Meat Cove Beach and Meat Cove Brook Mouth

The next day was a much less pleasant day than the previous one, with fog well below the Highlands three or four times during the day and cloudy overcast skies that did not clear until the late afternoon. After lunch, I drove down to the end of the Meat Cove Beach Road and explored the beach area, drastically changed since my last visit there in 2010 as a result of the 2010 flash flood. Photo #1 looks west from the east end of the beach, formed of gravel and cobblestones, some of which have been ground down to fine sand. The mouth of Meat Cove Brook is now at the far west end of the beach, about 190 m (625 ft) away, directly below the cliffs; it’s not visible here, being lower than the adjacent beach. The highland that dominates the centre of the photo is, so far as I am aware, unnamed; Little Grassy is the much lower peak at the far right. The Meat Cove Campground sits above cliffs, which form a point and then retract and rise inland (follow the shore line back from the point to the RV’s).

Photo #2 is taken at the west end of the beach and shows the brook where it enters Meat Cove (the water); it was not a difficult job to jump across it to the narrow band of sand on the other side. The brook was flowing with a decent amount of speed, but, as can be seen, is very shallow.

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Taken at the same place as photo #2, photo #3 shows the brook just above its mouth. The beach area has been well cleaned up since the flash flood pushed piles of dead trees and rubble all the way out to the Gulf, yet some traces of its leavings can still be seen if one looks carefully.

Photo #4 was taken across from the headland seen at the centre of photo #3 and looks upstream at the replacement bridge; compare photo #4 with this photo of the old bridge. None of the grass on the east side of the brook remains; all is now gravel and the brook bed is itself narrower and filled with rubble on both sides of the bridge. A new layer of facing stones of the size used in breakwaters has been laid to protect the eastern shore from additional erosion. The boardwalk, visible in both photos, is again operational, though its route has been slightly changed. The fog that hung over the Highlands is especially visible in this photo, which lacks the crispness of the 2010 photo.

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Photo #5 was taken from the bridge over the brook on the Meat Cove Beach Road and looks upstream. Piles of rocks, stones, and gravel litter the brook bed and downed and uprooted tree trunks are found all along its course, remains of the 2010 flood. Meat Cove Beach Road is at the far right of the photo, climbing up to meet the Meat Cove Road at the top of the incline. The boardwalk can again be seen at the far left of the photo; it’s a shaded, pleasant walk, mostly above the brook bed, that leads from the Meat Cove Family Restaurant and Internet Café down to the bridge and beach; if you haven’t walked it, you should.