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Revised: 01 Nov 2008 20:55:04 -0500      

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June 26, 2004 - Another Niagara Outing

This time the motivation for our picnic was a chance to meet some of Marg's bulletin board friends:  Kim and Matt and their daughter Keely from the U.S. and Robyn and Darren and their daughter Madison came from Chatham.

We packed picnic lunches (sandwiches for Marg and I and lunchables for the kids) and set off for Niagara.  We wanted to picnic near Niagara so we started to pull into a park up the river from the falls.  Nice park, nasty surprise:  they wanted $10 to park!  And it was miles from the Falls, so no apparent reason for that.  So, being a cheapskate, I decided to go to the Dufferin Islands Nature Area, where we found a nice picnic table in the sun and had our lunch.  A few pictures from here.  Parker loved running about.

We then met the friends at the Niagara Aviary.  We heard about this and checked out their website.  The pictures there make it look fantastic - though I wasn't as impressed as there didn't seem to be all that many birds around (perhaps there has been a recent die off - lol).   There was free parking and a parking attendant who was as friendly a fellow I have seen in the service industry in a long time.  Whatever training these folks at the aviary get it must be quite good - every single person was friendly, smiling and enthusiastic.  A nice change from many of the minimum wagers who occupy so much of the cheesy Clifton Hill attractions.

The aviary itself is divided into three sections:  small birds (with caged finches and other exotic small birds - Parker quite liked this area); night creatures (with bats, nasty cockroaches and lizards in aquariums); and the large bird open aviary.  This was a very well crafted open space with lots of greenery.  My only complaint was that there didn't seem to be enough birds flying about, so there wasn't much to see.

One closed off section is for lorikeets, which are an Australian parrot.  This small enclosure allows you to get up close and personal with these brilliantly coloured birds.  If you buy some nectar ($2) they will land right on you.  There is a neat picture on the website of this, but we didn't see it happen in person.  But the neat thing was the introduction by the employee.  He informs me that these parrots are Australia's version of pigeons.  They are a nuisance bird that Australians call "flying rats".  Seems that they are noisy and will eat everything in sight, including peeling the bark off your trees.  Kind of amazing that such a pretty bird can be so loathsome.

After the aviary, we all headed out to the Butterfly Conservatory.  We had hoped that the kids would nap on the way as they were getting a bit cranky by the end of the aviary.  But no such luck.  However, they behaved well and the Butterfly Conservatory was as nice a visit as ever.  Parker was loving it - he kept shouting "touch, touch" and tried to catch the butterflies.  Sloane was doing a bit of chasing too, but was also very intent on making sure we knew she wanted to go see "gara falls".

Afterwards, we adults sat on the grounds of the Conservatory and chatted, while the kids chased each other and the chased the local wildlife.  Parker, in particular, was off to explore in the woods.  I am thankful that there was no poison ivy!  The grounds at the Butterfly Conservatory and the Niagara Botanical Gardens are awesome.  The flower beds and trees are beautiful and a walk through the area is a fine way to spend an hour or so.  The testament to the quality of the sights is the sheer number of wedding parties making their way through the area.   You couldn't turn around without tripping over a bride or a bridesmaid!

I was particularly taken by a huge Norway Maple tree (most of the flowers and trees are labelled for urban dwellers like me).  It must have been quite old and its canopy was the size of our backyard.  Absolutely stunning.  Makes me wish we could have a house with such old growth trees in the yard.

After the Conservatory we had a quick drive past the falls, where the newly opened Niagara Fallsview Casino was creating traffic chaos - then home, where the kids tumbled into bed (with very little fuss), as they were exhausted from their long day.  A very good picnic indeed.

Here are some pictures.

Click on thumbnails to enlarge pictures: