Niagara Falls

Friday, 4 October

Having pretty much recovered from a long and stressful day yesterday we set off down the street to a cosy bakery for breakfast - a little later than usual this morning. Then it was my first visit to a Walmart store where a young man helped me to get my phone going with a prepaid sim.

Halloween is coming

From here we set out for Goat Island and those famous falls. The cafe there had no inside seating so we bought our takeaway cuppas and had them outside in the cold. I was fascinated by the number of condiments available for your hot dog.

What would you like on your hot dog?

First we saw the Bridal Falls, then the Horseshoe Falls and finally the American Falls. Of course they were all very awe-inspiring. It is hard to comprehend the amount of water thundering over - 285,000 litres a second according to a sign we saw. We kept thinking about all that hydroelectric power.

Anne is easy to find in her new hat

The restaurant by the Falls was closed (of course) but a girl in the gift shop suggested a Tudor style place nearby so we went there and had a lovely lunch. The only downside was the parking area nearby, where the machine charged $30 on Anne’s credit card. No wonder there were so few people parked there! And we could have found a place in the street after all. The meal was quite cheap which sort of made up for being slugged for parking.

After lunch it was a walk to the second part of our falls viewing. Nice to see happy families enjoying the day. Less impressed by the woman who jumped the fence and sat on the grass flicking her hair about and posing for photos. By now we’d had about enough so we headed back to the motel, Anne to put her feet up and me to whizz down to the 7/11 before putting my feet up too.

It will be an early night tonight and tomorrow we head off on our road trip. We’re hoping to stop at Avis on the way and change to a smaller vehicle as Anne is finding this one uncomfortable for her leg and it’s a monster to park. Will probably be a gas guzzler too. So fingers crossed for a better one tomorrow.