Fundy National Park and the Fundy Coast has been a favourite for my family this year.  My son and I hiked the Fundy Circuit and my whole family, along with some friends, spent the Labour Day long weekend camping in one of the more tame campgrounds.  While we weren’t out hiking 17km a day with packs on, we still managed to do a fair amount of walking and touring of some of the amazing Fundy Coastline.  And in the process of doing this, my daughter and I found another way that VFF excel over traditional shoes and got to see one of the biggest tourist attractions for NB.

One of the big attractions along the Fundy Coastline is the Hopewell Rocks.  The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world, and because of this you can see these rock formations that have been carved out into some pretty neat shapes by these tides.  The tide actually erodes the bottom of the formations faster then the top so you have these rock formations that look like flower pots.  As the tide comes in, these flower pots become surrounded by water, and after the tide recedes you can go down to the ocean floor and walk around them.

This is where the Vibram FiveFingers once again shine over normal shoes.  My daughter and I wore our VFFs down to the ocean floor when we visited Hopewell Rocks.  Since it is the bottom of the ocean, the ground is very wet, has pools of water everywhere, rocks covered by seaweed and large amounts of very sticky mud.  Some people there removed their shoes so as not fill them with water and the mud but then they had problems walking as some the ground was very rough rock and hard on their bare feet.  Other people kept their shoes on and consequently had mud covered and soaking wet shoes for the remainder of the day but they didn’t have problems with the rocks.  Others were wearing flip-flops which promptly got sucked off their feet in the mud which meant they dug around in the mud for their shoes or just left them buried.  Normal shoes and flip-flops were not ideal and bare feet were good but they had rough ground to contend with.

Our VFFs stayed on in the mud no problem, although I will admit that VFF Classics would have most likely been removed by the mud as I felt my Sprints pull away from my feet and was only held on by the strap.  My daughter loved the KSOs in the mud.  She was racing around in the mud then into the ocean and over all the rocks with no problem.  The only area she slid a bit was on the seaweed rocks but I don’t think anything you could put on your feet would prevent that.

There is a cleaning station for your feet ofter you come up off the beach and in about 5 minutes my daughter and I were clean of mud and on our way to the ice cream stand in our VFFs, unlike other people who either had to put wet feet in their shoes or clean off their shoes and then squelch around for the rest of the day if they didn’t bring ay other footwear.  So once again, VFFs shine in comparison to other shoes this day.

This Labour Day weekend was a great way to end the summer.  We spent time touring our beautiful province, saw some pretty amazing natural wonders (The Bay of Fundy is actually in the final running as one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, click here to see why).

I hope everyone had a fantastic Labour Day long weekend that was a fitting end to your summer and that you had the chance to get out and do something relaxing and enjoyable with your family and friends.