Kouchibouguac National Park, New Brunswick

   As usual, I woke up at 8:00am, helped pack our tents up, ate a breakfast consisting of sardines and bread, and hopped into the van for a long car ride to our next destination (I had grown accustomed to this routine). Today, we left Stanley Campground at 9:00am and headed towards the Confederation Bridge.  

     At 10:00am, we reached the Confederation Bridge. We paid the toll ($43.95) and began to drive over the world’s longest bridge crossing ice-covered waters (as stated on my PEI map). Ten minutes later, we reached New Brunswick and stopped at the Confederation Bridge tourist centre. Here, I took lots of photos and for once, I was in one of them! 

 
 

The Confederation Bridge

After the thirty minute break, we began to head north and stopped at Shediac, New Brunswick at 12:00pm. We visited Shediac’s main attraction; a giant lobster! While I took photos of my brother climbing on the lobster, my mom went and bought lunch; two giant lobsters for fifteen dollars! For the second day in a row, we had lobsters for lunch (we paid two hundred dollars less compared to yesterday at the Fisherman’s Wharf). 

    

My brother fooling around
on the giant lobster

  At 2:00pm, we left Shediac and drove towards our next destination; Kouchibouguac National Park. At first, I couldn’t even pronounce the park’s long name. After arriving at Kouchibouguac (3:00pm), we visited the visitor’s centre and my mom made me read all the information they provided. I learnt that the name Kouchibouguac, of Mi’kmaq origin, means “river of the long tides”, but apart from that, I didn’t gain any useful knowledge. We then proceeded to register for our campsites but were alerted by the campground officials that there were no more campsites available. My dad became enraged before the officials told my dad that they were joking around. 

 



A dead jellyfish found
on the shore

After settling into our campsites, we visited the beach. No one in my family felt like hitting the saltwater Kouchibouguac Bay so instead, we walked along the shores of the marsh beside the beach. At that time, the marsh was experiencing the low-tide, because scattered along the shores of the marsh were hundreds and hundreds of dead jellyfish! I had only encountered a single jellyfish in the wild before (in Cuba, a dead Man-o-war jellyfish) and today, I saw hundreds of pink and orange jellyfish lying on the shores. I figured that when the tide receded, the jellyfish were stranded and died from lack of moisture. Anyways, I found it interesting that jellyfish resided in New Brunswick! 

  

Another victim/s
(my brother and the starfish)
 of the low-tide

  My family then turned around and headed back towards the parking lot. Along the way, I found a couple of shells and slid them into my pocket.

At 6:00pm, my dad announced that for tonight, we would be having a barbeque. This brightened up my day, as a barbeque meant sausages, lamb chops, and wondrous chicken wings! After dinner, we played some card games and called it a day at 9:00pm. According to my dad, we will be leaving Kouchibouguac tomorrow and that we needed a lot of rest tonight, so naturally, I went to sleep at 9:30pm.