I set off to my destination, the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia, but because of the ferry being out, I had a seven and a half hour drive to Ingonish at the start of the area I wanted to explore, instead of a three and a half hour drive. I left at around 6am in the dark, and set off to the bridge, which was toward the western side of the island, past Charlottetown, and about the same distance again beyond it, about an hour’s drive. It was a damp morning, and the forecast was not promising – there were heavy rainfall warnings – I had never seen that before!

There wasn’t a lot of traffic as I drove in the dark with a bit of drizzle, though there was more around Charlottetown. I wasn’t really held up though, and got out to the bridge as it was starting to get light. It cost about $55 to cross the bridge, only one way – the way I was going. Apparently it was free to get onto the Island, but you had to pay to get off! The ferry worked the same way, you paid to leave the island, but it was free to return. (But it was first come first serve, unless you paid to book a ticket.) The bridge was cheaper than the ferry, and some people would come to the island by the ferry for free, then leave by the bridge, which was costing the ferry money. I was surprised they didn’t have the same organisation collecting both tolls, or sharing revenue or something.

I paid the toll, and drove along the bridge, which was an impressive sight. I was glad to get to drive over it, even if it did add a huge distance to my trip. It was about 13km long, one lane each way, zoned 80km/h, and so it took a while to drive over it, across the ocean, an interesting experience. I got off the bridge into New Brunswick, an extra province to my list that I hadn’t expected. There were signs advising to slow down at night because of moose. It had started raining, and didn’t stop for the entire day, which made for muted, misty scenery. There were signs of good autumn colour. I saw a sign for a turn off to the Bay of Fundy, which I had heard about, with very high and fast tides. It would have been interesting to see if I had more time, but I think it was a fair way away.

After about half an hour, I joined Trans Canada Highway 2. It was well made, two lanes each way. I was to follow that highway for 380km. I’d brought some snacks along, and munched on these as I went, in lieu of breakfast. The road went through rolling hills. Perhaps another three quarters of an hour later I came to a toll plaza – part of the highway was a toll road, costing $4. I was able to pay by card, so didn’t have to mess around with registering on web sites. A fair bit later I passed the road to the Pictou ferry, which I would have taken if the ferry was running, rather ruefully thinking about how long the detour was!

I stopped for fuel after around four hours or so, at Antigonish (pronounced “AntigonESH” with the emphasis on the last syllable), and got something to have for lunch. It was nice to be driving something less fuel-hungry than the van. Not far after that the road went down to one lane each way, and after a while I went across a causeway onto Cape Breton Island.

It was a rather industrial looking area, with a quarry on one side. I remember Mum talking about Cape Breton, and how they had an ice hockey team which were very rough. There were pretty areas through here, along the side of a huge lake system called the Bras d’Or Lake. I’d remembered Dad talking about seeing this area. In some of these areas, instead of road signs in English and French, they were in English and Gaelic, which was very interesting to see!

The road started to get pretty treacherous through here, because there had been so much rain, and there were depressed tyre tracks along parts of the road that were filled up, but were almost invisible, and would suddenly grab the wheel as I drove through them. I had to be constantly on guard. That went on for probably an hour or so, not pleasant! I passed through Baddeck, which I seem to remember Mum mentioning as well, though I don’t remember why. The foliage was starting to look magnificent, and after about six and a half hours of driving, I stopped to take some photos of beautiful colours near a spot called Harbourview on an inlet.

Not far along was a river which also had lovely trees around it, and I took some more photos along there, on the way to the coast. I stopped for lunch at last around 1, at a place called MacDonalds Pond, near Little River, with lovely views of beaches, inlets and forests. It was still raining, and I ate my lunch in the car.

The sea was pretty rough, and there were large waves coming into the beach. The road wound up into the hills, and I stopped at an overlook to see the sea with misty hills going off into the distance down the coast.

