|
Niagara FallsAug 18, 2006
|
|
Close up of the American Falls, we were literally a few feet...
Horseshoe Falls from the American side
Sarah dicing with death at the edge of the American Rapids. Richard...
Movie Clips - Playback Requirements - Problems?
(WMV - 6.67 MB)
Some Video clips of Niagara Falls from both sides
| We arrived in the vicinity of Niagara Falls late in the afternoon of Monday 14th and asked permission to stay overnight in the car park of a supermarket called Tops. It is part of the culture here that supermarkets are open to the idea of helping the traveller by allowing them to park overnight. (We spent two nights with Tops). The next day we drove a few miles down the road and began our exploration of the rapids and the falls themselves. One has to say that they really are impressive. It isn't just their size, but the fact that the access paths along the banks allow you to go within a few feet of the water. At one location, Three Daughters Islands, the waves were sometimes passing at head height and at up to 30 miles per hour. The Falls have an almost hypnotic effect, which makes you feel as if you want to dive into the water; it really is quite strange and both of us felt it. Counteracting this is a sense of fear because, whereas in England there would be head high fences, here there is none of that. You could so easily fall into the water, and if you did there is at most 7 minutes, depending where you fall in, in which to be rescued. There must be lots of suicides here but being English we were too polite to ask the question. There have been 16 formal attempts to go over the falls in barrels, 11 of which have succeeded. The first successful attempt was by a 63-year-old retired female school teacher. Rumour has it she thought it was preferable to teaching Year 9!!! There are in fact two sets of Falls, one on the American side, appropriately called the American Falls and the other, the Horseshoe Falls stretches across the border from America to Canada. They are both best seen from the Canadian side. No one has survived a fall over the American Falls as it crashes immediately onto huge rocks. A salutary lesson for would be heroes is the story of one gentleman who, having been sealed in a barrel, went over and did not emerge for 14 days. His barrel had been trapped in the incredible vortex at the base of the Horseshoe Falls. He apparently died of suffocation. You can imagine what it must of being like for the poor guy: the sense of falling, surviving the literally bone breaking crash at the bottom, and then the dawning realisation that you are endlessly turning over and over in the pitch black, shaken and battered until the air runs out. Anyway, enough of Richard's melodramatics. We walked across the border bridge into Canada, receiving an immigration stamp in our passports which pleased us greatly for some silly reason. As you can see from our pictures and video the Falls really are impressive. The Horseshoe Falls have almost 90% of the water with 650,000 gallons per second (a figure only matched by Thames Water leakage) going over. What really is mind blowing is to be told that the current volume of water going over the Falls is only half what it used to be because of diversions for hydro-electric power usage. Whilst we were on the Canadian side, which is very commercialised, we noticed a Harley Davidson shop. Placed like cheese in a mousetrap to attract any male over 50 with a mid life crisis was a beautiful motorbike. Richard, fitting the bill, raced over, jumped on and a spent a happy half-hour living his fantasy - see pic. He would only leave after a good slapping and the promise of a memento - he eventually chose a quite tasteful light blue denim shirt with Harley Davidson proudly emblazoned across the left breast, just over his heart. I suppose it is just one of those "bloke things" again. I have also included a picture of a typical American home including the flag. |
Advertisement 
|
