After an early breakfast at the
Nichols School in Buffalo NY, and an inspirational speech by the organizers of
Cycling the Erie Canal Bike Tour 2014, we started cycling on Amherst Street,
passing by a few places
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| Old Lincoln Parkway Church, 400 Lincoln Parkway |
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St. John's United Church of Christ,
85 Amherst Street
|
on the way to the shores of the
Niagara River on the Riverwalk trail to get to the mouth of the
Erie Canal.
We rode the Riverwalk trail for a bit,
taking in the sights of the Niagara River and Strawberry Island
as we headed into the town of Tonawanda, passing by the
River Grill
and the Niagara Thru-Way,
which crosses the river into Grand Island.
We passed through
Isle View County Park,
and Nia-Wanda Park,
heading the to mouth of the Erie Canal,
where there were some interesting railroad bridge remains.
We passed over the Ellicott Creek on the Long Homestead Bridge,
and came upon an interesting Jack Knife Bridge at ~100 East Niagara Street.
Moving on, we passed by
Ellicott Island Park
on the way into the town of Amherst
to visit the
Buffalo Niagara Heritage Village, which is all about the history of the area. Pictures I took here of the exhibits follow.
After leaving the museum, I decided to use my coupon for cheap ice cream at
Uncle G's Ice Cream, located nearby in the town of Pendleton, where I got the Peanut Butter Cup flavor,
just as it poured heavily, for a short while.
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Family Worship Center,
5721 Tonawanda Creek Road
|
We proceeded onward, entering into the town of Lockport
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St. Mary's Church,
5 Saxton Street
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to get to Locks 34/35 on the Erie Canal, located at Pine Street and Canal Street,
where we could see the
Upside-Down Railroad Bridge as well.
As we still had some time to spare before our tour of the locks with
Lockport Locks and Erie Canal Cruises was to start, we headed to the
Erie Canal Discovery Center to check out the exhibits there.
After leaving the small museum, we passed by a few more places
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Ulrich City Center,
45 Main Street
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before heading to the cruise center area, where we had to rush to get our lunches (Turkey Sandwich)
and get onto the boat which was about to leave.
After setting off, we cruised toward the locks,
passing under the upside down bridge
along the way.
We went through the open lock 34,
whereupon the door closed behind us,
effectively enclosing us between the two gates.
We had to wait a little while before the water levels started rising,
and the boat with it as well.
When the process was completed, we were pretty high up compared to our earlier height.
The next gate opened, revealing other boats coming from the other side,
and we proceeded on to our next gate,
passing under the Pine Street bridge as we did so.
Once again, the gates closed behind us,
and the water rose,
the second set of gates opening when the process was complete,
and we were back out at a higher level of the Erie Canal.
From here, we proceeded to pass under the Big Bridge, the widest bridge in North America,
and after travelling on the canal for a bit,
it was finally time to turn around
which the boat captain did very skillfully,
and we went back through the locks and back to the docks to land.
From here, we headed to the
Lockport Caves and Underground Boat Ride area to wait for our next tour, while everyone else proceeded to bike onward, effectively making us the last people on the ride today.
When the tour started, we headed down to the locks below,
where we were shown the boarded up entrance to the caves at the start of the locks,
used as a tunnel for water to power the factories that were here a long time ago, now in total ruins.
Some of the pipes still remained though,
and one of them was what we used to enter into the tunnels.
Climbing the stairs was pretty creepy, to say the least,
heading through
into a much larger chamber
where there were still remains of gateways used to hold back the water till needed.
From here, we proceeded further underground,
passing by seemingly damp rock walls that were shiny because of the minerals left behind.
There's even a large wooden cauldron here, left behind to be used at Halloween events because it is too large to remove.
We passed by a shuttered ventillation shaft
on our way to the next phase of our tour, a boat ride on an underground stream.
It felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie as we proceeded down, with icky drops of water constantly coming down upon the people unlucky enough to get hit,
especially at certain areas like another ventillation shaft
where the water streams were constant and sitting in certain spots on the boat simply meant that we were going to get wet.
Eventually we reached the end of the tunnel which was sealed, and we had to turn back, by simply changing our seats to face the other side. It was cool to learn about the lack of safety measures provided during the construction of the tunnel, but even more amazing was that the tunnel was made absolutely parallel to the canal, even though there wasn't much technology at the time of construction, with explosives that only made basketball sized holes, one at a time.
Finally, we emerged from the tunnels,
and off we went to cycle to camp,
passing through Royalton
on the way to the Ridgeway portion of the village of Medina,
where we headed to the
Clifford Wise Middle School in the Shelby section of Medina,
where there is also a huge tank at ~337 West Oak Orchard Street.
With that, we settled to rest after our first day of biking at the school. It was actually not as tiring as I thought, but with more to come, who knows.
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