Tour of the East

Niagara Falls

Our first stop was only 2 hours away at Niagara Falls. We'd deliberately gone on a Friday to see the Fireworks and the lights over the falls at nighttime, that was mildly disappointing. However, The falls themselves were stunning, but there were far too many tourists around, we did the almost obligatory Maid of the Mist tour which was definately worth the money. It was so bizarre looking across a river and seeing New York state, where we'd be going that night.

Niagara's 60 Acre Whirlpool

We had to get away from the tourists, the Lonely Planet book had mentioned some dangerous paths down the gorge to the Niagara River that were incredibly rewarding if you make it. So we walked for a while till we came across a sign saying "Caution Proceed at Your Own Risk". We looked down the steep gorge that had ropes tied to trees to help you down. We slid and almost abseiled down the side of the gorge. It was fantastic and we arrived at a 60 acre whirlpool as a reward for our efforts

We sat down by the water's edge and had our picnic lunch. It was so peaceful and quiet, with all the tourists left at the top of the gorge. We did a wee walk round the edge of the whirlpool and saw a snake and some frogs before scrambling back up the gorge on all fours.

After an exhausting day at Niagara we took the night bus down to New York. At 3am we were stopped at customs for 4 hours, where they asked stupid questions and stopped some people from entering then let the rest of us on our way.

We stayed in the most scabby hotel I've ever seen, just off Times Square. We did alot of walking, right from Times Square down to the esplanade to see the Statue of Liberty. We finished the day with a Massive New York pizza.

The second day we did Central Park, walked along Broadway and did some shopping. We spent our last $9 on a trip up the Empire State Building, the view was incredible.

Playboy Enterprises, NY

Broadway, NY
We weren't too impressed with New York, it was too big, smelly and expensive. So we left, headed for Montreal. We didn't have too much luck in Montreal, we spent 8 hours looking for accomodation the first day, and slept in a bus station on the last night, however I'd say it was worth the hassle.

Montreal is a beautiful city, it's actually a large island in the middle of the country and its mainly french speaking. There's an old part of town that's exceptionally well preserved, it also has ports and a park on one of the smaller islands called Park Jean-Drapeau where we spent a day watching Beavers, met a Palestinian man who took the nice photo of us outside the Montreal Biosphere. The park is also the home of the Montreal Grand Prix track.

Rather than stay a second night in the worst hostel in our entire trip we took a midnight bus to Quebec, where we arrived at 3am. We went as high into the city as we could (It's built on a really steep hill) and sat there freezing waiting for sunrise. Quebec city is beautiful, full of nice buildings and churches. We bought some fresh bread at the local market and fell asleep on the steep grass hill at the Citadel.

Exhausted...we took the night bus back to Toronto.

The Montreal Biosphere

The Montreal Grand Prix Track