Woke up completely drenched in sweat. Phoned the Australian High Commission and after a long time waiting in a queue they told me they are going to let me in-HURRAH!!!

Went into town after having cold pizza for breakfast. Had a cold drink in a sports bar type place whilst we decided what to do. Eventually decided to opt for buying the adventure pass, which comes in a nice little wallet for keeping things in.

The first thing we then did was a trip on the Maid of the Mist boat. You get a lovely blue rain poncho to protect you from the spray. The Maid of the Mist is a boat which takes you past the American falls and right up to the Horseshoe falls, where you get drenched with spray - very refreshing.

You seem to go so close that at one point I was worried about the boat getting swamped. However, needless to say, we survived. When the boat docks you then exit through a gift shop - the whole Niagara tourist service seems designed to separate you from as much cash as possible.

We then walked up the river front after getting an ice cream / iced yoghurt for refreshment. Did I mention it was hot? Though by the falls it is nowhere near as hot as New York.

When we reached the top of the falls we went to the journey behind the falls. Here, our adventure passes were worth their weight in gold. People paying on the spot were being told that they had to wait at least two hours,we went straight in. For this trip we got a lovely yellow plastic poncho. You follow a tunnel down to two points where you can look out directly behind the falls. You could see the spray shadows through the wall of water.

At this point I was what the yellow ponchos were for as we hadn't got wet yet, then we went to the observation deck. The lower deck allows you to stand virtualy right next to the falls and not even a yellow plastic poncho stops you getting wet. The water hits the bottom of the falls and sprays over you in a massive shower.

Very refreshing in hot weather. It is amazing to be standing that close to such a force of nature. After that it was out through the usual gift shop where I bought a T-shirt with bears on. One thing that I really don't like here is that the price on the price label doesn't include tax, so you get charged more at the till than the label says.

After attempting to dry of in the sun - though each time the wind changed we got wet from spray again- we used the special adventure pass people mover bus.

We went to see Brick World. A very unusual city built of Lego. Within one city it manages to contain the Golden gate bridge, the CN tower, skyscrapers, the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Niagara Falls, a cowboy town, an Indian encampment, a harbour full of pirate ships and a ski resort. The whole thing has trains built of Lego running all the way through it.

As an example of Lego model building it was certainly very impressive. Exit was, once again, through a gift shop.

By this time we were feeling somewhat footsore and weary so after a couple of beers caught the people mover back to a stop close to the hostel for a short break.

For dinner we headed to a grill house I had ribs and chicken wings. Mountain Man had steak. The ribs were gorgeous, the meat fell of the bone and they tasted really sweet and smoky. I wasn't too sure about the chicken wings, I wasn't keen on the sauce they were in.

After that we had a couple of beers in a bar, but as we were falling asleep into our beer headed back for bed.

Day 4    Day 6