Day 62 and 63 St Andrews and Mission Island

Monday August 12^th, 2013

The forecast was for rain, but thankfully, it turned out to be yet another great day!  Norm and I went to the adorable downtown St. Andrews to check it out for a little while, quickly browsing in a few gift shops and the wharf.

One of several buildings with beautiful murals downtown
St Andrews, New Brunswick

Norm had selected certain golf courses that he really wanted to play, and here in St Andrews is the #1 rated golf course in New Brunswick; Algonquin Golf Course.

Algonquin Golf Course

The green fees were steep, and I no longer enjoy golfing all that much, so I decided to stay home and do a few chores, nap, and go browse the shops at my own pace.

Another mural.This one is a replica of the street.
 Note the way this live hedge blends right into the mural.
exactly where it is, on the building!  So very clever!

  While downtown I had a great time, talking with all sorts of folks, and spent about 45 minutes helping a semi-disabled woman photograph her inventory of Inuit sculptures.  Her husband, who ran the shop, recently passed away and at the end of the summer, she will sell the remainder of her inventory to a dealer.  I liked several of the pieces, but of course, those were several thousand dollars each.  I have nice taste!

After I picked Norm up at the golf course I did 3 loads of laundry, made supper, and called it a day.

Tuesday, August 13 2013

This is our last day of what feels like our “vacation”, although we won’t be back home for almost another month.  We will still be having fun, but I fear the “hustle and bustle” of the Boston area with all the drivers traveling at break-neck speeds and passing you on all sides.  Legal travel in the break-down lane has always freaked me out. After spending 6 weeks in the sparsely populated small towns and back roads of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, we are about to have a culture shock, I am sure.

Mission Island can only be reached at low tide.  People drive across the ocean floor 1/2 mile to reach it.

The barn and dairy building.  They pumped the milk
underground to the dairy building back in the late 1800's.

There is another island here in St Andrews that your can access during low tides by driving ½ mile on the ocean floor, called  Ministers Island.

The island is named after the Loyalist Anglican minister, Revered Samuel Andrews who first settled there in 1786 and whose house still stands. (  barely )

We toured the main house, which was built in the 1890’s. This 12,000 square foot home, constructed out of sandstone cut from the shore, was the summer "cottage" of Canadian Pacific Railway president, Sir William Van Horne. There were 50 rooms - 17 of them
bedrooms.

Also built from quarried beach stone was a circular bathhouse where Van Horne would spend hours drawing and painting.  Below was a salt water pool.

 We also toured the barn which once held prize winning Clydesdale Horses and a prized herd of Dutch  Belted Cows. 

The main dining room.

Van Horne produced his own milk and cheese as well as exotic fruit and vegetables, shipping them out at night ( by railway, of course ) to his winter home in Montreal  to ensure year round produce.

Sir William Van Horne painted this border for his
grandson born in 1907 

We spoke with the RV Caravan we met in Cape Breton Island last month from Titusville, Florida.  They were once again staying at the same campground, so it was fun catching up.