Monica and I decided to get out of the house and go for a wilderness hike on this very hot and humid Sunday… with a 35 degree humidex factor, we asked for it!
Destination, Walton Glen Gorge in Saint John County very near the Fundy Coast just an hour’s drive from St. Martins. Walton Glen Gorge is often referred to as NB’s Grand Canyon and sports NB’s tallest water fall at 140 feet vertical drop. This waterfall only flows during wet season and August has been hot and dry in NB so we didn’t expect to see it on this day. Nevertheless, the gorge itself is supposed to be spectacular with 300 foot vertical cliffs on either side. Since we had never been here before, we thought this hiking adventure would be good practice for our upcoming Ireland trip in 5 weeks.
Off we went toward St. Martins to find the Shepody Rd. which cuts across land through perhaps one of the last unspoiled and unsettled tracts of forested coastline along the Atlantic Coast from Nova Scotia to New Hampshire. En Route we passed through a turn of the century community called Londonderry (same as the one in Ireland). What an unexpected thrill to find St. Paul’s Anglican Church and graveyard complete with high crosses just as if we were in Ireland. How ironic. Some of the graves date back to the mid 1800’s.
Traveling on past Crawford Lake and turning south onto Little Salmon River Rd., we came to major construction where the extension work of the Fundy Parkway construed my mental map for the gorge parking spot. Lost momentarily, we backtracked to the only signage we had seen for the gorge which meant a 5 km hike was ahead of us. Very good then, off we went. Within 5 minutes, we were soaked to the skin in this 35 degree weather.
It took at least an hour to get there…passing McLeod Brook Falls on the way. Arriving at the canyon and we were rewarded with an unparalled panorama of this spectacular gorge with it’s 300 ft vertical walls. On my belly, I crept to the edge as close as I dared and stuck my camera over the edge for a snapshot. Photos just cannot do this justice. Because the weather has been so hot and dry, the main falls were not running on this day…so, we will be back…maybe next spring.
Hot and thirsty (we consumed all the water we brought withing the first 30 minutes of the hike) we started back to the car. An hour and a half later, we dragged our tired bodies into the car and cracked a cold drink (thankfully our cooler still had plenty of ice). What a day trip. We walked over 10 km and saw some of the most beautiful scenery NB has to offer. If you get a chance, you must come here and see this.
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2 replies on “A Sunday Adventure in Southern NB”
Joel just did this hike recently! He and his buddies went down into the eye of the needle too which is another hour hike I guess. He said it was pretty spectacular too!
Yeah we were just too tired to go down… Nelson really wanted to!