NEW BRUNSWICK: HOPEWELL ROCK STATE PARK

Thanks to Bob's excellent planning, we hit the next spot on our New Brunswick journey at exactly the right time: low tide.

As usual, just about every step of the way was filled with fairytale forest:

I was especially entranced by the trunks of the birch trees lining the pathway. They looked like pieces of installation art:

Something about this slow walk through the lichen-speckled trees got me in the mood for poetry, and what better poem than Robert Frost's "Birches," which ends with these beautiful lines:

Earth's the right place for love:

I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

A few minutes later, we left that shady birch path and came to an overlook at the top of some stairs. Below we could see the upper end of the Bay of Fundy, an area that gets covered by water twice each day.

As we started down the steps, we got a better view of what attracts visitors to this area: flowerpot rocks similar to the one we had seen on the Fundy Trail Parkway, but dozens of them:

These unusual sandstone and conglomerate rock formations were created by the ebb and flow of the tide, which separated the formations from the rock face behind them and also wore away their bases.

We joined the other admirers at the bottom of the stairs and made our way down the shoreline:

Although we seemed to be far from the water, the shore was muddy and strewn with rocks. The tide was just waiting for its moment to surge back to the cliffs:

In addition to the flowerpots, the relentless tide has created caves in the cliff that are clearly forbidden territory:

More than flowerpots, to me the rocks looked like sentries staring out at the sea, perhaps watching for a battleship:

We kept walking down the "beach," moving further away from the small crowd near the stairs. There are my husband and son below:

Our son returned the favor, taking a picture of us:

These photos can speak for themselves:

That passageway in the photo above looks small, but it was huge--plenty of room for us to walk through. However, we had to be careful not to be drenched by the water pouring down the rock face on the other side:

We came upon this final sentry, marking the end of the journey. I LOVE these stacked rock cairns, partly because I feel completely incapable of creating one myself due to my lack of both patience and a steady hand:

An emergency exit point is at the far end of the site, there for those who are dumb enough to not notice the rising tide:

We hung out nearby for just a bit, enjoying the solitude.

As I stood with my son on that beach, the rock sentries behind us and the swelling tide before us, I just couldn't help myself--I pulled up Matthew Arnold's dark and melancholy poem "Dover Beach" on my cellphone and read it out loud. My son humored me and listened.

The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on the darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

We weren't in Britain in 1851, but it seemed to fit.

But then the rangers came by and destroyed the moment. Apparently we were three of those dumb tourists who were hanging out just a bit too long at the far end of the trek:

And so back we went, past the extemporaneous waterfalls:

Past the solemn watchmen, some bald . . .

. . . and some with elaborate or wonky hairdos:

. . . up the stairs to the Wash Pit, where we could wash the sand from our feet and legs:

But we kept the memories.