Day 7: Niagara Falls

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Day 7: April 12 - Toronto, Niagara Falls
Accommodation: Global Backpackers

So here I was in Canada. I figured I’d get my Niagara Falls tour over first off just in case I ran out of time later on and missed out. The bus picked me up from the hostel and drove about 1½ to 2 hours on a freeway down to the town nearby to the falls. I couldn’t believe how touristy it was, and all the prices were displayed in US and Canadian dollars seeing it was so close to the border. First stop was Niagara’s observation tower, the Skylon. There was a barrel in the foyer which a daredevil named Dave Munday had travelled in while going down the falls, and he survived. Some people will do anything for fame. Anyway, it was a great view up the top of the tower. Our tour guide / driver gave us 3 hours to check out the tower and the falls so I took my time. I made my way down as close to the falls as I could get and I must’ve taken about 20 to 30 photos of the thing. Then was the most exhilarating thing I’d done in a while, going on the Maid Of The Mist boat. It was basically a boat that went up to the foot of the falls. We were given big blue ponchos to wear, the boat got closer and closer, and when we got really close it felt like a huge downpour of rain falling on top of us when it was actually the falls itself. It was a huge adrenalin rush which I didn’t expect but really enjoyed, and there was no real danger to it.
Coming off the boat fairly soaked, we caught the bus again and headed down to the town Niagara-On-The-Lake for a lunch stop before moving onto a winery. Our tour guide told us for some people this was their sole reason for taking the tour but I just took it in as a bonus. We did some wine tasting, and there were some unusual fruit wines there which were very nice. Then on came their famous ice wine, which can only be grown in areas where the temperature goes over 30 degrees and under minus 5 degrees which is very rare in the world, so this was special wine, and priced accordingly at some $50 for a 375mL bottle! I tasted it and loved it but needlessly to say didn’t buy it. I scored a $7 bottle of mango wine instead hehe. So back to Toronto we headed after a full and fun yet relaxing day.
That night I met up with Paula a.k.a. magicgrrl from the Contiki Café messageboard where I spent so much of my free time before heading out on my trip. We went out to this nice bar which served Mexican food and yummy Canadian beer which were all pluses, but the highlight of the night was being able to chat to a fellow traveller and ex-Contiki person for 2 to 3 hours. We probably could’ve stayed chatting for longer but it was a weeknight and she did have to work the next morning so I had to let her go, so from there I headed off to bed.

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