After the excitement of the previous day we decided to have a chilled out day in and around Niagara on the Lake. None of us, except Emily who was attracted like a moth to the bright lights, wanted to visit the tacky amusements of Niagara itself, on such a beautiful day. We had seen on our way up to Niagara on the Lake that the impressive hydro-electric plants did tours, so we decided to try these out as one of the field trips for Jack and Emily.
The two hydro-electricity plants on the Canadian side of the Niagara River (which marks the border between the US and Canada) are enormous. They are named Beck I and Beck II after the politician, Sir Adam Beck, who’s vision led to their creation. Work was started on these plants in 1905 and the first plant was turned on in 1910, and these plants now supply Ontario and major cities like Toronto. Water is taken from Welland Canal (which joins Lake Eire to the Niagara falls) and is fed into the top of the power station – which then falls down towards the Niagara River turning the large turbines that generate the electricity. Clean and renewable power!!! The tour itself is about 30 minutes and takes you down to the turbine rooms (which are not hugely interesting as the turbines themselves are covered), never the less it is informative (despite the tour guide’s mind seemingly elsewhere – he was a large chap and Karen suspected he had health issues) On leaving the power station some of the staff members were having fire extinguisher training so obviously we stopped to watch and they kindly let Jack have a go and as it turned out he was the most proficient.We journeyed back to Niagara on the Lake and stopped at the Botanical Gardens – which we
found to be free to enter (we like free!!) It was a beautiful day and it was great to wander around the formal gardens, which had many plants we recognised from England that we had not seen in gardens in North America. Our particular favourite was the rose garden, which was still in bloom. We all had great fun taking in the fragrances. There is also a huge clock face made up flowers, the design of which changes every year.
We continued our journey stopping off at a very tiny chapel – which was more like a shed! After this we went down to the shore of Lake Eire and went for a paddle. One of our ambitions for this tour is to take a paddle in each of the 5 Great Lakes. There was also a stiff 
breeze so we were able to fly our kite (which comes with us every where – how sad!!!). The day was finished off by a walk around the village of Niagara on the Lake which has some lovely, if very touristy shops. In fact this was an almost perfect day.
No comments:
Post a Comment