Reunion Part III

On Wednesday morning, after a breakfast of toast and jam, yoghurt, fruit and granola with coffee and juice, we check-out of the hotel and drive to the butterfly conservatory. In a greenhouse-dome filled with plants, water features and the odd turtle, you walk on a path while butterflies flutter all around you. As soon as we walk into the greenhouse a butterfly lands on Carla's shirt, but I am not fast enough getting the camera out to capture it.

One of the most beautiful things in this place is a butterfly with blue wings, that looks quite different when it lands. It immediately folds it's wings, and the outsides are brown, and many have mean looking owl eyes on them. When it flies, it flutters so fast there is no way to capture it and still have the picture be sharp. This photographer has managed to get a decent shot, but it is nothing compared to the beauty you see when they fly.

 Mean looking owl eye.

When they sit there are often many together.

Butterflies feeding on ripe fruit.

 For some reason quite a few of the butterflies have damaged wings. Perhaps the school groups walking there are not reading the "do not touch the butterflies" signs.  We spend a good amount of time trying to capture the elusive blue butterfly, but we have little success. At one point we come across a father who has placed his six or seven year old daughter on a high rock, and is trying to get her to extend her arms hoping that butterflies will sit on them. The poor girl is terrified by the height, and I feel sorry for her.

 Damaged butterfly on staghorn fern. Photo credit: Carla

Once outside we skip the gardens of the Niagara School of Horticulture, they are not really planted yet, and I have a sneaking suspicion I know very well what kind of flower we will see there at this time of year. We continue on back to the falls and stop at the whirlpool rapids to see the gorge and the water from above. No one is taking the cable car over it yet.

The whirlpool rapids at the bend in the river. The cliff on the right is the United States. 

Photo credit: Carla

We once again park at our favourite spot, but the guy is back, and gives us a stub, again. Cheers, he says, again. We walk back to table rock and stand in line for the box office for the Journey Behind the Falls. It turns out we could have just gone directly to the elevators with our adventure-passes, but there are no signs indicating this. We are issued new ponchos, yellow this time, and taken down in the elevators into the rock behind the Horseshoe Falls, where tunnels lead to an observation platform, and to openings behind the water.

Right at the thundering water. Photo credit: Carla

The exit to the platform next to the falls needs serious repairs, it has a very decayed look. Some repairs have been started on the upper level, but there is a lot to do. It must be very difficult to make the repairs with the constant spray of the water.

 Creepy-ish exit onto the observation platform. Photo credit: Carla

From the platform you can see the old building of the Ontario Power Company generating station right in the gorge. This has been decommissioned since 1999, and would make a spectacular site for a restaurant. Investors.....anyone......? (Tsk, is it really up to me to point this out?)

The tunnels take you behind the curtain of water of the Horseshoe falls. The falls are slowly but surely eating away at the rock, and eventually will eat at these tunnels.Everywhere we go we are told that 12,000 years ago the falls were 11 km downstream. You have to wonder how these tunnels were carved, and especially how the ends were finished with all that water coming down.

Behind the horseshoe falls. Photo credit: Gergely Vass via Wikipedia Commons

Off we go to Niagara's Fury, located on the upper floor of the table rock complex. Carla is smart and suggests we don't eat until after this "ride" style attraction, just in case it makes us queasy. There are warning about heart and high blood pressure sufferers possibly voluntarily skipping the moving platform. Here we are again issued blue rain ponchos and taken into a room where we are shown a cartoon narrated by among others Luba Goy, (her voice and speech patterns unmistakable) about the creation of the falls and how they slowly but surely move upriver. (I have not figured out who voiced the polar bear, though he sounds very familiar.) After the cartoon you are taken into a room and placed on a large grate with poles with handles and told to hold on. When the show starts it actually snows big real flakes in the room, and you see an ice age projected on the screen. When it rains, you get rained on. When the glaciers break, and fall in the water, you get splashed with water. There is thunder and lightning and the platform moves. At the end they take you over the falls as if you were a bird. Worth doing once, no chance of getting queasy, but a little too loud.

Now that we were good and damp, (lower arms and shoes) and the stomach is still stable, it seemed a smart idea to get some sandwiches at Timmie's and sit in the sun to let our shoes and sleeves dry a little. Once we have eaten our lunch and dried somewhat, we walk back to the car. We have a peek in the free Floral Showhouse, of which one side is is full of hydrangeas. The other side is a permanent greenhouse with all sorts of plants I could never hope to keep alive at home.

 Hydrangeas in the Floral Showhouse. Photo credit: Carla

We once again drive back to the White Water Walk, and this time are successful in getting on the elevator to the base of the gorge to walk a quarter mile of wooden boardwalk by the side of the river watching the class 6 rapids go by. The lower platform is partially closed for repairs, but the gum wall is completely intact. (I actually think it is funny.) I can stand and look at this water for hours. It is very calming and restoring just to stare at it.

Rapids of the White Water Walk. Photo credit: Carla

Once we leave this place it is time to head back home. Traffic is pretty smooth until we enter the Don Valley Parkway and do the Toronto-stop-and-go-tango until we reach Ajax. Once through Toronto and close to Trenton we want some food, and not Mc-Do's, so we get off the 401, and onto Hwy 2 east, hoping to find a Swiss Chalet or the like. In a small town I go the wrong way at a confusingly signed split in the road, and eventually I have to ask my way back at a convenience store.

After some time we come upon a Kelsey's and eat ribs and a steak skillet. We go through Trenton and see the military base, and eventually get back on the 401. After one more gas stop somewhere past Gananoque, we get home at about 11 pm.