Port Perry and Niagara Falls, Ontario

So what to do and where to go now we are all together again … well we had a rough idea of heading towards Niagara but nothing had been properly decided.  The last few weeks we had just been focusing on getting here, so when Tubbs told me he had received a message from an old Guernsey friend, Simon Boucher-Harris, who saw on FB we were in Toronto inviting us to a BBQ at their house and use of their drive, we jumped at the chance. They lived just an hour away so the next day after unpacking my holdall of clothes into the van, we made our way over.

Simon and his lovely fiancé Lesley live in a small town called Port Perry located in Scugog about 84 kms northeast of central Toronto and what awesome hosts keeping us well fed and watered during our stay.  It was really good to just chill out and catch up over a few beers and glasses of wine. We even went kayaking on Lake Scugog in Simon’s folding Oru Kayaks. Yes you read that right, folding kayaks! A very clever idea and they fold into the size of a suitcase! Perfect for travelling - if only we had more space in the van they would definitely be some new toys for us for sure 🛶. So we ended up staying 5 nights (thank you Simon and Lesley) as it gave us an excellent chance to decompress and get back into van life in a more sedate manner, as well as explore a little of the area before heading off into the wilderness. 

So time to start this road trip for real and as originally planned our first stop was going to be Niagara Falls.  It wasn’t too far and Google maps said 2 hours - well it actually took us longer with various comfort breaks for us and the pups too, but all in all a relatively short drive.

When researching campsites in the area we discovered KOA (Kampgrounds of America) and decided to give them a try as they had a site just 10 minutes drive from the falls.  By becoming members you get 10% discount on bookings as well as collecting points, so with an annual fee of just $33 we decided to join and possibly stay at other KOAs on our travels (we actually saved more than the annual fee in our first booking so we are winning already!).

The next day we drove to the falls and were amazed as we came down the street to then be driving alongside them.  What a beautiful and quite surreal sight! Could this be the first Guernsey reg vehicle to drive this strip or even Canada??

The falls are northing short of amazing. The sight and sound of 154 million litres of water travelling at 40 mph and crashing over the falls every minute is breathtaking.  Slows to about half that during the winter and visually changes dramatically from a lush green environment to an ice scape and from what we’ve seen in pictures, sci-fi’esque looking formations.

The sound of the water thundering into the basin is deafening when you’re down on the water, particular at the front of the boat getting soaked in cooling mist.  Much appreciated when the air temperature on the boardwalk was late twenties.  There’s  a lot of history on the falls which we found really interesting, like for example this was not the place of the original falls.  This current spot was a result of erosion, it used to be a further 7 miles north.  The rate of erosion was once 10ft every year until engineers got involved and this has now slowed to 30cm every 10 years!!

What you have to ignore though is the commercialised aspect of the area adjacent to the falls.  We completely understand it is here to cash in on the tourists but with high rise hotels bearing down not too far from the edge of the falls and shops as soon as you exit the various tours, is a distraction from the natural beauty of this place.  They also have green screen photography before you go into the tour so you can capture that artificial picture of you and the family dropping over the falls in a barrel - we skipped that bit!📸

But some of the tours are certainly well worth doing, we enjoyed the boat cruise (to get up really close and personal - and wet!), the tunnel and white water walk.  We also did the journey behind the falls but if you do the tunnel we discovered there is no need to do the former.

A fantastic place to visit and you don’t need to do all of the tours.  There is plenty of history on the ones mentioned to keep you interested for a couple of days.  You could do it in one but why rush?  We took our time and stayed in the area for 5 nights in the end, which also gave us a chance to just breathe and plan the next part of our trip.

Next we are heading to visit friends in Chicago 😊

Tubbs & TA ❤️