Rob-n-Hild, Eastward Ho!

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Hopewell Rocks 8.2 km walking. 2:06 hours. 263 metres climbed

We did it! We watched the full cycle from low to high tide at Hopewell Rocks - as you can see in the videos below - thankfully at 100x speed so it is 3 minutes altogether, as opposed to 6 hours!

This is the first 2 hours or so, not a lot of changes as this is a slow part of the cycle. At the top you can just see the mud flats disapearing.

This is the second couple of hours where the change is the fastest. You can see the people clearing off the beach and then the lower seaweed covered rocks disapearing.

This is the final part where the water comes up to the rocks and it isn't obvious the level is increasing. You can see the kayakers now where people were walking about 90 minutes ago!

We had got to the Park at about 10.30 this morning and went straight to the stairs to walk down to the beach to walk it as the last of the tide was going out. Low tide today was at 12.10 so we had plenty of time - we thought - but it was actually quite slow as it was both rocky with a lot of mud and even quite slippery where there was seaweed. The towering rocks were very impressive and there were tunnels and caves gouged out as we rounded a couple of headlands to get to the end (for us) at Diamond Cove. You can walk further than this, but that meant clambering over seaweed covered rocks so we gave it a miss. There is an emergency platform here for people who are cut off from getting back to the access point by the tide, but it is really a platform of shame because you can't get off it - you have to wait until the tide goes out again and I bet you can be photographed from the cafe on the shore while you are waiting ...

We were surprised at how muddy the beach is so we asked one of the (many) wandering guides and we were told that the sea had been very calm for the last three tides so as it receded, the mud was being left on the rocks instead of being washed off. Hild had noted that there are many very fragile looking streams around the bay and she asked if there was much erosion, but apparently these are quite stable because they are constantly being replenished with each tide! As the guide said, by the time the water has got to end of the bay (carrying the mud with it), it is on it's way back in - still carrying the mud. We are so used to thinking of erosion being a one-way process of removing soil, that it is hard to quite accept it. I guess this is where all the soil ends up after being washed out of fields upstream - after all this is the process of creating flood plains. But, boy, does it stick to your boots when you walk in it!

Speaking of muddy boots, one thing we had noticed when we came here for a walk last night was a bucket of water and boot-brush at the top of the slope at the north end of the beach. We had walked down to the beach at Stair Cove and they had a boot washing spot with hoses, but Hild could see a wet sock issue as a result of using a hose for this and suggested we use the north end ramp to exit the beach. As usual, she was spot on and washing our boots with a brush was a much better approach - to avoid wet sock at least! Rob still had particularly muddy trousers and was grumpy that no-one else we saw all day was as muddy, hmmmph. Plenty of people took the option of minimal footwear (Crocs or flip-flops), presumably with the idea that they are easier to wash, but not only was this going to be hard on the feet (we saw one young lad struggling with rocks in his Crocs!) we also heard that many people lose their flip-flops in the mud and have to walk out barefoot!

Once our boots were clean(ish) we quickly made our way to the Big Cove viewing platform which we had scoped out yesterday as being the best spot to set up Tøfflus to film. Our criteria were a good view of the beach and some of the towering rocks (so we had something to measure the water level) as well as a level spot for Tøfflus and somewhere for us to sit - for the 6 hours it would take from low to high tide! Big Cove platform was perfect (and Minion-approved) because the platform was built around a tree such that there was a nice corner of the railing behind the tree and Tøfflus would be out of everyone's way while he did his thing. Once again, the ankle-strapping tape was used to fix him in place and his power supply was slung underneath in a little bag - perfect. In fact, it turned out to be a rather inspired choice as almost everyone who came past to look at the view noticed Tøfflus and then looked around (at us) and that opened up a conversation. We spent 6 hours at this one spot with hardly more than 10 minutes between chit-chats with people from all over Canada and the US, also Switzerland and (we suspect) a number of asian contries too! Tøfflus does like to make himself known, as he has a fake shutter sound for each image and - at one frame every 10 seconds - he gets noticed. The downside was that we had planned to do some reading this afternoon, but never got the chance......

We got a couple of new species today as well while we were sitting and chatting. First off we saw a groundhog trundling along just underneath our viewing platform and then we got into a bit of a quandry. We had heard that there were Peregrine falcons nesting on the cliffs and someone walking on the beach said they had heard chicks sqawking, but when we were sitting on the platform we saw one swooping around the cove and lazily climbing around our heads! Now, we have a rule about birds; they only count if we can confirm species on the ground and although we were in no doubt that we were seeing a Peregrine, rules are rules. We had broken this rule for Bald Eagles last year, but that seemed like a valid exception and we weren't sure if we could do this again. Rob's sister Liz said of course we should, Peregrine falcons being every bit as special as Bald Eagles, but then we were saved any moral quandry when - later on - one came amd sat on a bluff 20 meters away and started calling out. This seems to be a popular spot as although we missed getting a good photo that time, she (or he, not sure on this) was back an hour or so later and Hild got a great shot using our binoculars as a telephoto lens for her phone!

Coming up: Drive to Moncton

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