This place is just gorgeous, the pictures don’t really do it
justice. It was freezing and we got wet walking through the mist from the falls
but that’s half the fun. The view from the Skylon Tower is perfect, you can see
how much more the Canadian side has been developed compared to the USA side. The
Tower is 775 metres above the falls and it takes a minute to reach the top in
the bug elevator. The huge volume of water never stops lowing, however,
the falling water and mist create ice formations along the banks of the falls
and river. This can result in mounds of ice as thick as fifty feet. We will definitely
be going back to Niagara in the summertime.
Falls at night
Canadian Side of the Falls
USA Side of the Falls
Panoramic View
Frozen from the mist
Frozen from the mist
Whirlpool - Niagara River
Whirlpool - Niagara River
The souvenir shop has a few photo opportunities outside, so
we took advantage of them.
We went through this house that has been built upside down. It
was quite weird walking on the sloped floor and seeing everything stuck to the
roof.
We also checked out the Hersey store. Didn’t buy anything it
was too expensive.
The exposed bedrock at the Cheltenham Badlands is Queenston
Shale; this iron-rich shale was deposited over 445 million years ago. The
formation is mostly red in colour due to iron oxide deposits with some faint
green streaks due to ground water percolation changing the red iron oxide into
green iron oxide. The Badlands site was closed to visitors for several years
due to the excessive number of visitors who were walking on the formations causing damage that accelerated the erosion.
Scarborough Bluffs
The Bluffs stretch for about 15 km along and rise 90 metres
above the Lake Ontario shore. The Scarborough Bluffs are a geological feature
resulting from the accumulation of sedimentary deposits over 12,000 years ago.
They were formed by the natural processes of wind and water erosion from Lake
Ontario.
New Homes
We saw these homes being built in a new expensive suburb. The homes have a concrete base and a wooden structure. It looks like the wood is a good quality chipboard, it is then wrapped in plastic before the outer layer of stone and brick goes on. All the homes have a basement.
Ice Racing
This is the same as the speedway only on ice and the drivers
drive a lot slower. Most of them were doing 30ks per hour or less. Not much
skill is used just the accelerator and the brake – no handbrakes, or they use the snow banks to stop.
Frozen Trees and Rocks
These trees have what looks like a water tube around them that has frozen. They look amazing in the morning when the sun catches the ice. The rocks have also frozen water running down them.
Towns
Australia??????
Driving
Newton was game enough to drive on the snow covered roads. We try to avoid the highways on our weekends away so have to drive where the GPS takes us.
Huntsville
This was our overnight stay, the roads and footpaths were iced so was really slippery. We walked up to the lookout, made our own snowman, watched the snow plow and enjoyed the scenery of vehicles covered in snow.
Screaming Heads The Screaming Heads is the project of Peter Camani, an art
teacher. Mr Camani has spent approximately twenty five years working on this
project. His property is quite vast, 84 sculptures scattered along 310 acres. Scattered
throughout his property you will find assorted screaming heads, each one
standing twenty feet tall. For a sum of $10,000 you may have your cremated
remains molded into a 20 tonne screaming head of your own. There is also the Midlothian Castle. The castle, a former derelict farmhouse
but is now Mr Camani’s home, is guarded by a fire-breathing dragon which sits
on the chimney and emits smoke whenever the fireplace is used. We will revisit the
Screaming Heads in the summer so that we are able to walk through them all.
Bracebridge
This town was built around the waterfalls in the Muskoka River
which is in the centre of town. The black bear stands on the edge of the river
and is the only bear we have seen so far.
Northern Cardinal
This gorgeous red bird is a regular visitor to the neighbours garden.
