Magnetic Hill and Hopewell Rocks

Magnetic Hill... an optical illusion... 

Magnetic Hill Winery

 Friday June 3^rd.

Slept in until 9! We got up, got organized and then had the continental breakfast. We drove to Magnetic Hill. This is an interesting place. You drive down this very ordinary little road, stop at the bottom beside a white pole, put the car in neutral and take your foot off the brake… surprisingly the car rolls back ‘up’ the hill. It is disorientating at first. We tried it a couple of times… then drove up the hill on the other side, turned around and drove back down to the pole. From there the car rolled forward ‘up’ the hill. It is an optical illusion and obviously the car is rolling down the hill not up, as it appears to be. We spent a while there trying it out and taking a couple of videos, luckily there were no other people around, except a family who were having a picnic in their car, which had bicycles on the back. I said I’d hang around to watch them using the bikes in the experiment, but the dad said they are for energetic people… I thought it would be very funny to watch a bike roll backwards ‘up’ hill. Then we drove back to town to a gas station to fill up and get the car washed. We saw the Hotel Moncton and decided to book early in order to stay in the area an extra night. Next we stopped at a Staples to pick up an Apple charger for Shayna’s new iPad. Then we drove for an hour to Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park on the Bay of Fundy. We walked down to the Stairs Cove to see the famous rocks that are immersed in water and 6 hours later exposed by the tide. Very beautiful spot. We had a picnic lunch there of food from the morning breakfast. Then we drove back to Moncton to the Magnetic Hill Winery. The weather had gotten a lot cooler but luckily we were able to sit inside and have a drink of wine with some cheese and cracker nibbles. Shayna had a white and I tried 4 fruity wines: rhubarb, apple and pear, cranberry and blueberry, which were all okay but I preferred the rhubarb one. After that we headed back to the room to catch up on emails, photos and other electronic things.