We got up earlyish on Friday, our final day in New Brunswick. We wanted to get over to Parrsboro with enough time to walk along the beach at low tide so we had to time it right. We left later than we expected, however, stopping for breakfast in the hotel before zooming out of the province and into Nova Scotia.
We were heading for Parrsboro but saw the signs for Joggins and decided to go that way instead. I’m so glad we did. We soon arrived at the Fossil Centre at Fossil Cliffs in time for the centre to open. We had a look around their interpretive centre before joining a free half hour tour down to the beach in search of fossils.
This part of Nova Scotia is a treasure trove for fossils from 310-325 million years ago (or around there, I can’t quite remember now). The place has been mined for coal since the 1600s and Joggins was quite a bustling town because of the mine, particularly in the 1800s, when geologists started paying attention to the area and found a lot of fossils.
All this would be rather ho-hum if not for the fact that you can still see the fossils in situ today. Of course, they not the exact same ones that people saw a couple of hundred years ago due to the erosion of the cliffs, but new fossils are appearing all the time. We walked past one that had only shown up in the past week.
Now, the fossils aren’t giant T-Rex skulls. Most of them are tree trunks and tree roots with a few small reptiles thrown in and a 2m long millipede. However, it was really cool to walk along the beach, looking at the cliffs and seeing these rod things in the rock and knowing they’re fossils. Or to see a rock lying on the beach and then turn it over and see the imprints of prehistoric leaves, or two types of tree trunks crushed together.
After the tour, we continued our walk along the beach and found some more fossils before deciding that we didn’t want to get caught by the incoming tide and headed back up to the visitor centre. It was definitely a worthwhile experience and I highly recommend it to anyone coming to this part of the world.
Because we’d spent so long at Joggins we decided not to go to Parrsboro. The tide would have been in by the time we got there and so there wasn’t much reason to go at that time. Instead we went for lunch in nearby Amherst, ate some salad, and then decided we’d just head to the airport early. We flirted with the idea of driving across to Prince Edward Island but thought the drive wouldn’t really be worth it.
We got to the airport, returned the car, went through security and waited for our flight back to Toronto. We e really enjoyed this mini-break. It hasn’t been strenuous and we’ve seen more beautiful things. There’s definitely been some sadness while on this trip as consider it our last adventure before leaving Canada. Been thinking a lot about what and who we’re leaving behind (as well as what and who we’re going to be seeing next). If only we could live in two places at once.
We landed at Billy Bishop on time. Rather than take the shuttle and the subway we jumped in a taxi to get home. While we had been away our furniture was removed by the people who bought it, so we returned to a near empty apartment. Our suitcases and food are the only things left–plus a lot of cleaning. All that can be sorted over the next few days.
Julian, Glen and I then went for all you can eat at Spring Rolls. Perhaps needless to say, we ate a lot.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?