Sunday, 25 October 2009

Niagara in rainbow and shadow



Enroute to Vermont we drove via Niagara Falls and skipped into Canada for a day. Canadian border officials were as we remembered: welcoming, knowledgeable and full of good humour. Interestingly, all the Canadians we came across seemed to know exactly where Australia was -- which was new and different. 






The town, Niagara, is, tragically, full of tacky tourist gimmick attractions like Waxworks, Ripleys, and other suchlike, which seem to completely miss the mark of appeal with our age group: we never bother to enter such places. Neither, it seems, does anyone else as many were closed by 3pm from lack of interest, so we wonder if these old-hat attractions are just that: past their use by date, and likely to be torn down, re-thought, and the space reused for something less ridiculous.






The falls themselves were, as ever, stunning. The sheet of the American falls, including the narrow wispy trail of the Bridal Falls, drop sharply and straight-edged over the gorge from the left hand split of the Niagara River as it rushes around an island on the American side.  






The Canadian falls,  the more spectacular, gush to the right of the island, frothing wildly over rocky beds creating frenzied white water eddies, then, fall in a spectacular giant horseshoe deeply over the edge, pounding down into the gorge below, where tourist boats lean cautiously into the mists and currents created by the sheer tonnage of such powerfully driven water. We were able to see the falls in patches of sun, rain, wind, rainbows and shadows, then coloured at night. Quite a spectacle.





Falls and white spume



Believe it or not 







Extraordinary power of water



Tourists playing with terror 



Miss Bec enjoying the view

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.