Niagra Falls

In the Mall

From our Hotel Room

John lent me his Jetta to visit Niagra falls so while he and his family returned to Keswick, we headed for the falls.  We found a reasonably priced hotel there called The Oakes Hotel Overlooking the Falls (which seemed to offer the the same as much more expensive options). The name made a brave statement and one that I was not totally convinced about.  Sometimes one is pleasantly surprised.  We had a stunning room on one of the upper floors with a huge picture window overlooking the falls.

Time was short and we were keen to see as much as possible.  Unfortunately Lauren was feeling really sick so Fiona, Guy and I went down for the first visit to the falls.  The clouds had been building and within a few minutes of beginning the 1km or so walk down it started to rain hard.  We took refuge in a nearby mall - also interesting and spent the next 45 minutes or so looking a the shops and also testing some seriously strong chili sauce.

Once the rain stopped the sun came out again and we continued with out walk.

There is no question that Niagra falls is totally set up for tourists.  So very different from Victoria Falls (or at least the Victoria falls that I remember) where there is just a path along the front of the falls in the rain forest.  Here there are restaurants and various forms of entertainment all along the falls and below the falls there are the tourist boats packed with people coming to see it.

The falls is also the border between the USA and Canada and in fact from the USA side, it is not possible to see the main falls (which I guess explains the tourist boats).  Even with all the commercialism, it is not possible to detract from the magnificence of the of the scene.  There are 3 falls.  The biggest is the one on the Canadian side called the horseshoe falls, the second smaller one is the Bridal Veil falls and the third is the American Falls.

"While not exceptionally high, Niagara Falls is very wide. More than six million cubic feet (168,000 m³) of water falls over the crest line every minute in high flow, and almost four million cubic feet (110,000 m³) on average" (wikipedia).  That is a LOT of water in anyone's books and it is very impressive.

One thing that we could do, that is not possible at Vic Falls is that when you walk to the edge you are only couple of metres away from the water which makes you feel as if you're almost on top of them.  

We continued on and had a look at the Hydro station and the  old building on the side of the falls that used to be the headquarters.

After a brief walk through the little park, we headed back to the hotel.