The night in the campground was interesting: Suddenly at about 1 or 2am in the morning there was a tremendous low frequency noise. I woke up and as I listened to the noise it sounded as if we slept right beside a busy Trans-Canada-Highway with lots and lots of trucks. Then I thought maybe there is an army exercise with propeller air-planes and trucks or boats going on right adjacent to the national park. Anyway, it took quite a while until this tremendous noise died down (at least an hour and likely more). Later in the day, when I asked somebody from the national park, I was told that on the other side of the river, there was an active commercial fishing harbor located in the middle of the national park. What we heart was the fishing boat fleet coming back or leaving the harbor. Judging from the duration and the level of the noise lots of fishing boats must have been involved. And likely some were racing each other or they were in a rush to come back or get to their fishing grounds ...
We had another day with nice weather. We started the day with breakfast at the campsite. Then we headed for our first trail on Kelly's Beach. There is a decent sized very long boardwalk that runs from the shore to a very large sand dune about 500m off-shore. The boardwalk ends at Kelly's Beach, which is basically a very nice sand beach where people stay for a swim (when the weather is warmer or walk like we did). We walked south-east on the beach for about 3 to 4km, maybe even 5km one way. And then we turned around. Mostly on nice firm wet sand. At some points along the beach one could watch birds or seals. We walked way further then all the other people and greatly enjoyed the scenery. The way back to the boardwalk felt a bit long however ... Very, very nice. From the boardwalk we counted about 20 herons that were chasing fish in the shallow water between the dune and the shore.
Once we made it back, we hiked the Salt-Marsh-Trail. This is a relatively short 1km trail, mostly boardwalk with nice views at the marshland between the short and the Kelly's beach dune that we had walked before.
Afterwards we decided to head back to Bouctouche to shop for grocery and more importantly to have another dinner at La Sagouine restaurant. On the way from Kouchibouguac to Bouctouche we took the slow scenic route. We came through a number of towns and small villages on the way. A good chunk of the small road runs along the shore and was very scenic. There were lots of houses with Acadian stars over their entrances. We also come across lots of telephone poles that sported an Acadian flag painting on the first 1.5m from the ground. One village stuck particularly out with an oversized Acadian flag being hoisted at the begin of the village. I have seen lots of Canadian or Quebecois flags, but the size of this Acadian flag topped everything I have seen in Canada. A certain Acadian spirit was surprisingly visible in the area. It was right in your face. We made it in about 1 hour to Bouctouche. In time for an early dinner at La Sagouine. Margaret ordered a Chicken Frigot (an Acadian dish) and a lobster roll. I ordered a haddock platter. Again, everything tasted very good and was affordable. The restaurant filled up again, as we ate our food. We also ordered desserts again. I think this was the best restaurant on our trip.
Afterwards we went to a grocery store (mostly to buy a few baguettes) and drove back to the Kouchibouguac NP campground. At the visitor center I also found a T-shirt for Anna.
At sundown we drove over again to Kelly's Beach. There we attended the "Moon and Dune" event. At different stations on the boardwalk and the beach one could listen to native stories told by local folks, sit at a fire, and watch the moon through a telescope. It was very nicely organized and informative. The moon was partially out and sometimes a bit clouded, but experiencing the marshlands and the beach at night was worth the while. We went to sleep at about 10pm or so.
Kouchibouguac National Park is definitely worth a visit again. No wonder the campground was nearly full despite it being post Labor Day. Lots of people had bicycle hookups on their cars.
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