Onwards to Niagara Falls

Next day we were heading down to Niagara Falls - we picked up our car at Hertz in the supposedly downtown location that took about 30mins to get to and a taxi driver that kept repeating the street number - very encouraging. Luckily we didnt get too lost, but I think he had a genetic abnormality that prevented him putting his foot on the accelerator for more than 2secs. It was a bit of a jerky trip.

So we picked the car up - no Toyota Matrix sadly - a grandma Corolla. Still a Toyota I guess - Ive always lauded the Toyotas brilliant reliability - my MR2 attests to this! (Sime, shut up).

We drove down Niagara Falls, only about a 90min trip without much trouble navigation wise, due to my wonderful map-girl-german. Efficiency at its best! When we arrived at Niagara, we found the car was making a great grinding noise from the gearbox. So off to Hertz we go - the sound wasnt instilling me with much confidence for a 1000km drive over the next two days. The guy at Hertz was somewhat helpful and to cut a long-ish story short, we drove back up the highway to St Catharines to get a replacement for the SHITTY TOYOTA. Guess what we got as a replacement - a Ford Taurus!! A BOAT - Sime, youd be right at home... hahaha.

So with me making Jeremy Clarkson-esque (Top Gear fans, will get this) GRRRRRs and POWWERRRRR noises down the highway, we went back to Niagara and checked out these fabled falls....

Which are pretty awesome just by themselves. The power of those falls is pretty impressive - as is the spray and the sudden hit of cold air blown off all that water. But being so close to the USA border, I think that part of Canada must have been infected by American Trash. I was naively expecting the falls, looking spectacular, in a national park, removed a little bit from civilisation. Maybe a bit like the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains at home - but nope, the Niagara Falls are surrounded by hotels, theme park rides, sideshow alley, and general touristy ugliness.

Its a pity they cant be celebrated for the falls themselves, rather than building kitschy, gaudy theme parks and stores because the falls dont seem to be enough to capture the attention and interest of Americans.

Happily, we had a fantastic meal at a local restaurant with sublime steaks, great wine and a friendly waiter who was the first to recognise my accent is Australian. We tipped him generously, especially thanks to his great recommendation for the Chocolate Heaven dessert... mmmmmmmmmmm.

Next day, drove the long trip up to Montréal (about 700ks - same as Canb to Melb I guess) which just doesnt compare to The Rockies in the scenery stakes.