Monday 8th August: Rowan Jodi and I got up early and said our farewells to Dana & Jim, the lovely old couple running the farm stay that we stayed at in Andover. We then popped over to the Corwine’s house to say goodbye to all of them before hitting the road. Unfortunately, due to some airport hiccups, we missed Steve, Cyan, Cyan’s parents and Emory. We did manage to say goodbye to Uncle Chris and Cyan’s sister (Lyla) , and asked them to say goodbye to everyone and thank them very much. We are all looking forward to seeing Lyla back in NZ and I hope that Emory can make it over at some stage too.
We then got on the road and made our way to Niagara falls, I am sure the country side was great – but I missed most of it – I slept almost all the way to Buffalo, but it was primo as I had had another patchy night’s sleep the night before with heaps of weird dreams – I’m not sure what it is, but I have been having some very odd sleeps. Anyway we drove around Buffalo for a bit as we were going to take a bit of a rest spot, but we didn’t really see anything that took our fancy so carried on towards Niagara (NY). On crossing one of the major bridges we looked over and I made comment about a huge plume of smoke in the distance, we didn’t think too much of it and continued on towards the falls, as we drew nearer Jodi said “maybe that’s the mist from the falls?” Rowan and I didn’t really believe it would be that, but it turns out she was absolutely correct. It was a pretty amazing site. We decided we would go and take a look from the American side before crossing the border into Canada. We paid $10 to park our car and walked through the park to the Falls. Wow!! They are pretty incredible, however, everyone says they are much better from the Canadian side- and let me tell you – they are not wrong! Anyway here is a pic from the USA side of the Falls;
We then continued over the bridge into Canada, It’s a pretty small bridge – much smaller than I imagined. It probably took about half an hour due to the lines going through customs – but it was incredibly easy. The guy looked at our passports, no lines, no getting out of the car, no looking in the car or the boot (other than leaning down to look in the backseat at me and asking me to take off my glasses), no forms, no questions about length of stay or anything. I found it all a bit mind boggling as for some reason I thought there would have been more involved, but apparently not. Anyway we were now in a brand new country, Rowan said “Welcome to Canada everyone” to which I replied (with my tongue in my cheek) “Well this is heaps different”, and we all had a bit of a laugh. They then drove me to the hotel where I was due to meet Rob & Joan, and they continued on to look for a car park. It was great to see Rob & Joan again, and my goodness, the view from their hotel room was nothing short of breath-taking. Here is the view from the room, I will post more photos on Facebook, but it’s safe to say I took a couple of hundred photos, of water going over a cliff, during the last couple of days.
Rowan and Jodi then came up to the room to say hello and take a couple of pics, they then decided to get on their way. I was sad to see them go, as it has been great travelling with them, but I look forward to catching up on my return and sharing stories of our experiences. R & J and I then went up to the I-max in Niagara to check out a film about the history of daredevils going over the falls in barrels and stuff. It was a nice thing to do, to get into the mood and hear stories and some of the history, behind such a famous body of water. It’s a weird place though. I always imagined the Niagara Falls to be in a state park or something, but in actual fact it’s pretty populated around there, and set up for people to make cash off them. It’s kind of tacky in some ways, and hard to explain, (without experiencing it) but I guess it’s kind of like a plastic version of Queenstown or something, with bad rides and streets set up to make you go a particular way, or pay for the transport options to take a quicker route. Anyway the Falls more than make up for it, and so it’s still a cool place to go. It was getting on in the day by now so R & J and I went for dinner in a nice restaurant overlooking the water and had some steaks. Afterwards the three of us walked through a park and down to look at the falls at night, as they light them up from these big Halogen light towers. It is very cool. We then returned back to the hotel for a good night’s rest.
Tuesday 9th August: The three of us got up early and went down to beat the crowds at the hotel, for the breakfast they provide. It was a good move, as we scored a table right by the windows looking at the water. We packed up our bags and stored them in the rental car for the day and then went out on a day of adventures. We took a bus tour with a guide pointing out sights and went to a number of local attractions. We started at the Niagara Fury. It was awesome!! They give you protective jackets, or ponchos really, and you go into a room and watch an animated movie made by Pixar, about how the Falls were created. It’s a really cute and funny short film. Then a bunch of doors open and you walk into a large circular room with a 360 degree screen, and a sort of viewing platform with handles for people to hold onto. The lights then go out and the screens start up – and you are put through a pretty amazing ‘4D’ experience, snow and water are sprayed on you – well the water is pretty much dumped on you at some points, and the floor moves and water rushes out from all over the place. It is a lot of fun. From here we walked down to the “Journey behind the falls” – so you need to keep your protective jackets on. You get a lift down to under the falls and walk through these long tunnels, where every now and then there is an open end that you can look out and hear and see the water from the falls rushing down in front of you. The sound is amazing, as is the power of the water. We got some cool photos down there. I forgot to mention earlier that it was a pretty overcast and rainy day today, but it didn’t dampen our spirits and we knew we were going to get wet anyway. We then went and did another few things on the tour. We stopped at a Souvenir village type place for lunch, saw a clock made out of flowers, visited a butterfly aviary (which was also great) and then made it to the highlight of the trip which was the “Maid of the Mist”. We were issued with another blue protective rain poncho, and made our way down to the boat. If you ever go to Niagara, or if you are passing through, this is the one thing you should definitely do. Its heaps of fun and you get great views of both the American and Canadian Falls. The boat takes you right up underneath them and powers up the diesel motors so you effectively sit underneath them for five minutes or so. As the tour guide kept shouting, you can ‘feel the power of the shower’ and get ‘kissed by the mist” (Very amusing and highly entertaining).
This whole tour took about 6 hours all up. Afterwards we went back to get the rental, packed up the rest of our belongings and headed on our way to London, Ontario. I didn’t really know where we were heading that much as I had failed to check the map beforehand so I felt a bit lost. Joan was driving though and Rob was navigating, so I was in safe hands, and found myself drifting off to sleep again. I woke up just as we were getting close to London. We had some time on our hands before going to meet Joan’s cousin Janet, her husband Bob, and their daughter Stephanie, who I had met a couple of years earlier when she was visiting NZ for a while, So we went to a local mall, where Joan shopped, while I studied a map of Ontario and drank tea with Rob while he read the paper. We then met the others for dinner. It was lovely to meet them and we had a nice time. After dinner we got back on the road and made our way up to Lake Eire. Where I am now sitting and writing this blog. It’s almost 1am in the morning, so I should really wrap this blog up for the day. Joan’s family cottage is very cute and cosy, and as we arrived in the dark, I am excited about waking up in the morning and checking out the view. I can hear the sound of the lake outside my window, and can see it shimmering in the moon light. It is only a few feet away, so I bet it must look amazing during the day. Lake Eire is one of the great lakes, and I think Rob said that Cleveland is on the other side about 30 km away, so that gives you an idea of the size. I am here for about a week now, and looking forward to seeing some of the places that Joan grew up in, and seeing more of the family. The one downfall however, is that there is no Internet, so I am using a word document to write this up, and will copy it over to the blog at the next chance I get. So for those regular readers out there – I know there are a couple of you – updates may be a bit sporadic, but I hope you enjoy my tales when they make it online. I hope that everyone back home is doing fine, and I send a lot of love to my mates in London, UK, and hope things are not too crazy over there for you. Much love to one and all, your mate, Mizzle x x x
AKA: ………….NYD (hee hee)
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