A little further, at the locality of Ingonish Ferry (again pronounced “IngonESH”, I learned), I could see across a bay to Ingonish Beach. To get there you had to drive around the little bay for a few minutes, and I took a turn-off from the main road to have a look along the coast at Ingonish Beach. The waves were really large here, it was an impressive sea. I found a spot to park, and walked along the road a little way. The coast was wild looking, with the beach made up of rather large stones, though the harbour itself was quite quiet.

I got to the visitor centre in Ingonesh, and paid the entrance fee, which was fairly cheap, and lasted till around 4 the next day, which suited me, as I would have to be gone by then. With all the rain, I jokingly asked if we got a discount for the weather! So I had finally arrived at the heart of the Cabot Trail, which went around the top of Cape Breton Island, along the coast on both sides, and cut across from one side to the other near the northern end. It was still raining, and didn’t look like stopping, so some of the hikes I’d planned with views weren’t looking like good options, given the misty views I’d seen so far.

I had a look at the beautiful Freshwater Lake near the visitor centre, then stopped at a beach near Ingonish which seemed to be composed just of stones, about the size of a small hand, coloured with pink and grey speckles, mostly one colour or the other. The sea was rushing in and out, and the stones were rattling around as the water moved them around. It was a very unusual beach.

A little further along was a more sheltered cove, with a small piece of beach, a breakwater, and a some pretty white houses with grey roofs, a peaceful scene. In the distance were misty hills, reminding me a bit of the south-east coast of Tasmania in similar weather.

My first planned hike had been Broad Cove, near Warren Lake. The road in was beautiful, through a colourful forest. I drove to the lake, and enjoyed the scene for a while. It was about 3.30pm by this time. I thought I would have a go at the hike, since the foliage was so pretty. This turned out to be quite an experience. Because of all the rain, a lot of the track was a creek, and stairs were waterfalls. There was water running and pooled everywhere. The rain wasn’t very heavy at this point, and I had some shelter from the trees, so whilst I was getting damp, I wasn’t soaked.

Navigating along the track that had turned into rivers and waterfalls wasn’t easy, as I didn’t want to get my feet soaked in the deep puddles. Once or twice I was able to put a stone or log into one of the puddles or streams so I could get across.

It was a fair climb to the summit, where I could still see across some forest, and just see an inlet and the sea in the distance. It would have been spectacular in the sunshine, but was still beautiful in a misty way, and the autumn foliage all along was fantastic, it looked to be pretty much at its peak.

I got back about ten to five, and had another look at the beautiful road through the foliage before heading on. I had more or less written off other activities for the day. I still had a bit of a way to drive to get to my accommodation at Pleasant Bay. I stopped briefly at Lakies Head, which had huge waves crashing against rocks. It was very dramatic and I’d have loved to see more of it, but I was getting pretty wet in the rain without shelter, and time was going. I had a look at Black Brook Cove, which had a waterfall going into the sea, which was a raging torrent by this time.

From there the road went by Neils Harbour, which I took a quick look at without getting out of the car, then up into the hills, across the island. There was a lot of forest, with truly spectacular colours, fading as it slowly got dark. The road wound down to sea level again, to Pleasant Bay, about 30km from there, where I arrived towards dark, and I was pretty wet. Amazingly, about the only things that had stayed dry were my feet, which was an impressive feat for the hiking boots.

Pleasant Bay was a pretty small place, but the motel had a restaurant, which I was glad of, as I didn’t bring provisions for making dinner, nor I think would there have been anywhere to cook it in the motel unit. I’m not sure there was even an electric jug and tea bags – that seemed not to be a standard thing over there. I’d checked beforehand to make sure I would get dinner! I ordered my meal, while a lady played on a guitar, and sang. I had been wanting to have some lobster while in the Maritime provinces, remembering the lobster we had in PEI when we were kids, but that was in July, and it wasn’t lobster season now.

