We drove the car straight down Regent Street to reach downtown. When we got to an interesting green area, we decided to park and walk around. We arrived at about 3pm on June 30th, the day before Canada Day. We could have walked down the hill, but it would have been awful trying to get back up!

There were lots of signs and maps telling us where we were and where everything else was. We walked through parts of the historic Garrison district.

As we walked past the old buildings, we spotted an information tent. We decided that would be a good place to get information on what to do. It was. We asked her for suggestions of what to do with the kids and she immediately answered Science East (see separate review). The clerk in the booth was very friendly, and she gave us a nice map of Fredericton. She also gave us coupons for each of the kids to get a free ice cream at the Lighthouse Adventure Company.

We followed the instructions she gave us and walked toward the St. John River. When we got to the end of the street, we found an interesting walking path that led to a foot bridge to cross a busy street. We took the bridge across (it was stroller friendly, with ramps) and then went up the path to the Lighthouse. There were lots of biking and stroller trails along the river.

There were lots of carnival rides and booths being set up for Canada Day along the waterfront.

The kids’ ice cream at the lighthouse was free with the coupon that we got from the information tent. The single cones were $2.75, kids cones $2.25. The kids cones were what I’d call a generous scoop of ice cream. The single scoops were huge. The Lighthouse Adventure Centre has a display which costs a couple of bucks, but we skipped it. They also rent bicycles and laptop computers. Fredericton has free wireless Internet in many places downtown ‘Fred zone’, so it does make a bit of sense J.

After our ice cream, we started the walk back up to Science East, which only took a few minutes. That’s when we came across the ‘no left turn to Tim Horton’s" sign.

Walking around in downtown Fredericton worked great. The shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, and the University of New Brunswick are all at the top of a long hill though, so taking the car down was also a good plan.