Dateline: Moncton, New Brunswick

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489K today, an ambly kind of day. It needs to be, as driving through hundreds of miles of forest can be brain numbing. However the smell of the impending ocean compensates greatly and the clam chowder I put away at lunch made up for the catatonic state I was in.

I pulled over for a short nap by a little church and peeped around the corner and there was a hive of activity in the farm at the back, overfed geese wandering about, several farmhands and cows busy-making. I don't get too near such places with Ansa as some ancient instinct takes over her brain and she goes into immediate herding mode. One time I was totally impressed with what a tidy package she had made of about twenty five cows in a tiny corner of a field but the farmer didn't share my awe. I only now take her where her skills will be appreciated.



On these lengthy journeys across eastern Canada I welcome the ghosts that pop in and out of my head. My parents, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, my great grandmother and dear departed friends. The luxury of time alone affords such visitations. Some memories make me laugh, others make me cry just a little.

CBC had a lovely programme on in the afternoon, co-hosted by Rita MacNeil who invited listeners to share their memories of the songs their mothers and grandmothers had sung to them as children. I was surprised by how many I knew. One was my 'baby' song which was sung to me by my father every night at bed time "I'll take you home again, Kathleen". And my father told me my first ever sentence was: "Sing-ee Kath-ee Daddy." I've never ever tired of it. To this day. And it's not even an Irish song!

After dinner tonight (a soothing salad after the richness of the crepes!) we walked along the shore of the Tidal Bore which I've written about before, here. The tide was low tonight, the moon, large and golden, suspended like a balloon over the water lost in admiration of its own reflection, millions of seabirds sounding irritable in the darkness, muttering and squawking their peevishness to the only human inhabitant of this lovely spot, me.

And here I rest, preparing for the final leg of the journey tomorrow, through Nova Scotia and Cape Breton.

Inkerama

Photo of the Tidal Bore, Moncton by © Dr. Roger Slatt, University of Oklahoma

The title was a word verification I had to use on a blog. What a great word!

As luck would have it, I didn't get a good night's sleep. Quite a party next door to me in the hotel which involved many comings and goings of female and male voices, door slammings, bottle breakages and a lot of moaning about turning thirty which continued on till 4 a.m.

I don't complain about noise when I'm the last room on the block and adjacent to the party animal house. Such non-compos mentis drunks can inflict an awful lot of damage on one's car in revenge (deflated tires, key dragging) and how to prove it? Suck it up. So that's what I did while ensuring today that no one was reserving this particular room tonight after informing the management.

Moncton/Dieppe is a twin city area which, amongst other attractions, involves a tidal bore:

A scenic phenomenon caused by the surging Bay of Fundy tides, the highest in the world, the Bore occurs twice daily. The higher waters in the Bay cause the water in the placid Petitcodiac River to roll back upstream in one wave, which can range in height from three cm (one in.) to 60 cm (24 in.). Just as spectacular is the rapid and dramatic change in the river itself. At low tide the muddy river bottom is often visible, but within an hour of the arrival of the Bore, the water level rises some 7.5 m (25 ft.) to fill the river to its banks. The Tidal Bore can be observed from Bore Park, Main street.

What I found most interesting about the phenomenon was that the birds in the tidal surge were going backwards out to sea. A sight I'd never seen before. I imagine their legs are used as brakes against the rush of water. The trail beside the basin was extremely far ranging, Ansa and I barely covered a few miles of it. In this interesting weather we're having I went from huddled in boots, hat and mitts last night to carefree sweatshirt and jeans today.

The waterfront trail at Bore Park is an interesting dichotomy of scenery - on one side you have the tidal basin with birds and wild life, on the other you have Burger King drive through takeout, video rentals, a Staples mega store and others of that ilk. In one ear - "do you want cheese with that?" and in the other the lonely honk of some Canada geese skeetering over the marshland. I found it disturbing and uplifting at the same time. Why not put beauty spots beside the most depressing of our consumerist culture? It might inspire someone in their heaving SUV to actually check out the waterfront. On foot. It is inaccessible to vehicular traffic. A very good thing.

And all going well my daughter is now at the Toronto airport one more time and the flight is delayed yet again. We are laughing over this. This consistently foiled meeting up has moved far beyond crying and head banging into a great big joke.