I could have had lobster for something like $40, but I couldn’t bring myself to pay that, and had a nice meal of fish and veggies, for much less. It was good to go back to the unit and get out of my wet clothes. There was a thermostat that looked as though it was from the 80s in the room, and I wondered if it actually worked. I turned it up to a fairly toasty temperature, and though there was no noise anywhere, the room did heat up quite nicely after a while. I kept it quite warm overnight, and my clothes were dry the next morning, thankfully.

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It was rather sunny in the morning, and I got up and had a bit of a walk around the farm. The top of the hill behind the house was one of the higher spots in the island, with a view of the sea in the distance. I had a look at an old barn, the workshop, and the big collection of number plates inside, as well as many, many tools and bits and pieces, some stored up against the ceiling. There was a blue jay feeding at the bird feeder, and I got a good look at it.

Later in the morning I went to their church with them, a Presbyterian church. The one in Caledonia had closed down, I think due to lack of people, as had another three or so. It was in poor repair, and sad to see it run down. Apparently another church had met there for a while, but weren’t meeting there any more. The Presbyterian Church built a new church building for all the churches that had closed down, incorporating something from each of the old church buildings. It was at Alliston, about 5km from Caledonia.

It was nice to meet some of the family’s friends there. In the pew ahead of me was someone who had been friends with Mum, and had got in contact with me also a few years back, and we’d corresponded a bit. It was great to meet him in person and chat briefly, and we spoke of meeting up later in the week before I went.

We went back home to get some lunch, then set off for Panmure Island, not far from Caledonia. On the way, as we were getting close to the island we found a little harbour, Graham Pond, one of many small picturesque harbours dotted around the island. We stopped and had a bit of a walk around, looking at the colourful sheds, and the reflections in the water.

It was pretty deserted, but I expect it would be much busier during lobster season. One of the sheds had quite a few things nailed to the outside front wall, which looked a bit like pairs of wings, but I think they may have been fish tails. If so, they were from very big fish. They were each probably over half a metre wide.

I’m not sure that Panmure Island was actually an island. There was a narrow strip of land joining it to the mainland, and the road crossed that as a kind of causeway. One one side was the ocean, and on the other a bay, formed from the shelter of the island. We stopped at Panmure Island Provincial Park, and walked along the ocean side beach for quite a while.

It was a fairly sunny afternoon, warm enough that we could go barefoot and paddle in the water a bit. In the distance was a picturesque lighthouse and small house, in a green field, with a very large house nearby.

We walked there for about two hours, then had a look on the other side. Along the narrow causeway was a long grassy hump, probably covering sand dunes. The water on the other side was very still, almost like a lake, and the sun, now low in the sky, was reflecting on it. We drove to the lighthouse to have a proper look, and it was pretty in the evening light.

There were some horses in a field nearby, which were also quite photogenic. From the low hill where the lighthouse was, we looked back over a field of reaped corn, to the causeway and the sea on both sides.

We found a nice spot on the bay side of the causeway, near the lighthouse, to watch (and photograph!) the sunset. The Lord blessed us with a beautiful sunset, and we enjoyed it for about half an hour until it died down.

A day or two before I had booked a ferry for the morning, which would leave from Wood Islands about 10 minutes from Caledonia, and get me across to Nova Scotia where I was to spend the next couple of days. But I got notification that it had been cancelled due to “technical reasons”, as had all ferries until about 3pm the next day. This was not good news, as it meant I would have to drive over the bridge and back, adding about 300km to my journey. I found out later from someone in the know that it was probably because it was very windy.

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Both Crystal and I got off to a late start on Saturday. It looked like a bit of a rainy morning, and we thought it would be a good day to see our great uncle Preston in Charlottetown.

We set out off to the main highway, keeping an eye out for scenic spots. We stopped at Orwell Cove, about half way there. There were pretty views over fields to the sea.

