greatexpectations

If you want to spend the day on a great beach relaxing, Cinnamon Bay; same water same sand as Trunk Bay without the crowds.

We chose Roy Flowers (royscab@hotmail.com) for our Oct 17, 2012, tour of the Bay of Fundy (St. John, NB) because he had been so highly recommended by previous travelers. Roy did not disappoint! In fact, Roy made the entire trip (a cruise on the NCL Dawn from Quebec to Boston) a success for us. We were 3 couples whom had never met before (from Boston; Newport Beach California; and, Medicine Hat, Alberta). We all loved Roy and thoroughly enjoyed the long-day (10:30AM to 5:30PM) thanks to him. We could not help but become enthused ourselves from his true excitement about each of the sites he showed us.

Roy and his taxi van greeted us at the dock unobtrusively. We all piled in and the tour started with a stop right away at the courthouse in town. Since we had all just settled into Roy's van, stopping so quickly was a pain, especially because it was a chilly morning, albeit sunny, in St. John. Roy kept encouraging us with "...I want to show you something you will see no where else...". Sure, sure. sure. It is a courthouse right? What are we going to see that is so unusual -- perhaps an ornate, old courtroom? We have all seen those and they are nice, but for that I need to get my body out of the warm van? No, no. It was a 100+ year old, 3 story spiral staircase hand-made of stone which had survived the 19th century fire which had destroyed the entire town. Okay, nice but so what, you say? The spiral staircase had no supports. That's right, open your sleepy eyes and look again at the staircase. It is not only old and beautiful, but each of the individual stairs is attached to the circular column in which the stairway sits without any vertical supports, held up in the air only by the placement of each stair on the one below (I did think twice before standing under the incredible structure until Roy told us the story of how it was tested!).

Okay, Roy, nice start, but what's next? Onto the town's largest.oldest and highest church. Oh no, out of the van again quickly. But this time, having been pleasantly surprised by Roy's spiral staircase, we did not complain and bounded into the old Catholic church to see beautiful stained glass and hand-carved wood panelling. Okay, so we here we are again in another church which, forgive me, albeit very nice, look pretty much the same. But then Roy starts in as he did in the courthouse with stories about what happened here (...the poor used to be able to come in out of the cold and use the church to stay warm during our 30 degree below zero winters until someone stole the century-old candlesticks...). Then Father Dan appears almost as if on cue from Roy. Welcomes us warmly and starts to tell his stories. Wow! Everyone knows Roy (this went on the entire day, wherever we went) and they go out of their way to greet him and treat his customers as friends too!

Back to Ray's van. Roy made us look at St. John's famous Reversing Falls so when he brought us back 6 hours later we would understand, We learned about the Irving Family Empire (petroleum refining, chemical plants, pulp factory, etc) and the incredible impact by them on the local economy. We even visited one of their 'Circle K' gas stations (...Irving makes sure that their washrooms are super clean and you will want to use the facilities before we head to St. Martins...) and then a Tim Horton's for a wake-up cup of great coffee (and a few Timmy Bites purchased by our Canadian couple to keep us going until lunch). Roy drove us through the countryside to St. Martin's, the Caves, and the start of the Bay of Fundy Trail with a stop for a lunch of fresh seafood chowder and lobster rolls. I will not go on with all the details of the entire day because I do not want to spoil all the surprises for you, but you get the idea. Other tour drivers tried to follow us, I kid you not -- that is just how good Roy Flowers is! Roy Flowers is without doubt The Best Tour we have ever had anywhere, anytime!