Showing posts with label waterfalls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label waterfalls. Show all posts

Wednesday, 15 October 2008

Tew's Falls

After Webster's Falls (see previous post), we headed towards Tew's Falls making our way along the footpath through the trees at the edge of Spencer Gorge.
This is part of the Bruce Trail which connects Niagara with the Bruce Peninsula. The trail took us up these steps... there's YoungerSon halfway up making sure he gets in the picture.

The Autumn colours this year are stunning. The TV Weather Man said it's because we've had a rainy summer.

If that's true, then these colours make up for the wet weather.

Almost at the Falls and this is the view from the top over the Dundas Valley.

At Tew's Falls, little Logie's Creek plunges 41 metres (135 feet) to the rocks below, a few metres less in height than Niagara Falls. The falls are 9 metres (27.4 feet) wide at the top.

Tew's Falls got its name from Johnson Tew who came to Canada in the year 1874. This land, the falls and ravine were owned by the Tew family until the Spencer Creek Conservation Authority purchased it in the 1960s.

The Tew family provided mechanical services to the surrounding area in their day, and there is a rumour that on one foggy day a team of horses pulling a plow took a wrong step and went right over the cliff.
Remember, it's only a rumour.

Monday, 13 October 2008

Webster's Falls

It was a gloriously sunny late fall day when we visited the Spencer Gorge/Webster’s Falls Conservation Area on Thanksgiving Sunday.
Webster's Falls is where Spencer Creek plunges 22 metres (72 feet) into the Spencer Gorge. Not on quite as grand a scale as Niagara Falls, but pretty impressive.

The Falls are 30 metres (98 feet) wide. The thunder of the cascading water can be heard from qute a distance.

Local folklore says the princess daughter of an Attiwendaron chieftan lived near here. She was promised in marriage to a young chief of the Erie Nation. But she had fallen in love with a high-ranking Indian from the Seneca Nation.

The girl's father threatened to imprison her unless she agreed to marry the chosen man, so the young lovers decided that life without each other was impossible. Locked in each other's arms, they jumped over the precipice to meet their death in the rock pool below.
When the water level is high and the air is filled with a silvery mist lit by the full moon, the princess and her lover can be seen to rise to the edge of the precipice, where they again pledge their endless love.

The Space Cadet looks like he took the plunge too, but he managed to keep his feet dry.

To get the the bottom of the falls, we had to negotiate this narrow zig-zag staircase down the cliff face. Not for the faint of heart.

I have only one comment to make about this impressive waterfall, surrounded by the glorious autumn colours, and obviously someone else had the same opinion....


WOWZER!