We turned off again at the town of Stonington, which had another pretty marsh, which looked beautiful with the sun on the yellow grasses. On the other side were more marshes, then the sea beyond, with dark clouds in the background. We walked along a bit, to Kinloch Beach with a small stretch of sand, and enjoyed the dramatic clouds.

A little further along was Stratford, a town just before Charlottetown. We stopped at a place called Phinley’s Diner for lunch, just off the highway. We were expected at Preston’s about 3 or 3.30 I think. He was in a nice looking apartment block about 1km from the centre of Charlottetown. It was lovely to see him after such a long time, and also to meet his wife Mary Alice, whom he’d married just a few years back, while in his 90s. He was 98, and I think not good on his feet – he didn’t get up.

We chatted for quite a while, and got some photos with Crystal, Preston and myself. We left around 5ish, and set out to have a bit of a look around the town. By the waterfront was a park called Confederation Landing, with the fancy looking Convention Centre next door. There was an area right by the water with a number of colourful buildings selling food, and it looked as though there were also clothes and other things for sale, and some of the shops seemed to be on structures that were floating on the water. There didn't look to be much open at that time of the evening on a Saturday.

There was a bit of a marina there too, and on one side a few little huts, which looked to be floating, where you could stay. Out to sea a little way was what looked like a huge oil or gas tanker. At that time there was a scarecrow festival going on, and in quite a few parts of the city, people had made creative scarecrows out of various materials and old clothes.

Here and there were metal sculptures depicting famous people from early in the Island’s history, which were very well done. I think it was in Charlottetown where the federation agreement for Canada was signed, and some some of the figures were probably from that event.

Charlottetown has water around a lot of it, so the sea is never far away. On one side, as it was starting to get dark, we found another lighthouse with the ubiquitous white and red colour scheme. It was very much in need of repair, with a big hole in one side. There was a little beach next to it. It was just perched on the coast in between a couple of houses, in a built up area. A couple of large flocks of birds flew over us, I guess heading for nesting spots somewhere before it got dark. We headed for home as well.

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The weather forecast for the next few days didn't look too promising, but there was some blue sky in the morning. I came down to the kitchen, which was where the stove was, and people tended to sit. There was a pretty scene outside the window, with some sun on trees in the background that were starting to get autumn colour, and red bushes and lawn in the foreground.

For breakfast while I was there, I got cereal, then made toast over the stove, which was delicious. There was a metal tool that you could use to hook onto a round cover on part of the stove top, about the size of a small electric element, then a rack where you put the bread in, and laid it over the opening, while the flames toasted it on one side then the other when you turned it over. It toasted faster depending on how stoked up the stove was. It turned out that they were tea drinkers, and Mickey had a teapot of boiling water on the stove all the time. He would put a tea bag in when I came down, and it brewed nicely. They had Orange Pekoe tea, which had a good taste to it.

Crystal had her own house in Murray River not far away, and drove over around 10, and we set off sightseeing. We planned to see some of the nearby coastline that day. There is a coastal drive along the coast in the area. She drove us in her car, and it was a nice change to be driven after driving so many miles. We started at Point Prim, to the west of Caledonia, on a bit of a peninsula. This was one of many lighthouses we would see in the next few days, like the others, wooden, painted white, with red trim around the light itself.

There was pine forest along the shoreline, pretty much right up to the water, but a lot of trees had been blown down by the hurricane that they’d had the previous year. Crystal pointed out a lot of areas where there was damage throughout our travels on the island, it was sad to see so many areas with trees dead or knocked down.

You could go up the lighthouse, so we paid to go in, and look inside. There were about three small rooms one on top of the other inside, a bedroom, I think a kitchen, and what was perhaps a kind of lounge room, then the room with the light itself. Going up, there were photos of lighthouse keepers and their families from long ago, and quite a good view at the top, across the strait to Nova Scotia, which was often visible along the coast.

