Hopewell Rocks is a provincial park located about 1/2 hour from Moncton, New Brunswick. The park is situated at the end of the Petitcodiac River as it meets with the Bay of Fundy. The latter is famous for having the highest tide fluctuations in the world of up to 40 feet allowing you to walk on the ocean floor. But more importantly you get to walk around these amazing sea stacks, formed when the relentless tidal waters erode the soft sandstone that is the geology of the terrain here (the water here is a muddy red from all of the eroded sandstone).
It is highly recommended to bring very old footwear, or even better, rain boots because that ocean floor is wet, and very, very muddy. From the park entrance, it is a short hike down to the edge of the cliffs, where you can conveniently take some stairs down to the ocean floor. Of course it is highly recommended to plan your trip when the tide is out, but pleasantly your ticket is valid for 2 entrances to the park, allowing you to visit during high tide, and low tide. Tide tables are available here for the specific date you want to visit. There is plenty of parking, as well as food, bathrooms and the requisite gift shop located close to the entrance.
For more information about the park click here.
From the point of view for photography, Hopewell Rocks is a very popular tourist destination, which means crowds and crowds of people. The amount of people in the picture below is actually quite reasonable, but if you are a purist landscape photographer, then this may bother you.
To get around this I took multiple shots of the same location (meaning a tripod mount), and used masks in Photoshop in order to mask out areas that were heavily populated.
However sometimes, leaving some people gives the viewer a sense of scale, as shown in the shot below, where I left one red-jacketed person in the shot. You can see just how high those stacks really are.
As you can see from the shots below, the sky was a lovely hue of grey, these were shot mid-morning. For real drama you will want to arrive at sunrise to catch Golden hour (this is a sunrise location as the sun will be rising on the right hand side of this shot.) Sunset could work, but you would need a spectacular sunset illuminating clouds in the East. Good luck!
Copyright 2025 Philip Colet 