Saint John, New Brunswick

Leaving PEI on the Comfederation Bridge was a foggy and misty drive, it was still amazing how high above the water the bridge was built, we kept climbing with the car for several minutes before reaching the climax and started our descent to New Brunswick.

We picked a campsite in the city of St John which is in a large park. It was designed by one of the architects of the New York Central Park (Calvert Vaux) and it is the 2nd largest park in Canada with its 2200 acres and ten lakes and several miles of tracking paths of different difficulties.

The weather was kind so far to us as most days on campsites were sunny (except our first rainy day in Montreal when Echo arrived in a thunderstorm). Whenever we took larger distances on a full day it was raining but that was less disturbing as long as we could enjoy the sun during our few day stops. So the rain during our drive was not a problem and the next day was sunny again in St John. We stayed here for a week as we had to revisit our plans for the next leg of our journey (but that is a separate post coming soon). During this week we wanted to combine beach time with excursions. There are smaller, lakeside beaches in the Rockwood Park and we also wanted to see the sea.

On Friday there was some rain expected so we planned a short excursion to explore the city itself. We were driving through the SouthEastern part of the city and the seaside is now remodelled to a less industrial, more citizen friendly setup with a boardwalk. We stopped at the Rainbow Park Splash Pad for the sake of the kids and it was a great place to spend some time with them. The rain stopped and the sun came out so we enjoyed the playground.

I especially liked the 3 large drums and 3 large xylophones.

Then we drove on to the Carleton Martello Tower Historic Site
which is a defense tower built by the Englishmen XX. It is in a strategic location and it was never attacked after it was built.

The next stop was Irving Nature Park Children's Forest with a very nice BBQ area

a Hegde Maze

and a large children's playground wich was another entertaining spot for our kids. I was enjoying watching a squirrel while my wife fed the smallest member of our family.
Our larger kids practiced growth mindset on a zipline where at first they were not able to jump on the hanging slider but after some encouragement and failed trials they both mastered the use of the zipline. I was proud of them especially as they both continued after once falling off the zipline.