Niagara Falls

After talking to the helpful ladies at the customer service desk, who told us where we could park at Niagara Falls for free, thus avoiding the extortionate tourist parking fees, we set off! We successfully navigated the interesting one way system and “rotaries” to park up about 1/3 of a miles from the American side of the falls. On this side you can see the river leading up to the falls with the rapids and how the speed of the river builds up, and finally you get to walk up to the brink of the falls themselves where the noise is incredible and you can feel the spray coming off it. We watched the people on the tour boats all dressed up in there blue ponchos giving them a distinctly surf-like appearance as they sailed right up to the Horseshoe falls. We also watched the umpa-lumpa like people in their yellow ponchos walked right up to the bottom of the American falls, so close that they were actually being blown back by the power of it. There is no way that this would be allowed in Britain as you could quite easily be blown over the railing and into the river. However being American they had build a lift down to the bottom of the falls, there was in fact no stairs option!! These attractions were reasonably priced at $33 for the boat ride, the trip to the bottom of the falls, the aquarium, the tower (more on this later) and the discovery centre. You also got to ride around on a trolley rather than have to walk anywhere. Their motto being 'Walk less, see more'! The Tower is a viewing platform which is built out into the river so you can get a view of the falls from the other side, we however decided to just walk across the bridge to Canada so we could see them from what is a much better angle. 90% of Americans don't have a passport so they can't cross the bridge and it is in fact quite funny watching them trying to get a good view from their side of the border. We were let into Canada with barely a glance and were immediately impressed by this side as there were beautiful parks all along the river front (admittedly 300 feet above the river), and live music being played in a small plaza just next to the border. We walked up the banks of the river admiring the beautiful views available from Canada, until we got to a power station where we saw an otter like creature under the bushes on the other side of the fence. We watched it for a while until it was scared off by a police car. (a theme is emerging) We then continued our walk along the river to a park with beautiful lakes and and man-made islands. We stopped here for while to sit on a bridge with our feet in the water. It was lovely and cool, we did however get some odd looks for doing this. We then walked back along the river to check when the duty free and border closed. Finding that we had plenty of time we decided to explore a bit more and walked into a huge computer arcade where we discovered UV mini golf and a another Rainforest Cafe. It was just as spectacular as the last one and this time we couldn't resist going into the bar for a drink where Mae had a Rainforest Coffee and I had a Mango Tango cocktail. Among the thunderstorms they were playing Latin music so of course we had to have a dance in the bar when a salsa came on, we also thought that it would be an awesome place for a Party and to check out the London one when we get back. When we left it was dark and after leaving by a different door we found ourselves on a street with lit up building advertising Haunted houses, bowling alleys, a fudge factory, a Frankenstein Burger King, Dinosaur Mini Golf which was amazing and a Ferris wheel on which we went. It offered spectacular views of the falls which are lit up in various colours at night and Niagara Falls town which extends back from where we were and is full of tourist attractions. You also get an awesome view of the Dinosaur mini golf!!!! We admired the falls for a while longer and concluded that it would be much better if they lit it up in white. After picking some rum up from duty free we crossed back into the United States, where we were kept waiting by the customs officer while he had a discussion with his friend about whether to let us back in the country. Having been impressed by the thunderstorm in the rainforest cafe, nature decided to show us how it was done as the heavens opened and huge forks of lightning lit the roads much better than the street light which surprisingly stayed lit the entire time, of course there are 3 power stations in the town running of the Niagara river! We arrived back at the car soaking wet and quickly changed before we watched the storm from the inside of Bertha. It was possibly more impressive than the falls with forks of lightning turning the sky green or red with their intensity, so much so you could smell the ozone in the air. After the storm had relented slightly we proceeded back to Walmart where we once again parked up for the night. The storm continued until 4am! When it comes to storms the American way is clearly best they are BIG and LOUD!!