Day 28 - Niagara Falls

Monday 16 August 2004, ET (GMT-4, Perth-12)

Before arriving in Canada, my travel agent set me up with a Moose Pass tour to Niagara Falls, and I was able to get Daniel on surprisingly easily. He'd seen it when he was 8, but didn't really remember much, so it was a good catch-up.

This tour was amazing. Friendly group of just 14 people from all over the world plus a knowledgeable driver, and a lot of interesting stops along the way that a lot of the major tours simply don't do - and for just $62 ($50 + $12 for Maid of the Mist). We went to a winery and learned about Canadian ice wine, made from frozen grapes picked at -10 to -12 degrees in February, went to a lovely town called Niagara on the Lake which was full of old shops, flower displays and green parks, climbed up a monument to a hero of the 1812 war, Sir Isaac Brock (my knees took two days to recover unfortunately), and then went to the Falls itself. It was weird being at yet another border crossing to the US, but this time I didn't have to cross it, so there was no worries.

Not that I needed to cross it. The Falls themselves are divided in two - the American Falls, which are pretty much straight down from near the Maid's launching point near the Rainbow Bridge connecting the two countries, and the Canadian (or Horseshoe) Falls. You can only really see either from the Canadian side as you'd just be looking straight down onto the top of them from the US side - so the Canadian side has a very developed tourist infrastructure centred around Falls Avenue and Clifton Hill - things such as Coke machines that only accept US$1 bills, all manner of amusement arcades and theme shops, hotels, observation towers, expensive restaurants, fast food stores, casinos, toy shops selling made-in-China moose (the correct plural for moose according to Oxford) and the compulsory Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Cafe. In short, a tacky tourist town that tries to capitalise on its location.

The first hour was taken up with just taking in the Falls themselves and then going on the Maid of the Mist boat ride right into them. The "mist" is more like something barely short of torrential rainfall, and they do issue blue cellophane raincoats as part of the entry process. Even standing on the shore I had to dry my distance glasses about four or five times.

The journey itself was incredible. It reminded me of those shipwreck disaster movies where you couldn't see anything, heard the falling water all around you, and were being thrown all about a ship with a whole bunch of people. This was at least partly as I chose to stand on the front deck rather than up top. Daniel wimped out and went right to the back of the boat, only getting to see the real Falls when the boat turned around and started heading back.

After this, I listened to some guy murdering Hotel California in a mock-country style on an acoustic guitar and bought some rather-too-rich fudge for dinner before going into the city centre. I'd never been in such a place so did take the time to look around a bit before deciding it really was far too commercial for my tastes. I did however find a nice garden which was a good escape from the city, but my time to go came when I overheard an American woman on a cellphone saying that she wanted to send an email but Canada doesn't have the Internet. (Who owns .ca then - a moose maybe?)

The Falls is one thing by day and another by night. Much like Kings Park back in Perth, the lighting experts have set up this changing arrangement of coloured illumination for the Falls which is just spectacular. The mist isn't quite so "in-your-face" at night, so you can just sit there about 50m from the Falls and watch the vast volume of moving water as it tumbles into the light. It is just awesome.

The return trip was pretty straightforward - Queen Elizabeth Way express back to Toronto and everyone's hostels or let-off points. All in all, a great trip and definitely the highlight of our time in Toronto.