2023 Summer Road Trip Day 16 – Hopewell Rocks

Thursday, July 20, 2023

This morning we were up early and headed to Hopewell Rocks, about 45 minutes from Fundy National Park. Hopewell Rocks is a New Brunswick provincial park and is located on the Bay of Fundy. Hopewell Rocks, also called Flowerpots Rocks or The Rocks, are rock formations known as sea stacks, caused by tidal erosion by the massive tides of the Bay of Fundy. The formations are 40-70 feet tall. There are over 23 sea stacks standing along the shoreline of the park. The park is considered a “self-guided tour” but there are interpretive staff on the trails, the landings of the stairways to and from the ocean floor, and out among the sea stacks. They are very knowledgeable and are anxious to answer questions and share their love of the park. The stairs down to the ocean floor are 100 steps, one way. We made 3 trips up and down those steps today. We both got credit for 76 flights of steps on our fitness tracker and over 20,000 steps. That’s two days in a row of some serious exercise. It may be an Ibuprofen night tonight.

We arrived at the park at about 7:40 and that put us second in line for entry into the park at 8:00. We were on the ocean floor about 8:15 walking among all the various rock formations. Very impressive. You must be careful because some areas are extremely muddy. We are so very glad we arrived early. We had about 6 other people exploring the rocks with us. After exploring all the way to Diamond Rock and back to the main stairs, there were probably 300 people on the ocean floor including a large tour bus group. After our morning exploration we went back to BB to have a late breakfast. Low tide was at 9:05 am and then the tide started back in. We went back to the floor about 2.5 hours later to see how much progress the tide had made. We were surprised at how fast the water was coming back in. There were already some places formations had water at the base. We could stand at the water’s edge and in one minute our foot would be covered by water. Back to BB for some rest and then we again went to the stairs to the floor at 2:30, high tide. Amazing! The last section of the steps to the floor was closed due to high water and water was near the base of the cliffs.

The sidewalk to the park entrance is actually flat, but it sure does not look like it.

This flower pot looks like it could fall over at any time.

The rock formations are much bigger than they look in pictures

Somewhere out there is Nova Scotia – where we are going tomorrow.

We are glad we got to the beach early. This is how the beach looked by 9:15.

You have to step carefully when walking on the ocean floor.

There are signs advising visitors to stay out of the mud flats, but this touron was over 100 yards out before a ranger could get her to come back in

As the tide came in and cut off areas of the beach the rangers herded the tourists back toward the steps.

Diamond Rock at low tide. It was so foggy when we arrived you could barely see the top of it from the viewing platform,

After our last trip the water at high tide, we said goodbye to our new interpretive friends and climbed in BB and headed to Moncton, New Brunswick. It sure was nice to have BB in the parking lot today to visit for rest from all the walking and step climbing. It was another very good day.