USA - New York

Day 6 - Sunday 01 September

On Sunday we said farewell to the wonderful Toronto and flew back to the New York.  Unsurprisingly, Toronto has a very good public transport system so we used the streetcar (tram) and then the Pearson Express to head to the airport.

Interestingly you actually enter the United States before taking off.  There is a part of the terminal at Toronto just for American-bound travellers and you clear immigration and customs before leaving.   I like the self-service immigration portals at Toronto - both entering and leaving the country we used these rather than having to queue for an immigration officer.  On departure, as part of the customs process, I declared that I had fruit/vegetables on me (my in-flight banana).  Therefore, unlike Riona, who went through the 'good-to-go' queue, I had to talk to a customs officer and waive my potentially forbidden goods.  "How long are you going to the US for?" he asked looking at the USA stamp in my passport from only 6 days earlier.  "Um, a day," I responded.  "I've kind of been there before," I added by way of explanation.  

Strangely Riona took longer than I and when we met up she was soured faced.  "What's up?" I asked. Well, it turned out that as we parted for our different queues Riona had asked an official if she couldn't just simply go with her Mum into the 'something to declare' queue so we could stay together.  "Your Mum?" quizzed the officer.  "I thought that was your sister!" Cue grumpy 21 year old - affronted to be seen as a sister to a 49 year old woman.

Luckily there was a penguin on hand to cheer her up.

And then we sat in a bar and played cards.

La Guardia airport took a bit of navigating.  Well, leaving it was a cinch as we'd already cleared immigration, but the shuttle bus to the subway was hard to find and then a bit of a wait.  I'm not a patient traveller at the best of times. However, bus and subways all navigated, we found our hotel and a nearby Chinese takeaway and sat on our beds eating rice and fried vegetables whilst watching a Harry Potter movie.

Day 7 - Monday 02 September

Yay for breakfast!  Fruit loops US style, an old favourite of Riona's.

It was forecast to be showery today so, armed with waterproofs, we headed for Governor's Island.  This was our trip down memory lane as we had visited it in 2012 with Rog and Caitlin (here).

The clouds were gathering as we left Battery Park and looked towards Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

By the time we arrived it was drizzling heavily, which turned into proper rain.

We sheltered in Castle Williams, once a barracks but used as a jail in the late 1900s.  

The rain continued so we hopped to the coffee shop, which was disappointingly outside (Governor's Island is really designed to be enjoyed in fair weather) and we sat under the garden umbrellas with our coffees and waited for a break in the rain.

The clouds lifted briefly and we headed out to explore The Hills, a new area since our last visit.  It was obvious in 2012 that they had great plans for the island although unbuilt at the time of our visit.  Now there is a hill, adventure play area, hammocks, nature trails and all sorts of fun to be had....in the dry.  We scurried up the hill to see the views of Staten Island.  As we reached the top the rain broke and we scuttled down trying to find shelter somewhere.  Eventually we hid under a garden marque and dripped and shivered.

Eventually even the rain had had enough and we ventured out, dripping, to see the views.  There she is.

It was hard getting out of here and not falling into the puddle.

My little climber.

We remembered this chapel from last time.

And the views of Manhattan were, as ever, wonderful.

Back over to Battery Park for a late lunch.

And then the subway back.

Same old benches from 2012...

I flew home that evening.  A super easy trip from the hotel to JFK on the SkyTrain.  It felt strange to be leaving my daughter behind alone in a foreign country.  I knew she'd be fine - she had a Chinese takeaway, hotel room and TV, she's savvy and Mark and his brother were arriving the next day - but still weird.

Canada - Lake Ontario Paddle

Day 5 - Saturday 31 August

When in Canada paddle a canadian canoe.  And so we did.

The blog title is a little over doing it as we didn't venture far into Lake Ontario, in fact it was only Toronto's Inner Harbour, but I'm going for the 'I paddled on Lake Ontario story'.   We'd booked our hire slot and were to be taken across the Inner Harbour to the Toronto Island Park so we could paddle to our heart's content.

However whilst we were waiting we saw something familiar in the sky.

I did a double and treble take.  I was in Toronto and that appeared to the Red Arrows overhead.  I asked the skipper if it were the Canadian display team.  "They're called the Snowbirds," he commented.  Well, these certainly didn't look snow coloured.

It turned out that, yes, these were the Red Arrows who were on a North American tour.  In fact they'd been at Niagara Falls a couple of days earlier - that would have been a bit awesome to have seen them over the falls.

