Wet n wild!

Today has been the WOW day.

This morning we had a look round St Lawrence market in Toronto & had the best breakfast of the holiday so far, while the others on the coach visited the CN tower.
We were glad we went last night as there was no rush to leave (just to get there before sunset!)

The drive to Niagara Falls took about an hour and half and we learned that they're not actually called Niagara Falls. The town is called Niagara, and of course the falls are there, but the falls themselves are divided into the Horseshoe falls, bridal veil falls and the American Falls.

We'd debated for the last few days whether or not to do the helicopter flight over the falls. As it was such a beautiful day, and because we only expect to be here once, we took the plunge and booked a flight.

Mr A got chatting to the guy coordinating passengers and managed to secure the front seats for us....much to my increasing excitement!

The flight itself was only about 10 minutes, but so worth doing. It was fabulous to see the entire area from the air.

Lunch was at the Skylon Tower's revolving restaurant, with yet more excellent views over the falls. We had a lovely 3 course meal there and joked it was possibly a foolish move to eat before the boat trip!

The Maid of the Mist is no more (although the boat on the American side still had the name emblazoned on the side), it's now called the 'Voyage to the falls'.

My friend from work had done the boat trip a couple of weeks ago and said it was like being in a washing machine. She wasn't wrong, but with the wind direction today we were on a 1600rpm spin cycle!
As we got closer to the falls we couldn't see a thing, it was fab! I had my raincoat and a poncho on, but still got soaked through to my undies. We squelched our way off the boat.

This evening, we walked back into Blackpool Niagara town and did the 'Journey behind the falls' tour; the noise was incredible and it was awesome to be able to stand behind the waterfall.

Tomorrow is the earliest start we have, we have to be on the coach for 6am in order to clear customs before the other coaches arrive en masse. I'm really not looking forward to the 5.15 wake up, but days like today make this trip & the early starts worthwhile.

Today's blip is a snapshot of our day; the top 3 photos are of the helicopter flight. The middle 3 are the Skylon tower views and lunch, and the bottom 3 are from the boat trip.

Tomorrow is Gettysburg and Amish Country.