The Fundy Trail Parkway
In my previous post, I mentioned how my day trip with my friend Mathieu Chiasson along the Fundy Trail Parkway had been somewhat upstaged by a lone tree that we had visited that same morning and evening.
Today, I wanted to share a few of my photographs from our time on the parkway because, don't get me wrong, it was very nice too.
That morning, as we were nearing the east entrance to the trail, we saw a coyote looking at us from the side of the road. We pulled over hoping to snap a few pictures, but by the time we'd exited the car, it had vanished without a trace.
At the trail's entrance, we were greeted by a gate. It turns out that, despite our detour to see the tree, we had still arrived about an hour before the trail was scheduled to open.
In order to kill some time, we made a U-turn and took a stroll down a rocky ATV trail where we saw plenty of birds and a few deer. When the latter saw us, they hopped away flagging their tails, leaving no question as to why they are called white-tail deer.
At a little over 9 a.m., we entered the parkway and stopped at the very first lookout. (Let me reassure you that, if you miss the first lookout, there are plenty more to come. In fact, there are over 20 lookouts along the 30-kilometre parkway!) The morning sun was bright and its light shimmered on the Bay of Fundy. Unlike the human eye, cameras aren't very good at capturing detail in scenes that contain both very light and dark tones. Therefore, I was left with two choices: either to expose the image in such a manner as to conserve the detail in the trees with the trade-off of having the water show up bright white, or to expose for the water and lose the detail in the trees. Evidently, I chose the latter, since preserving the water's shimmering surface was my priority. I could have opted to recuperate some of the detail in the trees during post-production, but frankly, I was rather fond of the their silhouette.
We stopped at a few more lookouts to enjoy the view, and then we set foot on our first hike of the day on the aptly-named Long Beach Brook Falls Footpath that leads to, you guessed it, the Long Beach Brook Falls. The falls fall (see what I did there?) roughly halfway along the 2.2-kilometre loop. Truthfully, this is usually not the type of setting that calls to me to pull out my camera. I can recognize and appreciate its beauty; it's just not a type of photography I particularly enjoy. Regardless, I knew we'd be there for a while, so I figured the opportunity was as good as any to try out a few things. I was too lazy to setup my tripod, but I managed a few handheld, long-exposure shots of the waterfalls. I particularly liked the image below where the falls were nicely framed by tree branches and surrounding rocks.
After the falls, we briefly checked out Long Beach. It was nice, but what really caught my eye from the parking lot was an uphill section of the winding parkway peeking through a thick array of conifers and coloured trees. I stood there waiting patiently for vehicles to drive by. I took some photographs with a couple of cars driving down and one of a single car driving up, but the image at the top of the post, with just the one car driving downhill, was my clear favourite.
Of course I took some pictures of the wider picturesque views along the parkway, but I was more so attracted to the textures and colours of the cliffs. The image below is a great example of one of those cliffs, topped with autumn-themed trees. Although subtle, I also liked the pink tinge in the water alongside the rocks.
Those who know me well are aware that I am not a fan of heights. So in anticipation of our stop at the Suspension Footbridge, I had been feeling some apprehension. My angst subsided rather quickly as I caught my first glimpse of the structure as we drove beside it. It was much more stable than I had imagined, but most importantly, it wasn't very high at all. You can see it in the distance to my left in the picture below.
After we'd crossed the footbridge, we decided, on a whim, to hike the Hearst Lodge Scenic Footpath. We'd left the map in the car, there was no indication as to the trail's distance, and the sign warned that it was challenging (the website says it's moderate to strenuous), but how bad could it be? Straight ahead, we went up the hill... for a couple of kilometres! There were a few flatter sections that provided welcome moments of respite, but mostly, it felt like at every turn, we were met with an incline, seemingly steeper than the last. This wooded part of the trail was formerly known as the old Salmon River Road. Finally, we started our descent until we reached Hearst Lodge in the river valley. The last part of the loop had us following the edge of the river, at some point onto a pebble beach, until we arrived back at the suspension bridge. All in all, we estimated we'd hiked about six kilometres, but boy, those first few ones were unexpected!
At roughly 3 p.m., we stopped by the Interpretative Centre where, from a very limited selection, I had my first bite of the day: a small bag of creamy dill pickle Covered Bridge potato chips. Chips are a rare treat for me, so I cherished every crispy slice.
Not too long after, we exited the parkway on route to find a proper meal. Afterwards, we visited the lone tree near Sussex, NB for the sunset and called it a day.
If you have any questions or comments about the photographs I shared in this post, please don't hesitate to post them in the comments or to reach out using the contact form below. I always enjoy discussing photography, whether it's about my images or someone else's!
Also, let me know if you have ideas of photography-related topics you'd like me to cover in future posts. I'm open to suggestions.
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