Murray feaver, the Blue Jays and those Falls!

July 3rd to 9th 2013

Unbelievably our five plus month trip is nearly over. Spent much of our last week at Sue and Peter's home in Ontario relaxing, swimming, playing golf and watching Wimbledon. We have promised never to visit during Wimbledon again as the trauma of urging on Andy Murray, the best British hope for decades, can be overwhelming even for a couple who understand the English! Ironically (and probably helpfully from Mr M's viewpoint) we missed the final where Andy played so well and became the first British Wimbledon Champion for yonks. However we got the result on a smart Phone while we were on the Go Train in Toronto on our way to a baseball match. The other passengers did seem a little surprised when we let out a scream of joy on hearing the final score!

The  Canadian Turtons thoughtfully arranged for us to get a taste of local sport and took us to see the Toronto Blue Jays at the iconic Sky Dome as it's known locally or its official title, the Rogers stadium.  A large stadium with probably 15,000 or so in it on the day we went. Sensibly the stadium is reached easily by public transport so it's possible to avoid the long queue's that characterise travel to so many UK sporting events.

Toronto Blue Jays

Baseball is big in Canada and the States and it was immediately evident that this is a family sport. The crowd ranged in age from a few months to pretty ancient. Joy of joys there was even a "stroller valet" to take care of the large numbers of children's buggies. This is not a serious sport in the sense that the crowd are quiet and restrained! As well as the actual play (which wasn't fast and furious on this occasion), there's lots of music and audience participation through hand clapping, making silly faces on the big screens etc Great fun! Fast food is the order of the day and so once seated, expect to spend a fair amount of time getting up to let others go past to get food or drinks. We'd never seen such large pots for popcorn and if you buy the official Jays bucket, it's refillable at no charge! Not an event for slimmers!

Sport over, we went back to more traditional site seeing on our last full day and no visit to the Toronto area would be complete without visiting the "small" waterfall at Niagara. Spent some time at the delightful Niagara on the Lake on the way down. This is a very well presented town with a collection of interesting and individual shops, restaurants and cafes and some of the most beautifully kept gardens and street planters we've seen on our trip. The weather was hot and steamy and we spent a happy couple of hours looking around and will, no doubt, return on our next visit. 

From largest to smallest, the three waterfalls are the Horseshoe Falls, the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls  The Horseshoe Falls lie on the Canadian side and the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls on the American side.   Located on the Niagara River which drains Lake into  Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls form the highest flow rate of any waterfall in the world, with a vertical drop of more than 165 feet (50 m). Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall, as measured by vertical height and also by flow rate. 

Whatever the vital statistics, the falls are magnificent! The viewing is made all the more real by the shower that you get even from the road. Those who really want to bathe can get even closer to the falls by boat or on one of the platforms. 

Maid in the Mist boat gets pretty close to Niagara Falls

The spray is amazing!

The American Falls

Being so close to the US, it would have been rude not to pay a visit so we drove over the border and did a little shopping. On the way home, we drove through a brief spell of heavy rain but thought nothing of it until later in the evening we heard the news that central Toronto was flooded after a downpour equivalent to a month's rain in one hour! 1400 passengers were rescued from a commuter train, load of homes were without power and lots of flights were cancelled. Good job we weren't booked to leave that evening!