Now that we are finally mobile with our own car, we decided to head down to Niagara Falls for the day. Niagara is not far from Oakville (78km according to the sign on the QEW), so popping down for a day is no problem at all. We left about 11:00am and jumped onto the QEW, or Queen Elizabeth Way if you weren't sure, and hit the cruise control. Sitting on the freeway at 110km/h was an easy drive, but instead of going directly to Niagara Falls we took a detour out to the delightful little village of Niagara-on-the-Lake. This is one of those delightfully quaint little places that sort of looks like it just decided not to participate in progress like the rest of the world. There were a lot of craft shops and eateries, and we stopped at a place in the main street to have lunch.

We then took the back roads to Niagara Falls, following the river which flowed through the bottom of a deep gorge with Canada on one side and the USA on the other. Arriving in Niagara Falls we cruised around to get our bearings then parked the car and walked over. Kate summed it up for all of us with her first reaction... "Wow! That's awesome!"

And they were. It was mindboggling to see that much water flowing over those massive cliffs. We walked along the edge, took lots of photos and video, and generally just soaked it up. It was pretty cold and it snowed lightly a couple of times while we were there.

Afterwards, we drove up the main street. What a sight! It was like a really tacky mini Las Vegas, with casinos, cheap motels, wax museums, Ripley's Believe it or Not, and tons of cheap amusement places. I thought it was quite garish and tacky and completely over-the-top, but hey, whatever... I'm sure its probably lots of fun and we'll go back for a better look when the weather warms up I'm sure... it was just kind of weird to stand there looking out over these awesome, amazing, natural falls thundering away and pouring millions of litres of water on a scale that's hard to comprehend, and then literally turn around and behind you is this street overladen with the most bizarre excesses of human overcommerciality. Weird.

We drove across the bridge into the USA just to have a look - immigration was straightforward, and took only a minute or two - and we drove over to Goat Island, did a lap of the town and then headed back over to Canadian soil. We jumped back on the QEW and we were home in well under an hour.