Niagra Falls - Canada

After visiting the info centre and a few hours rest in our room, we headed down to see the falls. We are on the Canadian Side, which gives us a view of both the American Falls and the Horseshoe Falls. The view from capitol hill is opposite the American Falls and about a kilometer from horseshoe falls. Both look spectactular especially the closer, American Falls. Its a bit of a shame how commercial the place is. Capitol Hill has 3-4 wax museums, Imax, mini golf, casino's, hotels and fast food everywhere. There are also 2-3 other tourist areas all on the Canadian side. We found a restaurant for dinner, the Secret Garden, which was quite reasonably priced and and had an (obstructed) view of the falls.

Our hotel, Glengate Hotel, is about a 20min walk from the main strip. The hotel is clean and cheap, although we were a bit disappointed. We paid extra to get a better room but the room we paid for wasn't available for our first two nights. Our first room only had a small window, was very dark, no fridge and was smallish. The second room was much nicer, spacious, better lit and a king size bed. Both rooms had a Jucuzzi and 3 tv channels. The hotel has WiFi but no public computer, we dont have a laptop! There are plenty of cheap looking hotels closer to the action with similar rooms and include breakfast that we would probably recommend.

Tuesday was Damien's birthday, and the room being so dark we slept in. My morning coffee was served in my birthday present, a Yellowstone travel mug with a bear on it, in the Jacuzzi. We then headed down to Denny's for breakfast, bacon, eggs, sausage and pancakes all on one plate!

After breakfast we went on the Maid of the Mist boat tour. It was only goes about a kilometer, about 20 minutes. The boat basically drives past the American Falls and right into the middle of Horseshoe Falls. The spray from the falls travels a long way and being in the actual horseshoe, it is hard to see and you get soaking wet. We were standing right on the front of the boat, it was really good fun!

After the tour we visited the Table Rock area which is at the top of the Horseshoe Falls. The views of the falls were just amazing. So much water, running so fast (over 100kph in some spots). We visited a few restaurants in the area looking at booking a table with a view for dinner. The Skylon Tower wouldn't take reservations, so we ended up at Edgewater, with a table on the balcony overlooking the falls. The rest of the afternoon we walked along Niagra Gorge for a bit and had a rest in the hotel room. While we were strolling along Christine had this Muslim guy demand she take a photo of him and his friends, very rude, I was about to tell him we wouldn't do it, but Christine ended up taking a photo anyway after insisting he said 'please'.

The drinks at Edgewater were great, Christine had a cocktail sampler (4 mini cocktails), while I had a few beers and a glass of red. The food was ok, Christine had the Salmon while I had a Chicken and Ribs plate. The view was great, we watched sunset and then the lights on the falls. On the way back to the hotel we grabbed some doughnuts and Christine had some candles which we lit.

Wednesday was Canada Day! This meant bigger crowds but also fireworks over the falls. We spent the day on the north side of the falls. We have purchased an adventure pass which gets us 2 days on the shuttle and 4 attractions including Maid of the Mist. Also on the pass was the white water walk, which as the name suggests is a walk, along some white water rapids below the falls. It involves a 70m elevator ride to a boardwalk and then a 300m walk to 2 viewing platforms along the gorge. It was nice but not spectacular, definately wouldn't bother unless it was free on the pass!

Next stop was the whirlpool which is a nice part of the river where it does a 90deg turn, again very touristy, with a cable car set up. Interestingly this is the site where Niagra Falls formed, in the last 12000 years it has actually moved (eroded) 7 miles up stream to its curent location. Erosion no longer continues at the same rate due to human interferrance, they have diverted a lot of the water away from the falls.

From the whirlpool we walked along the river to a golf club where we had a light, late lunch. After lunch we completed the northern loop on the bus.

After another afternoon rest at the hotel we had mexican for dinner. Again we were unimpressed with the food and margarita's, but we are a long way from Mexico now! After dinner we headed down to the gorge to watch the fire works for Canada Day. These were good to watch and a lot lower than usual, as they launch them from the river level and we are about 70m above the river. On the way home we got some more doughnuts and ate them in the Jacuzzi in the hotel. Christine also did an experiment in the Jacuzzi and learnt that if you burp under water it makes bubbles... it was very funny to watch!

Our final day at Niagra Falls was spent finishing off our adventure pass activities. We have done it in 3 days although you could do it easily in 2 days or one if you were rushing. Journey behind the falls was the first adventure for the day. This was very cool, from the top of table rock (horseshoe falls), you take an elevator down through the rock to a series of tunnels. At the end of the tunnels are 3 viewing platforms. The first is about 10 meters from the base of the falls, very wet. The next two are actually inside the falls, although you cant get to the edge of the tunnel as they are blocked off for safety. The last adventure was a 4d cartoon movie about the falls, kinda fun. You get blasted with air and water and the ground shakes. It was made more amusing by the fact the a little girl was terrified and crying. In the afternoon we sat back and had biscuits and cheese on a table overlooking the falls.

We pack the bags and had an early night as the alarm was set for 5:30. We needed to walk about half an hour to catch a bus at around 7am.

To get the greyhound the next morning we had to walk from Canada to the U.S.A.! This was fun, accross a bridge with a view (last glimpse) of the falls. We then had a 9 hour bus trip to New York.