Soaked at Niagara

Got three tired and grumpy kids, that's what a day down at Niagara Falls gets you. We've been waiting for some decent weather to go back to the falls and ride the Maid of the Mist boat and today was 26 and mostly sunny. Niagara is about an hour down the Queen Elizabeth Expressway (or QEW to the locals) and we arrived around 11. The kids were up fairly early this morning and so were after some food as soon as we arrived so we dove into Burger King and had a pretty average fast food stop. The main drag at the falls is called Clifton Hill and unlike it's Melbourne name-sake it's crammed with tourist traps, mostly in the haunted-house, wax museum and Ripleys Believe-it-or-Not variety. The kids loved all the haunted houses but we went directly to the Maid of the Mist promising to come back later.We got onto the boat pretty quickly and the cost was pretty resonable at around $44 for the family. We slipped on our blue souvenier water-proof ponchos and the boat left the dock. The seem to be about 3 boats operating at a time doing a loop from the dock, passed the American Falls up to the main Canadian/Horseshoe Falls and then back. After we passed the American Falls we hit a wall of rain from the main falls, they call it mist to be cute, it was wet! The view from below the Canadian Falls is awesome! We must have been only 30-40 meters from where the water was hitting and the view looking up is even more impressive than from the top looking down. Cam said 'This is the best day of my life!' so it must have been good. We got soaked and so did our cameras but we managed to get them back alive and have some video and decent shots of the trip.On the way back up Clifton Hill Jo and I tossed up going in one of the haunted houses, especially as they stay open through winter and the day was so nice that we didn't feel like spending it inside. In the end we said 'No' and Ab's was pretty dissapointed. But then at one of the houses the woman said $5 each discount rate so we went in. I'm glad that the lady gave us a little torch, the idea is that you really can't see where you're going and stuff is hung in your way, brushes your face, the floor is wobbly in places etc. Then there's the blasts of compressed air, the howls, screams, bodies popping up etc. Jo and I were mildly amused, the kids were terrified! We had a crying Cam and a freaked out Jazz and Abs, luckily we had chosen the mildest house on the street. We beat a hasty retreat and jumped back in the car once the kids had calmed down a little.On the way back home we took the turn off to Niagara-On-The-Lake, a very picturesque little town on Lake Ontario in the wine growing reqion. Lots of vineyards made us feel like we were driving through the Yarra Valley and the main drag of the town was more like a slice of Toorak if it was placed in the Dandenongs Ranges back home. Really nice town, great shops ans the kids had huge ice creams from the 52-Flavours store, scary house now completely forgotten. Had a great day, might be about beer-o'clock...

Andy, out.