Perry and Robyn's Travel Blog

North America 2022 : Wednesday September 7 Day 9 Drive to Niagara-on-the-Lake

The plan was to pick up the car from the airport at about 9am and then head out of town. Changing the pickup location to the Billy Bishop Airport gave us an extra hour and hour in the morning, so, in typical fashion, we took an extra 45 minutes.

Uber to airport, drop off Rob, in the seating area on the mainland side with the bags, a quick walk through the tunnel under the water – the airport is on a very small island about 50metres offshore – find the Hertz desk again, and all was good.

A quick check of the car with the rental clerk in tow before she said, “You just catch the ferry over there,” waving her hand and starting to return to her desk inside the building.

“Hang on,” I said. “Where is that?”

“Over there,” with another vague wave.

“I just need to figure out the route, as this is my first time driving on this side of the road for a while.”

“Ah.” The penny must have dropped, and she didn’t want to see someone ding the rental in her own car park. “See that white car there?” Pointing directly this time. “Pull up behind that and follow it across.”

So I did, and found Robyn and packed the car. And then followed my new best friend – the lady who calls out the directions on the phone’s GPS app – and we were off to Niagara-on-the-Lake, a wine area about 20 kilometres from the Falls.

The good thing about starting a long drive in a Left Hand Drive vehicle is that, if you get to a freeway quickly, you get the chance to orientate yourself before dealing with tricky situations like exiting car parks or negotiating roundabouts. It takes a while for the correct driving strategies to kick in, learning to give yourself time to work out the trajectories you’ll take, and where you need to position the car on the road. It all sounds simple, but if you’re not careful you’ll fall back into the automatic positioning which, in North America, is just a tad wrong.

A couple of hours later we were pulling up at Konzelmann Winery where Robyn had us booked in for a wine tasting. Interestingly enough they made a Riesling in an Australian style, and a Shiraz, which, despite being spelt that way, they pronounced in the French style, “syrah”. Both were drinkable enough but you could tell the Shiraz wasn’t getting enough ripening time – hardly surprising given the weather they get in that region – and the Riesling was on the sweeter end of the spectrum, not as acid-dry as most Watervale offerings.

After that it was time for a bite in town, before a drive around the local area, which reminded me a lot of McLaren Vale. You can practically see the US from there and the city of Buffalo in New York State is only an hour’s drive away. Consequently the wineries had all invested millions in the look of the place, in the US style. There was no selling of wines in a dingy old shed off a trestle table here.

Lunch and a look around the Niagara-on-the-Lake township. It looked like there was a lot of money around.

We couldn’t book into our B&B for a few hours and so decided to drip into another winery, the oldest of them all in this region, Inniskillin. This has the reputation for being the first winery in the area to also produce Ice Wine; the grapes are picked when frozen, when the temperature is at least -8ºC. It produces a sweet dessert wine, rather like botrytis wines we get in Australia. Overall, the wines here were thin and unappealing.