MONDAY 11 July
Today was a repositioning day, taking us from Campbellton RV Camping in Campbellton, New Brunswick to Bouctouche Baie Chalets & Camping in Saint-Edouard-de-Kent, New Brunswick. I was up early enough to post the blog entries for the 9th and 10th. We had coffee and toast and then set about our departure preparations at a relaxed pace. There was a possibility of rain but it did not materialize. We pulled out at 9:30 AM ADT.
Our route was Hwy-11 to Hwy-8 and back to Hwy-11, exiting at Saint-Anne-de-Kent onto NB-475 to Chockpish and then through Saint-Edouard-de-Kent to our destination. Hwy-8 essentially bypasses the Acadian peninsula in the northeast corner of New Brunswick, whereas staying on Hwy-11 would have taken us along the entire coast. We would have loved to do this drive along the Gulf of St. Lawrence and through lots of small villages, but it would have doubled our driving time, which was already estimated at 3-1/2 hours.
The roads were mostly good—some of the best we have been on in Canada—with a few bumpy spots and two constructions areas. Highways 11 and 8 were similar to U.S. Interstate Highways with limited access and bypassing the cities and towns along the way. The maximum speed limit was usually 100 Km/h. The short leg on NB-475, a smaller 2-lane road, required two turns of ~135 degrees. With no oncoming traffic, I was able to use as much of the road as I needed and made the turns without any difficulty. We pulled in to the campground at 12:45 PM
Linda got us registered and got our site assignment, park maps, and list of amenities and rules. The sites were grass, and only five feet longer than our combined rig length, but wide enough to provide adequate separation from other campers to the sides. We got into our site (W3W=hike.turnout.flake) easily enough. Although it looked fairly level, we had to raise the left side 1.5” and the front ~4.5” From check-in to completely set up took a little over an hour. It was warm, about 80 degrees F, so we ran one of the heat pumps in cooling mode. The power in the park proved to be very good, with voltage around 121 VAC that barely dropped under heavy loads. We were still leveling the trailer when Paul and Nancy pulled in. They left ahead of us this morning, but stopped for fuel along the way.
For dinner, Linda fixed a nice “Asian” salad and served it with fresh cherries and slices of a baguette. Paul and Nancy walked down from their site and brought a bottle of Rose’. For dessert we had Passion-fruit Lemonade Sorbetto (vegan). It was a lovely, light meal.
We are about 200 meters from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, but a somewhat longer walk to get to a public beach, which we did after dinner. When we returned to or site we chatted for a while, but did not have a campfire. The winds had been strong all day and were forecast to continue around the clock for the foreseeable future. The persistent wind has been the most unexpected aspect of the trip (so far).
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