Family Roadtrip to Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick from Ottawa, Ontario

SIDE NOTE: Due to this being a personal story I have left out most of the photos I took from our road trip. It saddens me not to be able to share some of them but out of respect of my kids privacy, I will keep them offline. ❤️ My favourite scene that I did not include was our children running free on the beach with me, and them touching the ocean for the first time. We have this moment framed in our home. So special. The joy on their faces is priceless.

I am going to share the blueprint of our trip to Grand Manan, New Brunswick. Grand Ma-what? You might be asking yourself “Kerry, where is this place you speak of?”. Well, it might be one of my favourite places since our trip last July, and I have been to many beautiful places. I mean, it’s the East Coast of Canada so if you appreciate the East Coast, you will appreciate this. Trust me. Side note, I am ADHD, go-getter, lots of energy. I know my travel timelines may not be for everyone but this is how our family gets it done. We have a farm to get back to and we do not like to idle or sit still while on holiday. The whole week IS the holiday, including getting there and back. We made the most of it. Our children were ages 1 & 4 at this time.

My images may not always be top quality on my travel posts, using a collection of iPhone & DSLR to document our journey with a couple kids in tow while adventuring, sometimes life is a little messy and not picture perfect. Heaven-forbid. I did not always have my camera on me either as I did not have the intention to share any of our trip so it is a little patchy and in-perfect to say the least.

If you are like me when it comes to travel, you spend countless hours researching places, but nothing feels “just right”. You think you have found your next destination but it did not find you organically and lets be real, if it doesn’t find you… Is it actually going to happen because your next big trip has to scream “THIS IS THE PLACE”, I’M RIGHT HERE”. If you have had the feels like this before, you know what I am talking about. Well when I found Grand Manan, I knew it was where we were headed and 24 hours later I had the whole trip booked and planned out.

So let’s dive in. But first, please find yourself a copy of “Miss Rumphius”. Because this book will inspire many a-trips for your family to come, whether they happen in real life or not. My daughters and I travel to the faraway places that Barbara Cooney illustrated every time we open the book. And that my friends, was the reason behind this very trip. We wanted to go to the East Coast where lupines grow and stay in a cottage by the sea. My passion for homeschool sneaking in here a little…

DAY 1: Drive from Perth, Ontario to Rivière De Loop, Quebec (final destination of the day, where we had a hotel reservation for the night with a pool for morning swim before visiting a local park along the St. Lawrence). We tried to aim for 2-3 increments of driving before stopping. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Our major STOPOVER of the day was on the other side of Montreal for an hour of play at a playground. (I have lost the name of the playground we stopped at here, unfortunately just as we arrived it started down pouring rain. We got out and played anyways because we had been driving for several hours at this point and needed to run free — all of us haha). Someone told me once to always eat on the road when road tripping and I can agree, it helps pass the time for the kids and lets them move their bodies when we are stopped to use a restroom or check out a playground, every minute counts. Snacks and a DVD player with an assortment of movies on repeat for the 2 days of driving was how we survived.

I won’t lie, this stretch was long and near the end, draining. The kids were tired, we were tired… We had several dance parties in the truck while driving to keep everyone from crying the last hour+. I think it was around 10pm when we finally got to our hotel. We left our home around 11am that morning. It took a few hours more than what Google Maps said due to our children and the many stops we had to make. But alas, we did it and I do not regret it at all. Something we learnt from this day was that it really is true, Irvine Gas Stations really do have the cleanest restrooms around as the billboards advertise. Stay clear of McDonalds restrooms if possible on this route. 😁

DAY 2: The best part of our morning in Riviere De Loop was the playground along the St. Lawrence at “Parc de la Pointe”. YOU MUST CHECK THIS OUT. We are big playground people and this was an epic playground with the most beautiful view. I was in heaven admiring the St. Lawrence and all the wild rose bushes while my children played pirates on the playground shaped like a ship. It was also brand new, the cedar wood chips still had their fresh smell. After playing for an hour on the playgrounds, we went for a leisurely exploration stroll as the tide was out and we got to experience the beauty of tidal pools at low-tide for the first time. The children were soaked by the end but it was so memorable. It still brings me so much joy thinking about this stopover. I cannot wait to stopover again here at our next East Coast adventure.

