Day 4 - Leaving New York

The effort of ’not’ snoring meant that I didn’t sleep well despite the comfortable mattress but, in the event, there were only three others in the room and one of these crept out about 4am to catch an early flight.  Assembling in the common room the numbers rapidly thinned as various tour groups were assembled and a lean character in a cowboy hat introduced himself to us.  The group consists of only six travellers and Rick will be looking after us for the next three weeks or so.  A new 13 seater vehicle was ready to go, our baggage was stowed rapidly and we sped off out of New York over the George Washington Bridge heading west into Pennsylvania.  In fact, the drive seemed to be so easily accomplished that I half imagine that I could do it myself!

As might be expected the group is pretty international although I’m comfortably the eldest.  We have two Australians (Lindy and Kate), two Swiss (Catherine and Manuel) and a German lad, Adrian.  The countryside was rolling, heavily wooded and just showing the first signs of autumn colour and wide roadside verges were thickly yellow with golden rod.  This proved to be the case pretty well at the way to Chicago although agriculture became more prominent as we headed west from Niagara.  A brief stop at Scranton Walmart to stock up on food supplies and we were off again and setting up camp at Taughannock Falls State Park by Cayuga Lake in the early afternoon.  Camping here is clearly going to be like my experiences in Australia; the pitches are spacious and facilities good.  Given our small group I’ve got a tent to myself which should ultimately be a blessing for the others. 

 I’m glad I didn’t get a baseball cap in New York as I found one in Wallmart for $4.50; quite a considerable saving.

The area is rapidly gaining a reputation for the quality of its wineries so we headed off to test this for ourselves.  Not entirely to my taste and quite pricey but pleasant enough. Then it was back to the Lakeside for a barbeque before a first night under canvas accompanied by the din of crickets.