New York state & Ontario, Canada (17-18 May 2007)

We eventually managed to drag ourselves away from the luxurious life to which we had now become accustomed, to make the long drive to Thousand Islands, NY. In the cold and the rain, we managed to count 3 islands from our vantage point but the guide books assure us there are about 1800 of the things. Not to be perturbed, we continued along the west NY coast along a scenic trail which wasn’t very scenic until we stumbled across this lighthouse just before it got dark. Our drive through the state of New York continued until we arrived at Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada.

As we approached Niagara, I have to say the scene looked a little like Las Vegas with a bit of water, but the falls themselves are incredible and very impressive. As we passed over the border, the nice immigration officer just said ‘Citizenship?’ Naturally, I thought he was asking if I wanted citizenship of Canada. So I declined his kind offer which seemed to create a lot of confusion until I realised the correct response I was supposed to give was ‘British’.

On escaping the Immigration Officers, we made our way to our home for 2 nights, the Marriott Fallsview hotel which was great except that they charged ridiculous prices for anything and everything. But we did have this fantastic view of the falls, so much so that we considered remaining in the room for the duration of our stay.

But the next day we decided to venture out onto the Maid of the Mist boat tour for a close up and rather wet experience of Niagara Falls.


This was followed by an early dinner in the Skylar restaurant overlooking the falls, and, inspired by the Olympic hotel, we purchased some sporting attire at an outlet mall nearby. We finally returned to our room to watch the fireworks over the falls – the first night of the season. However, we weren’t used to being in a hotel room before midnight, so soon felt the need to escape to the casino and test my long proven theory on the 'Wheel of Fortune'. We didn’t quite make the 1000s of dollars we hoped, but did leave a few dollars richer, needed to pay the rip-off, I mean nice Marriott Fallsview hotel bill the next day.