After spending an hour at the park. We got into the vehicle and drove from Rivière De Loop, Quebec, STOPOVER for 1.5 hours to hike at Grand Falls, New Brunswick (aka move our bodies break).

Back in the vehicle after an hour and a half of hiking to Pocologan, New Brunswick our final destination of the day where the most amazing motel was waiting for us “The Clipper Ship Motel”… Oh I miss it! I chose this motel because of its reviews and the proximity to the Blacks Harbour Ferry that we caught the following morning but truly, the photos on the internet do not do this place justice. The scenery is beautiful and our children touched the ocean for the first time here and it will forever hold a special place in my heart. So quaint and in the middle of nowhere with a beautiful spot on the ocean. It reminded me of a little B&B that Mark and I stayed at in Trinidad for a wedding I did years ago.

The Clipper Ship Motel, our children’s first time seeing and touching the ocean. A very special moment. I wish I could include these photos but they impede on my children’s privacy so I have to leave them out. Sad face. Truly my favourite photos of my kids. ❤️

DAY 3: Catch the morning ferry at Blacks Harbour to Grand Manan. The ferry ride was a wonderful experience on its own. We spent our time waiting for the ferry looking for sea glass. Once the ferry arrived , all the people got into their vehicles and off we went. After about an hour of sailing we arrived at Grand Manan. At this point I think we were pretty tired of the non-stop travel but we had one more stop we had to make. We stopped at the (only) grocery store on the island to stock up on groceries, as tired as we were, eager to just get to our cottage. A quick grocery shop later and we were on our way to our Airbnb. There are limited photos from this day that I can share.

Blacks Harbour & Grand Manan ferry

The cottage. My daughter and I picked it off Airbnb as it had lupines in the photo, just like Miss Rumphius’ home. It was magical. It was everything I dreamt of and more for my children to experience their first holiday by the sea.

After settling into our cottage we walked along the shoreline across the road; listening to the waves, watching crabs crawl, birds and seals, fishing boats puttering in or out to sea, hunting for sea glass and admiring the sea weed on the sea floor, etc., We had a lovely dinner and settled in for the rest of the evening.

DAY 4: Swallowtail Lighthouse (yes!), Deep Cove Beach (this place has sacred energy like Red Sand Beach on Maui IYKYK). We ran wild on Deep Cove Beach like wild mustangs racing in the wind. It was a beautiful time. There are limited photos from this day that I can share.

DAY 5: We visited the Grand Manan Museum, hiked to the “Hole In The Wall” look out, got take-out for a lunch picnic from “Trapped MG Fisheries” for a scenic picnic at “The Whistle”. We then drove to the other side of the island to Dark Harbour and finished our evening by sea glass hunting on a beach we were going to be driving by on our way back home. There are limited photos from this day that I can share.

DAY 6: Whale watching in the morning. We went back to cottage to warm up, eat and recharge after a long and cold morning on the sea. We spent our last evening at Southern Head Lighthouse and cliffs, followed by another stop at Deep Cove Beach, our favourite place on the island. These two spots are like 5 minutes from each other. There are limited photos from this day that I can share.

DAY 7: Drive home with no plans on the way home. We ended up driving straight home as the kids fell asleep at bedtime and we decided just to do the remaining 6 hours that night. We will never do this again. We had awful headaches the following day and had to swap naps all day once home as the kids were up after their full night of sleep on the road. Sadly we had to learn this lesson the hard way to finish off our wonderful trip. Now we know! Travelling with kids is all about trial and error. It only gets better with each trip. Overall it was a major success. There are no photos from this day.

Overall Grand Manan is much cooler than mainland East Coast. We have an assortment of wool layers from Simply Merino. We learnt how to pack light years ago thanks to backcountry camping and travel backpacking. This all carried through to this trip where we all had a few items of clothing for the week. Layers, lots of layers and wool for fast drying & natural wicking properties. Someone told me a few years ago when I was learning how to prepare for our first backcountry camping trip that there will be mistakes, there will be tears. Her example was trekking for hours by foot into the wilderness with their kids on their backs only to realize they forgot their tent poles. They made it work. It will only get better after each trip and I whole heartedly agree.

This was a jam-packed trip but we did SO MUCH and our children still talk about Grand Manan almost daily. I think of it often as well. I look forward to hopefully returning one day! ❤️

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it on this dreary March day.

– Kerry