The tour comes to an end

Leaving Niagara Falls we drove along the Niagara River. This is a fairly wild stretch of river due to the speed of the water, the variability in the width of the gorge and the fact that there are great blocks of rock randomly deposited on the river bed. There is also the odd sharp bend in the river and this can result in other phenomena such as the huge whirlpool that we stopped to see.

This is the actual whirlpool basin

Our next stop was Niagara on the Lake. This is quite a pretty little town and one that is determined to keep the tourist buses out of their streets. Tour buses are not allowed to enter the town. There is a parking area on the edge of town and a free shuttle bus runs from the parking area into town. Actually, it is an easy, pleasant walk in and I think everyone on our bus walked into town and back.

Niagara on the Lake was our lunch stop. Trevor and I grabbed a sandwich and headed down to the lake. There were tables and benches in a park overlooking the lake and quite a number of people eating their lunch there. The seagulls were a bit of a nuisance and rather raucous.

Trevor enjoying our lunch spot beside Lake Ontario

Looking arcoss Lake Ontario

Next to the area where our bus was parks on the outskirts of Niagara on the Lake was Fort George.

We didn't have enough time to tour the inside of the fort but we did manage to get a quick peek inside the grounds as well as a look at some of the exterior features.

The Niagara Penincular used to be a tabacco growing area. These days there is little or no tabacco grown. Instead vineyards and orchards are the order of the day.

One of the many vineyards we passed

 By bthe time we arrived back at the outskirts of Toronto the weather had turned awful. It was raining and the wind was up. Not pleasant and a pity as we were having dinner in the restaurant up in the CNN Tower.

Looking out over Toronto from teh CNN Tower

John and Elaine Miller, from Scotland, one of the couples on our tour. Elaine kept getting Trevor in her photos so he became a bit of a feature.

The wind was so bad that two of the lifts in the CNN tower were closed down.

Our tour officially ended with breakfast on Thursday morning (11 September).  Trevor and I headed out to Pearson International Airport to collect our hire car and start the final leg of our trip.

More on that in the next post.