Fundy Discoveries

Traveling in Nova Scotia yesterday, I came upon a two tone freeway!  Never saw one before.  As you may have seen in previous posts, there is a lot of red rock and dirt in the Maritimes.  As in central Oregon, it's used for building material, and apparently it was decided to use red stuff for the westbound lanes of the freeway, and the normal gray rock for the eastbound lanes.

This is Minas Basin, the eastern arm of the Bay of Fundy.  Tides in the bay show the widest variation in the world...up to 53 feet between high and low!  A more usual number in the northern part of the bay is 30 to 40 feet.  The shape of the bay...basically a funnel...and the bottom contour combine to create the amazing tides.  It was a beautiful day yesterday...I was at Five Island Provincial Park here...and I dozed in the sun and just chilled for awhile.  Nobody else around.

You see these red mud trenches all around the bay...even in Moncton, 20 miles inland.  This is at low tide...at high tide, of course, they're filled with muddy water.

This pic and the next one were taken at Staircase Cove, at Hopewell Rocks in New Brunswick.  To see the full effect of the tide you have to stay several hours, but...this pic was taken at 10:15 AM today.  And the next one...

Taken at 11:05.  In just 50 minutes most of the tidal flats behind the cool shaped rock on the right side of the pic have disappeared.  The tide routinely rises and falls at least 6 feet per hour in this area.  At high tide you can kayak around the rock.

The rocks at Staircase Cove are severely eroded by the strong tidal currents, assuming neat and bizarre shapes.  The soft sandstone at the base is eroded faster than the conglomerate higher up...eventually of course the rock will collapse.  It's estimated that this coast is being eroded at up to two feet per year.

The currents carve amazing patterns in the rock.

This conglomerate, a little higher up, looks like something in Utah.

This rock tower appears close to needing some viagra. 

At low tide, the bay has vast areas of mudflats...gooey to humans, paradise for shorebirds.  In areas where there is very little incline, the tide comes in at the speed of a fast walk.  Even where the beach slopes considerably, if you watch closely you'll notice that almost every little wave laps a bit farther up.

Surreal mud patterns.

There are covered bridges in New Brunswick.  I saw two today...this one, in Fundy National Park, is new, built only 20 years ago.  Older ones stood on this site.

While hiking in the park, I came upon orange dandelions!  Never saw such a thing before.

The rock feature through the trees is Squaw's Cap.  Reminded me a bit of the Phantom Ship in Crater Lake.  It was dead calm on the bay today.

The spring buds are erupting on the local spruce trees.