Another Disappointing Waterfall

I don’t know what it is, but those keeping up with my blog and my travels know about my bad luck with waterfalls. Chele and I had some waterfall disappointments in Northern Ontario, and while Jules and I saw plenty of falling water at Montmorency Falls, the experience was still strangely not-that-scenic. So when we saw photos of Grand Falls in the New Brunswick guidebooks, we decided to take a little detour. It was less than an hour out of the way, so we figured we didn’t have much to lose.

We read that the falls in Grand Falls is at its highest in spring, like most waterfalls, and at its lowest point in the fall. Since we were closer to spring than fall, we figured we’d see a decent amount of water, right? Unfortunately, no.

The falls are connected to a dam and a power plant, so the water is on a set of cycles. We must have been there when most of the water was being diverted to the power plant, so Grand Falls was a less-than-grand trickle.

At least I got a nice photo out of the excursion, though, water or not. I stitched this together from three photos, intending to make a panoramic, but the end result came out 4×6 anyway. I guess I can just blow it up to a gigantic size. Anyone want a lifesize poster of Grand Falls, NB?

The above photo was taken from midway across that scary bridge. The bridge is named for Ron Turcotte, the jockey who rode Secretariat to a Triple Crown in 1973. He’s apparently from Grand Falls, NB.

Another gem from our excursion to Grand Falls! On the way back to the highway that would take us to Bathurst, we drove through St-Quentin, the only town on the way big enough for a gas station open late and a Tim Horton’s. They also had, as you can see, a GIANT maple leaf! Whee!

Once we filled our bellies and the gas tank, it was off to Bathurst. It was dusky when we hit the highway and we knew we’d be going through a remote area, but I don’t think either of us anticipated how truly creepy the interior of New Brunswick is at night! We were crossing the northern section of the Appalachians, and not many other cars were interested in doing the same that night, that’s for sure! A couple of moose were, though. We saw our first moose off on the north side of the road. Jules was driving, and she slammed on the brakes, so we got a decent look at it before it lumbered off into the woods. Our second moose probably stopped us less than half an hour later. And when I say that it stopped us, I mean that it’s a good thing that it was such a foggy night and Jules was driving well under the speed limit, or else she wouldn’t have had time to brake when the enormous creature was lit up by our headlights. It was just standing there, in the middle of the road, a huge guy with antlers. If it hadn’t been so terrifying, it would have been an incredible sight. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the camera fast enough. Jules said it was too soon, anyway—she was still having a bit of a heart attack.