We were welcomed to Saint John by these chaps catching a few early morning rays …

We didn’t see the city. It looked a bit industrial, with churches.

We hired a car and set off for St Martins. Along the way we passed a surprising number of little white churches like this …

Then in St Martins itself, houses like this … as you can see it was a beautiful day!

The St Martins village is an old fishing base. Charming as you would guess. The tide was out, but coming in …

We decided to have very early lunch … a bowl of seafood chowder each … YUM!

Then around to St Martins Cove to check out the sea caves …

… two huge caves into the soft red cliffs.

I decided to explore. Shoes off, across the channel, clambering all the way to the second cave …

… back on the “beach”, Jan was a little agitated (can you find her?). The tide was coming in … fast!

(Just three hours later it looked like this.)

Then we decided to explore a little further, and, completely unplanned, we found the Fundy Trail, part of a Canadian National Park. What a surprise.

Spectacular coastline …

Fuller waterfall …

Wildflowers were absolutely everywhere …

The Big Salmon River …

… and this little gem … “Pot Rock”

We retraced back to St Martins village, and took this photo …

… just 3 hours and 10 minutes after taking this one. Big tide, eh?

Then we hit the road back to Saint John in plenty of time to catch the ship. Hmmmm … coming out of town we (both) saw a sign to Saint John and followed it. Half an hour later we realised we were LOST!! After a bit of panic we found an old farmer who said, “go this way to the 865, and that will take you to the “big 4 laner””. We drove and drove. Further and further. Faster and faster. Rallying back roads at 120kph in our little Kia. Phew! Finally, the Trans Canada Highway! … but we must have travelled at least 50km out of our way, and had 52km to get to Saint John. This was not in the plan! Quick calculation … to get to the ship on time we needed to go real FAST … 140kph down Highway 1. Hope the Mounties aren’t around! Jan made calls to the rental car company and to the ship as we hammered along! Go, go, go! We got to the car depot with a few minutes to spare. But then the driver misunderstood where he had to take us … not the car ferry, mate … the cruise ship! … another 10 minutes lost! We rushed on board, just in front of 3 others who were also 10 minutes late!

Jan went, all the way straight, to the BAR!!!

But hey, it was FUN!