Niagara Falls - The Canadian side

Toronto to Niagara Falls isn't too far, so we decided to make the side visit. I've been in the area plenty of times, usually on the United States side, but never made the trip until this time.

We were on the Canadian side in the boat called Hornblower instead of the slightly more well known U.S. Maid of the Mist. There main difference is which side of the river the trip starts, and thus the colour of the ponchos.

Ours were red, the US ones were blue. I did take some snap shots although there was an awful lot of water flying around, so my camera was drenched. I've also some live footage, but decided that videoing a recreation from a slightly later voyage might make more sense.

My handheld footage of that later run by our boat is below. When I get more time I may edit in some of the soaked deck view although it is mainly water, screams and laughter.

I've decided it is a "must do" experience. I'll add that I think the Canadian side is probably better because of the walkable access to the main Horseshoe Falls and some further spectacular views.

My handheld video of our boat's identical later trip - maybe I'll add our deck view

Thursday in Toronto

I've occasionally visited Toronto for work, although not for at least ten years.

As a city, the basic landmarks remain the same, but the growth of buildings and infrastructure has been phenomenal.

I mainly worked around the central area - close to Front Street and the financial district. There was the CN Tower, the big Skydome (Rogers?) stadium with the automatic roof and a reasonable cluster of skyscrapers.

Now, there's so many more tall buildings and complicated roadways.

Tower blocks for business and tower blocks for residents. It looks as if the traffic system isn't keeping up. There's absolutely huge roadway systems, some of which snake across the view yet there seems to be traffic holdups at many intersections.

I can't help wonder whether the building programme has been left to go unchecked? It seems to be a case of upwards rather than outwards, apparently to avoid sprawl. Tall glass structures prevail.

I understand that the population around Toronto has increased by almost 50% in the last 15 or so years. If that is true then I can understand the stress.

This intensity makes it look as if it requires some serious catch-up before an equilibrium is restored. The boat harbours look pretty, but there's an awful lot of people living just behind them.

There's been some of the same challenges in areas of Central London, UK, but London has enough discernible landmarks and green areas to create the separations needed to delineate areas.

With Toronto, I realise I'm taking a quick tourist view. I'm certainly enjoying my visit, but I can't help having a nagging doubt about scale and the pressure to build upwards within city limits.

For the absolute plus side, this trip we've had great weather and a chance to look at the city from the water, where it can look fantastic.

This waterside view shows off the city to great effect, but I can't help wondering whether the planners need to look at the micro view from within the city as well as the very pretty broad brush picture.

a view from the window

Normally we pick up a car as soon as we land. This time we would be in a city for the first 3 days, so we decided to take a limo to the hotel and pick up the car on Friday. We're in a pretty fancy hotel and have a great view from the window. The most famous landmark of the city is around a block away and clearly visible from the room. It's just visible at the top of the picture below. Those purple lines are the base.

Easier to spot in this second picture. The lights have changed colour.

And it is even easier to see in daylight. Here's that road crossing outside the hotel.

And, looking up in the air...

It's the CN Tower, of course. The tallest tower on earth from its completion in 1975 until 2010.

A wonder of the modern world. Built in just 40 months and still looking fresh.

once more past that horse with a lampshade on its head

Back to Heathrow to catch the plane. For this flight we were in the 'turn left' part of the plane.

Our friendly check-in person gave us priority check-in and fast track, so we passed through all of the T5 systems in about 10 minutes. That included me being given that full body scanner treatment and then having my backpack swabbed for explosives. Welcome back to the -ahem- random checks.

We were therefore speedily into Terminal 5 airside, and it being a longer flight, the extra time gave an excuse to try both the main Executive lounge and then the Galleries one at the T5 B Gates. The main South lounge was serving breakfast, but the Galleries at the end of the short B Terminal train link was already on to lunch.

Then to the plane, which we boarded through a separate (non-existent) queue which meant no hold-ups to reach the seats. It was one of those Boeing 787 Dreamliners. I've been on a few Dreamliners before, but this was the first time I recollect travelling on one with BA.

Champagne before take-off as well as a complete bedding kit from the White Company. That's blanket, duvet, mattress(!) and pillow, as well as one of those amenity kits with toothpaste, socks, earplugs and so-on.

I'd already stowed all of the linen overhead and drunk half the champagne before I thought to take a pre-takeoff picture.

And my picture isn't a very good food shot, so here's an approximate re-cap of the various courses served throughout the flight - albeit illustrated in a random order. It includes the gin and tonic and those little nutty things, but misses out the Magnum ice cream and the rather enjoyable red wine.

The service from a trolley for the starters and puddings is a good idea, and reminds me of the heady days when one could get slices of Boeuf Wellington individually served from the trolley.

Two meals, a couple of movies and we were on our final descent. A pleasant 7h30 flight time.

trains and buses and swimming pools with cocktail bars

After taking the Cornish Riviera Express back to London, my route to the airport was via the Paddington Express. I didn't have any luggage; for complicated social engagement reasons it had all been taken on ahead and I'd be re-united with it at the airport.

I've driven to LHR thousands of times, but today I was using the public route, so that we didn't end up with two cars to park around the airport.

Perfectly fine, after a 15 minute train ride to the airport, I came out into the sometimes invisible terminal 2.

I navigated the subterranean world of Heathrow to the bus station. I could get a London red bus (in the free Heathrow zone) for the 10 minute ride to the hotel where our other car was parked. I have to admit that this particular end-to-end route was faster than if I'd driven.

