Day 34 - Canada

Blog by Alan today with some thoughts by Sarah in orange.

 

For anyone who doesn't already know, Canadians have a reputation throughtout many countries (and especialy in my world) as being really slow and dimwitted. Just thought I should point that out now.

 

Luckily today was dry as we had a lot of things planned. We began by driving across the Rainbow bridge into Canada. The border security woman asked us a few questions but let us proceed through as Sarah was looking less dodgy than usual.  Me?!  With that haircut I'm surprised we get anywhere. We easily found our way to the Falls in spite of her directions and soon found parking only metres from the main attraction areas for only $10 for the day. In Sydney it would probably have cost about that much per hour. Her directions were take a right at the lights and another right and then right again to the falls.  Pretty basic instructions.  I don't know why Alan had a problem.  I think it comes from actually listening and taking instructions from women he has a problem with.

 

We decided to do the Maid of the Mist boat ride first of all in case it got busier as the day went on. We went down to the water in an elevator and then joined the mass of tourists waiting for the next boat, while also putting on our blue raincoats. We got on the next boat and were lucky enough to find a vacant spot next to the railing so we could hopefully get some decent photos. The boat pulled out and went past American Falls before arriving at Horseshoe Falls. At the bottom of the falls the wind blows so strongly and there's so much water spray flying around that it was almost impossible to get clear photos. It was great fun though and an awesome view. Without the raincoats we would have been absolutely drenched. It was over too quickly and we returned to the dock for our next adventure. Getting off the boat was a trial. Most people on there were Asian tourists, all of whom wanted to be first off the boat and pushed and shoved without mercy.  Actually one of them pushed me hard into a metal railing and then shoved themselves on to the elevator even though the elevator driver kept telling them to stop getting on.

 

We walked half a mile or so down the road to Horseshoe falls, taking photos along the way. From there we once again went down in an elevator to the Journey Behind the Falls for which we were wearing yellow raincoats. This is a passage which has a couple of portals looking out into the falls. You can't see anything except tons of gushing water but there's also another section which goes out onto a little platform just beside the base of the falls. This part was infinitely more wet and windy than the boat had been but we still managed to get a few photos before being blown away.  Before starting the Journey Behind the Falls, the lady in front of us asked one of the employees whether we would get wet.  The answer was the spray was the same as it was outside near the railing.  Yeah right.  The top wasn't anything other than a sprinkle.  At the bottom it was like someone was spraying a high pressure hose.

 

We returned to street level and bought a lemonade. We paid with American money which everyone in Canada readily accepts, however the cashier gave me Canadian coins for my change. What am I supposed to do with that? Dopey Canadians! We went to catch a bus back to our car but after sitting around waiting for a while we went to take a few more photos of the water. Naturally as soon as we left the bus stop, it came along so we had to run back to get on it just before it took off. I was about to get off back at our car when Sarah had the bright idea that we stay on the bus to our next destination because there was no parking there. So we did, and when we arrived there was of course plenty of parking available. Good one Sarah! Bugger off.  I pointed out the map in the bus and you agreed.  At this attraction we went down yet another elevator and out onto a boardwalk adjacent to the river, which at this point had turned into grade 5 rapids. It didn't take long until we had walked to the end and back and taken the elevator up to the top.

 

A bus was arriving as we came out so we took it back to our car and headed north again in search of the butterfly conservatory. Yeah he conveniently forgot to mention that he made us get off the bus one stop too early and we had to walk.  Good one Alan! It didn't take long to get there and we went into the big aviary-like structure which is the home to around 2,000 butterflies. Some of them had such pretty colours and Sarah managed to get one or two on her hand.

 

We left the butterfly joint and headed back toward the falls again. Before crossing back to America we bought 6 pieces of fudge, 3 of which we've already eaten for dinner. Once we'd done that we headed for the bridge, but of course following Canadian directions is not that straightforward. You're right there at the bridge entrance but instead you have to make numerous turns around small streets, with only little insignificant signs pointing the way until you actually fluke the correct way onto the bridge. At the other end, the American border officer grilled us with quite a number of questions including where we were from, what our jobs were, where we were staying, where we were going for the rest of our time here, how long we'd been in Canada plus lots of others. I'm sure it didn't help given that we told him we had only been in Canada 4 or 5 hours, but the dopey Canadian woman had stamped our passports with the date from 2 days ago. And Canadians wonder why the rest of the world poke fun at them for being slow. 2 days behind everyone else seems about right.

 

So we were allowed back into America thankfully. I didn't fancy spending the rest of my time in Canada. We headed east toward Wheatfield as we wanted to do the corn field maze that we had missed out on yesterday because of the rain. We got there and had the maze all to ourselves as we were the only people there at the time. It's actually 3 different mazes. The first one we did was the easiest one and as you go around you have to find points where you stick a finger into a chalk filled hole. At the end when you find your way out and have all 5 fingers differently coloured, you check your colour combination against a board which tells your character. I think it's pretty accurate, because it says that I "have the ability to inspire". It knows me well. I asked him to inspire me six hours ago and I'm still waiting.  That would be 9 years, 8 months and a number of weeks and days and I'm still uninspired.

 

The 2nd maze was harder and we took different routes to each other. After some time wandering, Sarah came to a raised wooden bridge just as I was on a path going under it. A short time later we met up again, but only because Sarah cheated and cut through the corn. Hey,  I've seen the movie Children of the Corn.  You'd be scared too.  Together we managed to find our way out. We took on the 3rd maze which is easily the biggest and hardest. Once again we both took separate paths and met up after a time after Alan cheated but still took quite a while to eventually find our way out. It's quite eerie being lost in a corn field with nobody else in sight. To help along the way they have markers at which you answer questions on a sheet of paper you're given and depending on your answer you go either left or right etc. Given that all the questions were about New York state history, they were of abolutely no use to us whatsoever.

 

It was lots of fun and I think we might have to find another one to do some time. We drove down the road to Olive Garden for a very late lunch/early dinner. I think we had cheese overload. I'm pretty sure there must have been cheese coming out of our ears and noses by the time we finished. The foods great though.

 

We briefly returned to our hotel room before heading back out for one last look at the falls before we leave tomorrow morning. We decided to go for a walk along the Rainbow bridge to get some nice night shots. It took quite a while but eventually they started the coloured lights which turns the falls all different colours. By this time I was practically a block of ice as it was freezing standing up there on that windy bridge. It wasn't cold at all.  He is such a big girl when it comes to weather.  Back through US border security, with a bunch more questions and now we're packing our bags yet again for the short flight to the big apple tomorrow.

 

Trivia for the day: A couple of days ago we mentioned that 285,000 litres of water goes over the American Falls every second. Today we learned that 2.5 million litres - about 9 times as much - goes over the Horseshoe Falls every second.

 

Here is a little video of the falls, with a commentary by Alan.  It seems to think it isn't working but if you click on the link below, you will see it.  Make sure you have some volume on.