Niagara Falls

Today was my day and night trip to Niagara Falls. I walked down to the coach terminal just before 1 o'clock and located the bus that was waiting and was able to get on board. Our guide was a friendly and informative man called Allen, whilst the driving was taken care of by Omer. On many other tours, the guide was the driver too, but here it made a lot of sense, as it would have been awkward for Allen to drive around the streets of Toronto and other places en route and still do the commentary. Allen spoke at length on the way, and not at all on the way back, as is traditional with this sort of tour. There were 16 of us on the tour.

Our first stop was at one of the many wineries that are to be found along the QEW highway. It's the only major road in the country without a number, as it was named after the Queen Mother, who opened it alongside King George VI over 80 years ago. Some of them are owned by famous people, such as Dan Ackroyd, for example. Some of them have very odd names such the Organised Crime Winery and Angels' Gate Winery. The brief stop included a wine tasting with our host Mark, who provided free samples of some of their wines, and chargeable samples for some of the more expensive ice wines. We saw lots of windmills dotted throughout the vineyards, which are there to blow heat over the vines if they have a cold snap in the summer! The stop there was brief and we soon carried on towards Niagara. We passed through the very pretty town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. There were lots of floral displays down the middle of the road and gardens next to the road, although due to the local regulations, we weren't able to stop as buses have to park out of town (and pay a large fee!)

The next stop was at the heliport. This was an optional extra, not included in the basic tour price, but Gray Line tours get a discount, so I went for a ride. Each ride takes 6 passengers, and I made sure that I was the odd one out from our tour group, by going in with a couple (who were from Ipswich!) and a group of three ladies (grandmother, mother & daughter) on holiday from Saskatchewan to ensure I got the front seat because I thought the views would be better from there and I think I was right. The pre-flight safety video said I shouldn't touch any of the controls - too right I wasn't going to touch any of the controls!

The top picture is just of the Canadian horseshoe falls, whilst the bottom picture is of both falls and was taken just before the top one as we approached. We saw the whirlpool too, and you can see the Maid In The Mist boat approaching the Canadian falls in the top picture. The entire flight only lasts about 10 minutes, but it was worth it for the wonderful views that you can get from above. I took some video, but the vibration was too much for a steady picture, but the stills came out nicely. They kindly take your photograph when you take off and then charge you a lot for them, but I decided to have the full set.

Allen & Omer took those who didn't want the helicopter ride up to an observation platform and came back to collect us and we went along to the Maid In The Mist trip, which was included in the price.

Everybody was issued with a blue plastic coat, which got a bit hot and sticky, but was very good at keeping you dry. Gray Line had also provided a nice waterproof bag (with a bottle of water and chocolate bar inside) that Allen recommended that we wore underneath the coat. Allen also explained that this is the last year that the Maid In The Mist will be running from the Canadian side, due to a dispute with the parks service that wanted them to pay more for the privilege. The parks service put the tour out to tender and another company is going to run tours from next year. I didn't have my camera out for the boat trip, as there was going to be so much spray. We went surprisingly close to both sets of falls and there were occasional downpours of water. It had been raining slightly, but you wouldn't have noticed. After the trip, it had stopped raining anyway and the skies cleared.

After the boat trip, we went for a buffet dinner at the Sheraton hotel up on the hill by the falls. This is on the floor between the 12th and 14th, but it's called the Falls Observation floor. Allen had warned us that they had no control over where the restaurant staff seated us, but luckily, they'd given us two tables of eight, overlooking the falls. As you can see, it was getting dark by this time. At dinner, I sat next to Carmen, who was on holiday from Chile and chatted to her about her holiday and mine.

After dinner we had an hour and half or so to do the Journey Behind The Falls trip, which wasn't all that exciting really, I didn't think, and gift shopping before coming back out to the observation area for the fireworks display at 10pm. The fireworks were good and lasted just over 5 minutes. Allen had asked us all to be ready to leave straight after the end of the fireworks so we could nip out the back way and avoid the traffic, as it's not unknown to be stuck for an hour in the traffic jam at the end of the evening. The whole area seems to be very busy in any case, probably due to the long weekend and it being the final weekend of the official summer before schools restart on Tuesday. Fortunately, everybody complied with the request and we made a quick getaway.

Even though I hadn't been picked up in the morning, you are dropped back at your hotel. I was one of the last to be dropped off, but Omer had got us back to Toronto in good time and I was dropped off shortly before midnight, after having said goodbye to Carmen from Chile, Ashatush (from New York, although originally India) and the three Canadian ladies Lucille, Donna & Kerry.