After we left Halifax in Nova Scotia we headed inland and made our way to Moncton. The reason we chose this town was for its proximity to Kouchibouguac National Park which is about an hour away from Moncton. The drive was fine and the only thing of note was what we saw at one of the gas stations we stopped at, which was a ‘Bark Park’, a designated area for you to take your dogs, which made us think of Arlo. No doubt he’d be getting all the attention if he was there! Ha ha

Our Airbnb in Moncton was lovely and we quickly unloaded the car as we had somewhere more important to get to…crazy golf!

Crazy Golf

The crazy golf was located at a nearby amusement park called Magic Mountain. As well as golf there was also a water park, a fayre and a zoo, amongst other things too. We obviously headed straight to the golf for which there were four 9-hole courses to choose from, or if you are like us you play them all – which is of course what we did. The courses all had a different theme and they were Critter Ridge, Peak Station, Tombstone Flats and Miners Canyon. Below is proof that we did them all as this is me with the scorecards.

The holes weren’t that ‘crazy’ but there were a few tricky holes. For those interested in the winner, I won one game, Si won two games and we drew one, although technically Si won that one too as he’d got more holes in 2 than me. However, I did get the only hole in 1 across the entire 36 holes – that does mean I can take an extra 10 strokes off my score doesn’t it, meaning I did win?! Ha ha, perhaps not!

Kouchibouguac National Park

Pronounced “koo-shee-boo-gwack” which according to Parks Canada means “river of the long tides” is where we went on our first full day. As already stated this Park was just over an hour away, although it took longer as there were a fair amount of roadworks being undertaken on various parts of the route sadly. This was quite different to the other parks we’d been too, as there are beaches and estuaries, as well as forests and wetlands. Another notable difference is the terrain was all very flat, so no uphill climbs for us this time.

We started with a walk along Kelly’s Beach which you access via a long boardwalk. It is a sandy beach, flagged at the back by a row of sand dunes, behind which sits a lagoon and grasslands. The beach is about 15 miles long so we obviously didn’t walk it all, just a portion of it but it was nice to walk along the water’s edge. I know these pictures don’t look like it was warm but it was incredibly warm and humid.

We then did a combination of other trails, including a river walk, a forest walk and a walk around a bog. The Bog had a 7m-tall spiral tower with a staircase near the start so you could get a view from high up. The Park is also meant to be good for spotting lots of different species of animals too, especially birds.

When we got back from the Park we had dinner and a few drinks at Tide and Boar which is a brewery and pizza place (well, we have been missing The Port!) which happened to be just down the road from us.

Magnetic Hill

On day two we went to a popular tourist attraction called Magnetic Hill. It’s hard to explain what it is but hopefully you will get what I mean. It’s basically a road that looks like it is going uphill (because the layout of the road and surrounding areas make it look that way), when really it is going down hill, so the idea is you drive your car to the end of the road, put it in neutral (no need to use the accelerator pedal) and then the car rolls seemingly ‘uphill’. It’s an optical illusion and called ‘Magnetic Hill’ as it’s supposed to feel like there is a magnet pulling your car uphill as you are not touching any pedals. Photos don’t really help either, but here are a few anyway. It is such a random place as cars are literally getting to the road, driving to a marked point, putting the car in neutral and then ‘rolling upwards’. Not sure it was worth the $10 mind as it takes all of 5 minutes but oh well.

these were the views from the “top” of the hill which you roll back up from the white post at the “bottom”.

After we’d recovered from witnessing this magic we visited a local nature park called Irishtown and then had a wander around Moncton town. Heavy rain was due in late afternoon so we wanted to be sure we were back home before that came.

We are leaving Moncton today and heading for Grand Falls for a few nights. This stop is the break up the long journey to Quebec City which would have been roughly 7hrs without stopping. We are only there 2 nights and I am currently trying to convince Si to go on a zip line over the Falls…it is a hard ‘no’ at the moment so I don’t like my chances. Stay tuned to find out more in a few days.

Lucy