Our boat took us over to our canoe and off we set.

The Red Arrows continued their display whilst we paddled making this one of those 'right up there' memorable days - in a canadian canoe, in Canada, with the Red Arrows buzzing overhead.

Oooh look - a beaver-munched tree!

We paddled into a quiet cove and spied some waterbirds.

A great blue heron.

And an egret.

I'd spotted a light house on the map, so off we paddled.  Riona stayed in the boat whilst I hopped out at a pontoon to explore.  This is the Lake Light, one of the earliest on the Great Lakes, built in 1808.  It earned a reputation for being haunted when its first keeper mysteriously disappeared in 1815 and a skeleton was found nearby.

My patient boat handler awaited my return.

We then continued our exploration of the creeks and waterways that make up this island complex.  Toronto Islands appears to be well managed and ownership of the small island community of 600 cottages is restricted to a waiting list of locals.  There is no favouritism involved and houses are not sold privately, they have to be sold through the trust which regulates the prices.  You must use the property as your main residence: you are not allowed to buy as a holiday home or rent the property out.  Perhaps this should be rolled out for the Isles of Scilly...

Tortonto Islands certainly has a backdrop to write home about.

Riona's attempts at capturing a panaroma of the iconic skyline whilst floating on the lake proved amusing.

We finished our 2 hour slot and awaited our return to the mainland.

And then we were buzzed again.  These are not the Red Arrows so I can only surmise they are the Snowbirds, the other display team on the listings for the airshow.  Nice.

One back on the mainland we explored the Roundhouse.  These were unique circular buildings used to inspect, clean and repair steam locomotives: at one stage there were 3000 in North America.  This one has been preserved and we even had a little spin on the turntable.

More exploring on our last day.  Union Station.

We wandered the streets heading west to Kensington Market, a diverse and eclectic area of vintage shops, unique jewellery and hippy vibes. I loved the labyrinths painted on the pavements and roads.  And I loved this.

Another memorable day. :-)

Canada - Niagara Falls

Day 4 - Friday 30 August

Today was our big, exciting trip to Niagara.  We took a bus from Toronto bus station (strangely our bus actually parked outside on the road but that's Megabus for you) and off we trundled towards the falls.

The bus station at Niagara is a short hike from the falls.  Our first views of the Niagara River showed how icy turquoise the waters were.  We passed under the Rainbow Bridge, one of the border crossings to the United States.

Oooh, look.

Once under the bridge and round the corner the vista opened up.  The falls in centre shot are the American Falls.  On the left of these (as you look) is a green viewing platform.  From here, those on the American side can peer out, but I suspect they can't view the Horseshoe Falls.  The Horseshoe Falls are to the right and what most people probably refer to when they say 'Niagara Falls'. 

First stop, coffee with a view.

From here we could see lots of yellow caped tourists walk down to the foot of the American Falls to get duly soaked and squealy-delighted in equal measure.  They looked like yellow ants.

We decided to reccie the Horseshoe Falls in anticipation of our boat ride later that day.

There were rainbows all over the place, as you'd expect.

And we could see how close in the tourist boats took their passengers.  The red decked boats were actually red-caped voyeurs and from the Canadian side.  The blue enrobed tourists were from the US side. 

We stood at the head of the falls and marvelled at the power of the water as it plummeted over the edge.  Quite awesome and scary at the same time.

Right, time to get wet.  We took a funicular down to the river and shuffled onto our boat. Red capes of course.

Dry Riona.

We sailed to the base of the American Falls, waved at the yellow people, and got spray in our hair.  We then turned towards our main goal.  We stood near the front and as we travelled watched the birds skim the water in front of us.

The boat nudged its nose as close as was safe into the Horseshoe Falls.  We spent 2 or 3 minutes just getting rained on by the largest natural power shower I've ever been near.  We laughed, screamed and dripped.

We headed back to base via the American Falls.

Soggy but thrilled with our tiny adventure.

We went to dry off, shop, have a drink and then walked back up to the Horseshoe Falls.  We knew they'd be illuminated (Riona had wisely suggested a late bus back) so we chatted and watched the sun set.

Once dark we hung around and eventually the falls were lit.  I liked the Canadian colours on the Horseshoe.

And the American colour scheme on the American Falls.

It got quite showy after a while, although we had to leave to catch our bus back to Toronto.

Here endeth Day 4.