Maid of the Mist

Even though we had taken this boat trip before, we decided to take a tour on the Maid of the Mist for a close up view of both the American and the Horseshoe Falls from below.

This distant view of the bridge to the Canadian side of the river, the Observation Deck and the American Falls with one of the boats beneath gives an idea of the scale of things.  As the boat trips run about every 15 minutes from both sides of the river and as tourist boat trips have been taken here for well over a hundred years, we felt pretty safe!

From the start of the trip the spray coming from the Falls was very noticeable - they give you the blue raincovers for good reason and many a camera and phone has succumbed to the weather.  This photo shows people looking down from the top of the American and Bridal Veil Falls and at the bottom in yellow rain covers those on the Cave of the Winds trail.



Almost as soon as the Horseshoe Falls come into sight they disappear again into the mist and spots of water appear over the camera and phone lenses (both happily in their waterproof cases).

Instant hair frizz in the spray means no glamorous photos (as if anyway), but just to prove we were there..

And st this time of year, at least the spray was not too chilly!



Once off the boat and on the basis that we were already pretty wet, we walked up the side of the Falls to a very damp viewpoint.

Some flowers and plants clearly thrive with the frequent watering and much of the grass around the Falls was very green.

A shaft of sunlight behind us and a beautiful rainbow appeared in the mist below..

Finally we returned to the Observation Deck to look down over where we had been.  The sun giving a little more life to the Falls and the water now noticeably brown after heavy rain.