Our room had a pretty good view of part of the aircraft taxi-ing area and unsurprisingly the double glazing had around a 15 cm air gap to remove plane noise. Oh yes, and the swimming pool had the essential swim-up cocktail bar.

why does rain after a dry spell create big bubbles on the ground?

Rainfall today, so the grass may start to look less yellow.

After a dry spell, it was a classic day to spot the big surface bubbles that form after a period without much rainfall.

I looked on some nearby asphalt, which, whilst flat, contains plenty of air. When the rain falls the water wants to displace the air, but accumulated oil from cars, soaps and other sources affect the rainwater's surface tension.

So as the water tries to displace the air, it reaches the oily surface water creating the big bubbles.

Ok, for now I smell the rain and it's heading my way.

Ramble On.

Time to enjoy the bass riff and the Les Paul gear changes.

viola cover up until bee bombs surface

When I obtained the bee bombs (which are to start some wild flowers attractive to bees), I originally planted them in these little tin pots, along with a solitary flower.

With green-fingered specialist dead-heading of the expired flowers, there's now a superabundance of bright violas in the pots, although I can also see early signs of the bee bomb plants beginning to fight through.

We shall see.

And if that progress is tentative, around the other side of the house the deliberately wild area seems to be coming along nicely.

overnight spider web

We moved a plant from a windowsill to the kitchen counter top last night. By the morning an enterprising spider had worked out the best angle to fabricate a new web.

I lured the spider from hiding by flicking some water onto the web.

Caught in the act.

a quick stop at the chip shop

Time to get another new windscreen for the car. This is the second replacement. The glass was hit by something small but high velocity a few days ago and made that horrible plink noise that told me there was some proper damage.

When I looked, there was a smallish half moon chip out of the central driver's zone, which made me suspect I'd need a whole replacement glass.

Again.

The last time this happened my car was off the road for about three weeks because the technicians didn't recalibrate all the wizardry of the sensors. There was an endless scrolling of dashboard error messages, bleeps and alarming red lights. The main dealer had to put it right whilst I drove around in a loan car.

This time they rightly said the car would need to go to somewhere that could do the ADAS calibration. Oh yes, that's the Advanced Driver Assist Systems calibrations.

My challenge was finding the special place they told me to visit for this refit. It wasn't at the main dealership and they certainly couldn't do it from home.

It turned out that the map address, Google and other guides all pointed to different places. The special phone number had been replaced as well.

Eventually I managed to get the mobile phone number of the technician who would do the work and he guided me in.

It was one of those industrial areas where there was every make of car showroom from Ferrari to Ford as well as Halfords, KwikFit, and onward to the units that replace gearboxes.

I eventually found the quite smart looking windscreen place. They estimated 90 minutes and I set off on foot to find a coffee shop. When I returned they had one of their mobile repair vans backstage as well as a bunch of other equipment to realign everything.

Sure enough, after around 90 minutes the new structurally significant windscreen was in place and all the sensors were behaving. And I can see through the windscreen in chip-free High Definition again.

a waive of tier haze

Next select the seats on the plane. Travelling business class you'd expect the seats to be selectable from the start? Not any more.

I've dropped from the once heady BA Gold such that nowadays even booking business class requires a surcharge for seat selection. So let's recap.

The descending tiers are Black (Premier), Gold Guest List, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Blue. Different cards and different coloured screens on the iPhone App.

However, does Blue/Bronze require just a few quid extra to pay for reserved seats?

Hardly.

Two outbound seats pre-selected more than 24 hours before the flight in each direction costs a total of how much?

Not £20. Not £50. Not £100.

No, it was £300 on top of the Business ticketing. It could have been even more if I'd gone for the £87 each way seats.

I realised how much I'd been protected with my Executive Club cards, but it still seems a lot to pay on top of premium tickets. Fortunately I still have some of those Avios points and was therefore able to waive the charge. I predict that Norwegian Airlines will take over as my airline of preference.

preparing the travel cubes

Trial packing the suitcase ready for the next trip. I've decided to take the 'big' case instead of my usual smaller rollers.

My usual go-to roller has plenty of compartments and I've pretty much got a system for packing it, and indeed for my even smaller carry-on version. I use Travelpro Crew which has an industrial quality and lasts for years, including many, many flights.

My secret when I use the biggest case is to use packing cubes. It's a similar idea to packing a backpack with inner bags, but for suitcases.

Travelpro even sell them, although I use generic ones which are just as good. My original ones came in a set of 'car luggage' but to be truthful the size and weight of the pieces outweighed their effectiveness. Useful for a business shirt and tie but long ago ditched - even the original shirt folder.

I kept the idea, but replaced the original cubes with something altogether lighter.

And these latest varied sized cubes work well to ensure that everything gets packed and can easily be unloaded as individual blocks into the next hotel room without a muddle. I wouldn't bother with this for a single destination, but as I'll be back on the road these cubes along with a couple of Travelpro inserts create instant organisation.

Om.

insecure wine and a yellow sticker

We could tell we were in a well-heeled part of town when the local supermarket's grab and go wine racks had significant double digit pricing.

Actually some of the free range bottles were up into the hundreds. The behind glass doors seemed to start at around £300.

Although, to be fair, some of the store's ice cream and cous-cous had regular supermarket pricing.

Last night's bottle of Voignier had an altogether different origin, as well as a security sticker applied from the possibly transport-related point of purchase.