8.7.2012 – 8.7.2012  31 °C

Our day started a little later than normal before we left the hurley burley of Niagara and headed up north besides the Niagara river for Niagara-on-the-Lake (NotL). There isn’t a more story book beautiful town than NotL. The drive up to the town is totally beautiful. The drive passes thru vineyard after vineyard… I know! Wine!! I was surprised too.. apparently, this part of Ontario produces some of the best ice wines in the world! Not only are there vineyards but there is also plenty of orchards and little road side stalls. The side of the road that has the river is also mainly parkland so you can imagine how picturesque this part of Canada is! (A lovely change from the dump that is the other bank of the Niagara!!)

We stopped for our morning tea on the banks of the Niagara River and really enjoyed our peaceful cuppa! Before we arrived in the story book town we stopped on the outskirts at Fort George to soak up some history. We got lucky on entry. A lady gave us our parking ticket (she was finished) and inside we were able to use our National Parks pass! It turned out, that we made $6 by going to Fort George!! The Fort is setup as a mock British fort from the 1812 war. It is populated with Red Coat soldiers (ala Old Sydney Town) and ladies in 1800s garb. We were fortunate to arrive just in time to see the Fife and Drum group perform. It’s the first time I’ve heard a Fife and Drum group and I was pretty impressed. They played a few songs which the infantry of the time performed in Canada. I was stunned to learn that boys as young as 9 could join the military back in the day. They would be used as dog’s bodies and would be used to do whatever tasks needed doing around the camp. If they could play an instrument they may have been upgraded to the Fife and Drum group. The Fife and Drummers only role in the army was to entertain the troops (usually with fairly bawdy songs) and only had a sword to be used as a weapon…. I guess the idea being that if the musicians need a weapon everyone is in trouble!

The 1812 war was fought between the British (in Canada) and the Americans. The American’s invaded Canada (then the British Colony of Canada) to try and wipe out the “British influence” on Nth American shores. I guess there was concern that Britain would try and reclaim America after it had declared its independence.. So to ensure this didn’t happen, the US decided to invade Canada. The war basically achieved nothing. Eventually both sides sued for peace, with no changes to borders etc. The war did mean that Fort George was completely wiped out (and Niagara was a part of the US for a while) so today’s Fort is a replica.

Another interesting thing is the staffing at the Fort. Many of the staff are volunteers! Today many of the volunteers were out on their Sunday, drilling as army Red Coats out on the parade grounds. Again and again, they were pretending to salute with their guns and marching around in unison. The fact that they give up their Sunday’s, don 1800s  army garb and drill for at least an hour in >30 deg temp shows their dedication to the Fort!!

After a couple of hours out in the hot sun, we heard the canon fire and then decided to seek the air cond of our car and so continued our drive into Niagara-on-the-lake. We drove thru the story book town but decided to not stay and shop (which is the only real thing to do in the town). Instead, we went to the local mkt grabbed some lunch stuff and went found ourselves a nice place on Lake Ontario to have our lunch.

Our afternoon was spent driving to Waterloo, Ontario (a couple of hours west of NotL). The drive was fairly uneventful with us passing thru town after town.. I discovered that this part of Canada must be super populated because it feels like one big town from Niagara all the way to Toronto!!!! I bet a good portion of the entire Canadian population must live in this area of Canada!!!

We arrived at Lee and Mac’s (friends of M and D) just before dinner and were treated to the most delicious Salmon dinner from Lee.. Mmmmm… T-a-s-t-y! Straight after dinner we did a wander around the town before we spent the evening chatting about our trip so far and what to do with our remaining time in Canada! Tomorrow, Lee and Mac are going to take us out and about in the countryside around Waterloo…. Apparently they live nearby to a Mennonite community so I should get another chance to buy myself a quilt!!!

Song of the Day- Tchaikovsky, 1812 Overture