Niagara Falls (463 miles down...)

OK- so now a proper account of our journey to Toronto. Cunning fox that I am, we managed to pick up a cheap rental car from National from Newark Airport (300 quid cheaper than New York!) Having handed over our 'rental voucher' and been directed to the 'parking lot' we fell into some good luck... Hearing the magic words 'we aint got no economy vehicles left- you can have fullsize' we were close to tears! That's a full 4 levels higher than we bargained for. Our new best friend has cruise control as well as air conditioning and massive amounts of legroom! Unfortunately we're averaging 22 miles to the gallon but, heck, we're doin' it in style!

Having just about worked out driving on the right and the lack of clutch, we hot footed it to Niagara Falls. En route we booked ourselves into the classy establishment that is the "Swiss Cottage Motel" just outside town advertising free breakfast (a mini-donut and a coffee, but what do you expect for $40 for the night?!)

After around 8 hours of driving and 463 miles under us, we pulled in to Niagara at about 10pm just missing the daily firework display over the falls. We headed down to the front to catch a glimpse of the falls at night- very, very impressive! Check out the photos page for our pics. The falls were incredibly loud and you could hear them a mile away- the light show really completed the scene.

On our way back from the falls we had a slight incident with the Canadian border...! Unfortunately I misinterpreted Em's driving instructions and ended up on a one-way bridge to Canada! Lacking passports and sufficient funds we decided it was probably not a good idea to attempt entering Canada just yet, so I had a chat to a guard on the US side. Apparently this happens frequently and he assured me the spikes in the road preventing us from going the wrong way wouldn't harm the tyres too much! So we successfully negotiated a cross roads the wrong way- luckily the other cars were on red!

The next day we intentionally entered Canada(!) and spent the day takinng around 3 million phtoos of the falls. We even took a trip on the 'Maid of the Mist V' into the heart of the horseshoe falls on the Canadian side. I heartily recommend this trip, the feeling of power you get is second to none. That afternoon we experienced probably the lowest budget IMAX film in the world. It also boasts being the "most watched IMAX film in Canada"- not exactly surprising given there's probably only one IMAX cinema in the entire country!