After a few days in Moncton, we broke up the long journey to Quebec City with a couple of nights stay in a place called Grand Falls. As the name suggests there is a large waterfalls here but as we arrived quite late in the afternoon we checked in at our motel (weird to not be in an Airbnb now!) and then headed out to a local pizza place for some food, before tracking down the only brewery in town. Priorities.

It was actually a really nice brewery called ‘Grand Falls Brewing Co’ (imaginative!) and it was really large and modern with a big selection of beer, including quite a lot of lighter options which was useful when you have to drive back afterwards. Kev you’d have liked the 2.5% light IPA!

As it was Saturday night, they even had some live music on in the form of ‘Alpine John’, a decent solo guitarist who was playing lots of covers, including a lot of country music. The pics above were taken earlier on in the evening so it looks quieter than it was, it got busier later although never packed or anything as it’s only a small town.

Grand Falls

We only had one full day in the area yesterday so we started the morning by walking over to see the ‘Grand Falls’, which was only about 10 mins away on foot. There were a few short trails and look out points around the valley on both sides of the river so we checked those out too, but it wasn’t a lot of hiking for once. The falls are impressive, and they have the river dammed off at the top as the water flow is so strong. You can see the zip-line going across the river in some of the pics later too, we saw some people going on that but we didn’t try it ourselves I’m afraid.

Edmunston and the ‘Jardin Botanique du Nouveau-New-Brunswick’

In the afternoon we drove to the nearby town of Edmunston (about 45 mins away) where they had a nice botanical gardens you could walk round. It wasn’t massive but it was split in to lots of different sections with ponds, waterfalls, fountains etc, and had lots of places you could sit and enjoy the views. It was a very hot day, so nice to have some quiet time and shade to sit in.

They had a few topiary models as well dotted around the gardens which were pretty impressive. We thought the flowery gardener, who was constantly whistling an annoying tune, looked a bit dodgy!

Tech-Noir Arcade

After the gardens we went to the ‘Tech-Noir Arcade’ in the town of Edmunston which is a retro style gaming area with loads of old arcade machines, games consoles and other games set up. A very 80’s and 90’s vibe. You pay by the hour (only £10 each for 2 hours) and all the games are then free. Dave B, you would have liked it there!

It was nice and quiet too, so we played a fair amount of table-top ice hockey, guitar hero, some of the shooting games and had a closely fought round of pool. I took a 3-0 lead, only for Lucy to pull it back to 4-3 to her, before I sealed the win 5-4 in the end. For those who are keeping tabs and score 🙂

We’ve moving on today to Quebec City. Grand Falls is quite a French-speaking area, and we’ve noticed it getting progressively more French as we’ve headed north. It will be interesting to see what it’s like in Quebec!

Si