We had quite a few questions about the falls throughout the day…
1. How much water goes over each second?
2. How many people have jumped in and gone over?
3. How many visitors come to NF each year?
4. Where does the water come from?
5. Where does the water go?
So as soon as we found a bit of free wifi, we got to googling.
1: 3,160 tons of water flows over the falls every second!!!
2: About 5000 people have died at the falls and approx 35 people every year take their own life at there. One of the most famous people to have gone over the falls is Annie Edson Taylor, a school teacher who, in 1901 – on her 63rd birthday, decided to attempt the fall over the falls in a wooden barrel stuffed with a mattress – she survived, and thought she’d make a bit of money out of it, apparently she didn’t make much, and what she did earn she spent on hiring a private detective to help find the barrel – which was stolen. Here’s her Wiki page – she had quite an interesting life.
3: Over 30 million people visit NF each year.
4 & 5: The water starts off in North America, coming from streams and rivers that empty into 5 out of the 6 Great Lakes; Michigan, Superior, Huron, St. Clair and Erie and into the Niagara River. From there the water passes over the falls, before flowing around 23km north into the final of the Great Lakes – Lake Ontario. From here there is yet another river, the St. Lawrence, and then it’s final resting place in the form of the Atlantic Ocean.
And….. here’s Niagara!
Me Jenny and I did the Maid of the Mist boat thing last time we were here with a tour group and we looked very much like these squished smurfs… so I felt no desire to do it again and I made it sound so enticing that Jodie wasn’t that keen.
This is the Skyline Tower on the Canadian side where we planned to have lunch in the revolving restaurant.
The shuttle trolley which took us down to the bridge to make our crossing…
… to Canada!
There was a nice welcoming gate to pass through surrounded by barbed wire…
From the bridge there are the most amazing views…
And places for selfies…
These boats went out 100s of times during the day.
The view from the Canadian side is very different. This is a platform you can walk down to to get close to the falls – people were coming back up soaked.
The Horseshoes in all their glory…
View back to the bridge… Canada on the left and USA on the right.
Top of the Horseshoe. How’s the colour of the water – so pretty.
So once we’d had our fill of close up waterfall work, we headed up to the Skyline Tower for lunch.. Here are some facts.
We sat at a table in the revolving restaurant and started heading to the right… here are the views out each window… It takes an hour to do one lap around.
We walked 12.5kms today over two countries!
