  Built in 1901, at the time it was regarded as an engineering wonder with a length of 1282ft. It was closed for maintenance when we were there, It has been declared a national historic site, and cost about $33000.

I couldn't believe the sign above, after all we invented chips, not the north Americans! They even had the cheek to register the trademark! Anyway, we looked for somewhere to sample them, with no luck. We did however come across the corporate headquarters and main factory of McCain, the frozen food people, maybe they had something to do with it.

From there on up there were acres and acres of potato fields, presumably for the chips, we'll have to try them sometime.

Later the weather improved a little, a bit warmer, and dry. Still no sunshine though. Just in time as we arrived a the spectacular Grand Falls, ( See above) . We were told that it often almost dries up in the summer, so we were lucky that the river was so full.

Tomorrow we leave New Brunswick, crossing into Quebec Province, where I will have to dust off my French!

 

The Gorge below the falls.

Th Hartland 'New' Bridge. Note the Union Flag.

One of the dams. A lot of hydro power is generated along the river.