It’s Friday afternoon at Buffalo Airport and the tourist information desk is deserted.

After all I’ve been through in the last 24 hours I’d like a bit of help to get to my destination, but it looks unlikely. It appears my only option is to get a taxi. I withdraw some U.S. dollars and wince at how much it is in Australian money.

My aim is Niagara Falls.

I have wanted to visit the east coast of Canada for years, including Niagara, Toronto, and the French-speaking Montréal . I figured the easiest way was to land in Buffalo, U.S., go over the border (literally a 20 minute drive) to Fort Erie where I’ve booked a B&B, visit Niagara then bus it to Toronto and later, Montréal, as they are all in close proximity to each other.

 

I am dozing as we prepare to land. Someone’s window is open facing West and I am blinded by a shimmering band of gold. Puzzled, I sit up and glance out the window, and realise the sunlight is reflecting off water. A lake.

The flight into Buffalo skirts the eastern shore of Lake Erie. I know that Niagara is not far north so I crane my head as far as possible. I follow the river and in the distance I can see a tower and some office buildings. Then I see it – the mist rising from the Falls. I have a sharp intake of breath. It must be enormous for me to be able to see the mist from this far away. Just then the plane dips and we have a bumpy arrival on the tarmac.

The taxis are lined up and it costs a flat USD$60 to go across the border to Ontario, Canada. My driver is helpful and shows me points of interest in Buffalo as we drive. He is originally from Iraq and we joke about the American obsession with baseball. We cross the river using the Peace Bridge into Canada. At the border control, we both show our passports and we both get questioned by the border guard. Within 10 minutes we are through and driving to the address of the B&B, a small home within walking distance of the Lake.

Fort Erie seems a sleepy town, even for a Friday evening, as my driver looks for a store with an ATM for me. He waits while I ask and then drops me at the door of the B&B, commenting on how lovely and peaceful the area looked. I am not used to tipping so I give him USD$20. “Is that okay?” I ask. His smile splits his face in half. “Yes, that is very okay,” he says grinning. Then he shakes my hand and drives off. Maybe my sleep deprived brain should have thought that through more, but now he is gone and I need a rest. My phone number  is the door code, but as soon as I enter the proprietors emerge from their private space and greet me with a warm welcome.

Hope and Chuck have been running the Friendship Trail B&B for 8 years as a post retirement venture. It is near the Friendship Trail, a circuit for biking or walking that leads around the lake edge. I am the only guest so I have the place to myself. Hope suggests I order some ‘take-out’ for my dinner that can be delivered. Chinese sounds perfect. Once I am organised they disappear to their private area, but I can easily contact them at the press of a button. Once replenished with a bit of wonton soup and a few Chinese prawns in oyster sauce I shower and sleep for an eternity.

I wake to the sound of movement in the kitchen and cooking smells. Hope has made me an outstanding breakfast: fresh strawberries and blackberries with yoghurt and granola, a muffin, cream cheese filled French toast baked in the oven (WOW!), with grapefruit juice, then coffee. When I arrived I didn’t feel that well not having eaten properly and travelling for two days, but now I gobble it down. I breakfast with hummingbirds, squirrels, chipmunks, doves, and bluejays in the nearby garden. They have printed off the bus schedule for me.

Buses don’t run on Sunday so I’m glad my plan was to go to Niagara as soon as I arrived, a Saturday. They recommend I buy my bus ticket to Toronto asap. Chuck even drives me to where I buy the bus ticket then drops me off in his car to wait the Niagara bus. Even though I am exhausted, my sleep was excellent last night  and I plan make this a short day excursion.

After two changes of bus I am finally heading into Niagara Falls township. As we get closer to the river I catch glimpses of the Falls through the buildings and my excitement grows. We are surrounded by hotels and casinos, and tourists. This is the end of summer. I’d forgotten that I’d changed seasons, so I carry a sweater. But I also have a hat and suncream available; I am an Australian from Brisbane, after all.

The bus heads down the hill toward the river and turns the corner.

I step out into rain. At least I thought it was rain. It was not. It was the mist, so heavy and falling with big splashy drops covering the road, the well-manicured gardens and the people in a fine spray of wetness. Everyone – from so many different nationalities –  was smiling and running away from it, and laughing. It was such a sweet scene. The mist rose up 50 metres before falling back down on us.

Then I heard the thunder.

I was jumping out of my skin to see it.

I rushed up to the sturdy concrete wall and leaned over. The river was disappearing it seemed into a whirlpool of enormous intensity, its roar filling my ears in a splendorous symphony of sound.

I didn’t know Niagara Falls is made up of a couple of falls. And that it is a better view from the Canadian side.

I walked alongside the wall in wonder, finding breaks in the wall of tourists to get up close to the view.

It was only after I took this photo that I realised there were people at the base of the Falls. I could not hear myself think so I could not imagine what it would have been like for them.

Then, as I stood gaping, out of the corner of my eye  I saw a boat approaching the Falls. It looked like an insect trying to swim upstream against a giant emptying a titan-sized bath. The boat was filled with people all wearing green raincoats. The boat/insect kept nosing its way forward against the current getting closer and closer. You could just imagine its engines straining with the attempt. Finally, there was a large shout all at once from the people on the boat, then it relinquished itself to the current’s force, and bobbed back down river. It was both fascinating and hilarious to watch.

 

Even though I’d slathered 50+ suncream on prior to exiting the bus, I could feel my skin burning in the midday summer sun. I needed the bathroom, an icecream, and the gift shop, in that order.

After, a took the funicular railway up to the road level and wandered along the footpath beside the park overlooking the splendour of the Falls. I could see and hear helicopters buzzing overhead. I had no desire to hover over the Falls in a helicopter, or go down to river level or get more wet on the boat; my yearning was fulfilled just by spending two hours staring into the abyss of the wonder of Niagara Falls. After being so long in the cold and dry desert of South America, it was a welcome relief to be hot and wet.

As I walked alongside the park, I noticed maple trees, squirrels, and bluejays nearby. I threw them some of my muffin that I’d brought along from breakfast. They eagerly gathered around close to me. I felt like a Disney princess. When I looked up, the scene was framed by maple trees with the Falls in the background.

I thought to myself, ‘is this the most Canadian scene ever?’ When I told Hope about it later she quipped, ‘it needed a moose.’