Its 2am. Barbara and I are in a bus station in the middle of
freaking nowhere with a dead cell phone and our thinnest summer outfits on. Out
next bus leaves in 5 hours, which sounds really simple but let me tell you: After 48 hours of being homeless sleeping on benches and laundromat floors, those cold 5 hours really suck.
I unpacked our biker gear, Barbara got fully kitted up and
we tried our best to catch a few hours sleep in at the bus station. Now, I have slept on rocks, in puddles, cuddled in dog boxes and slept on the roof of a moving vehicle but i have never had a worse sleep than in that bus station. We must have looked like a failed attempt at human Tetris all folded over chairs and covred in random kit. Fortunately, the sun came up and
the bus to Niagara Falls arrived minutes before Barbara and I just throwing in the towel on the whole thing.
It is a short journey there we are told –
just long enough to wake us up as we fell asleep properly for the first time in
ages.
Canada Wins This One
Feeling a little hard done by and on edge the little town of
Niagara Falls had to try really hard to impress us. Its small, it’s messy, the people
aren’t friendly and the bus system is somewhat incomprehensible. If you are not
standing at the exact correct bus stop at the exact time and wave down the bus
frantically with your entire body... it will leave you behind. They have three or four bus stops all
next to each other and you have to be standing at your correct one or else you
can end up heading off to the airport.
Okay so we were a bit grumpy. After some trial and error we
got onto the correct bus, much to the dismay of the driver doing us a favor or
something, and we ended up at our accommodation for later that night. We named him Geoff the Grumpy Bus Driver. Our first grumpy miserable American.
Geoff had Family, Indian family.
Falls Belong on Your Bucket List
Niagara Falls Park with the walkways and bridges is absolutely world class. What topped it off for us was the Maid of the Mist boat ride
which takes you (along with 100 Chinese tourists dressed in blue overalls)
right up to the foot of the falls where you get blasted by the water as it
plummets only a few meters in front of you. You get really, really close. The mist is immense as you can see with my horrid article picture. The
Chinese people lose their minds and it’s all a good laugh. The “American Side”
as it is called is quite impressive but the real big guy, that horse shoe one
you see in the pictures, is a little further up on the “Canada Side” . It’s also
quite amazing to see Canada there – like right there. Just a weird sight with sky scrapers on the cliffs edge.
The gift shop is reasonably pricey but has some great little
trinkets. Somewhat necessary when you visiting a natural wonder like this. The museum
has some interesting little reads and the general parks area outside of that is
perfect for a sit down.
Homer my Homie
Now, Duffs beer. Homer Simpson DOH! Duff beer is in Niagara
Falls. We left our motel around sun set
and after short conversation with the bus driver he literally went around the
block, off from his designated route, to drop us off outside Duffs Famous
Wings. I smashed in a Duff Beer, the wings were the best we have had the entire
journey so far and (as a point of celebration) I smashed in a few more Duff
Beers. Feeling brave after all that beer we walked back to the motel from there
and hit the hay.
We are up early tomorrow to catch the train to Syracuse.
Top Tip No. 12: Duffs beer happens to exist in many different forms in
many different parts of the country. There is no “real” Duffs beer…that
shouldn’t stop you from trying all of them though. Do it!
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