It had become fairly cloudy, though sometimes there was dramatic weather, with dark clouds and bits of sunshine, and spots of rain now and then. Coming back along the peninsula, there were some pretty views across reaped fields to the sea, with dark clouds. Both Crystal and I are keen photographers, so we would stop from time to time and take shots of scenic spots. That worked out well, because neither of us minded stopping and spending time snapping scenes!

PEI was not a place for driving fast. A lot of the roads were 80km/h, and I from what I could saw, not even the major highways were more than 90. Of course a lot of people went a good deal faster than that. Out next destination was Wood Island, where the ferry left to go to Nova Scotia. On the way we stopped to take photos of some colourful trees. Autumn was definitely coming to the island, though not fully there yet. We found another tree pulled up by the roots from the hurricane.

Wood Island had another similar looking lighthouse, which was quite short, and looked a bit more like a house than a lighthouse, with a door at the bottom with red trim, and only a second storey window before the light itself. I’m not sure if it was in use. There was also a fairly dilapidated looking building in the same colours nearby. Perhaps that had been the lighthouse keeper’s house. It was very much in need of painting.

There was a bit of a picnic area there, and very red cliffs which I guess were clay, around a couple of metres high, down to the sea. We drove over towards the ferry terminal, and found a beautiful marshy area with yellow grasses and some red bushes. Some rain was coming, and we hot footed it back to the car until it went over. There was a beach not far away, at Northumberland Provincial Park, and we walked along that for nearly an hour.

The sand was fairly red, and there were red clayish looking rocky cliffs at one end. The sun peeped out now and then, which made for some dramatic shots with the reddish sand and quite dark clouds in the background, over Nova Scotia. Crystal liked to collect coloured glass pieces on the beaches that had been smoothed out by the waves and sand, so we kept an eye out for them we walked.

We didn’t get very far along from there, towards Little Sands, when we found a pretty spot looking over what was either a lake or an inlet. It looked like a lake, with a narrow stretch of beach dividing it from the sea. I walked a little way down an embankment with a lot of undergrowth to get closer, and found an old jetty.

From there we made our way a little further east to Cape Bear lighthouse, another pretty spot with with more small red cliffs, a reddish beach at the bottom, and forest here and there. There was a little replica lighthouse near the main lighthouse.

The weather was getting a bit more rainy as we drove to the small town of Murray Harbour, and admired the picturesque inlet with small fishing boats, and some wooden buildings, a common scene around the island. There were what looked like large barrels floating on wooden rafts, which apparently people could hire out and sleep there, floating on the water. I’m not sure if they were tall enough to stand up in. There was a big window at one end of the barrel. It would have been an interesting experience.

On we went to the slightly bigger town of Murray River where Crystal lived, stopping on the way to admire some more autumn colour. We spent a little while looking at the harbour, and a river or inlet going off into the distance. While it rained, she showed me around her house, which was two-storey and quite capacious. There were a couple of large storage areas coming off rooms on the upper storey. She was still in the process of unpacking and settling in.

Across the road was a restaurant, the Millstone Grill, and we had a late lunch around 3.30 or so. We seemed to be the only customers at that time. From there we drove further north about 10-15km, past a swampy area with more beautiful colours, to Montague, which was one of the main towns on the island.

It was about 6pm by this time, and we stopped at the harbour there, to see if there would be any sunset colour reflected on the water. It was pretty cloudy but we got a little bit. Crystal showed me the hardware store there where she worked. It was getting dark by then, and we headed back to Caledonia. I enjoyed seeing signs pointing to different towns or areas that Mum used to talk about when she spoke of her childhood, like Heatherdale, Brooklyn and Glen William.

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I needed to hand the van back, then make it to the Newark airport for a flight to Ontario then to Prince Edward Island, leaving at 11am. It was technically an international flight, going from the US to Canada, and I had to get my luggage in by around 10, so I was aiming to arrive by 9.30. I had pre-arranged with the Escape Campervan people that someone would be there at 8.30, and booked an Uber for 8.45, because they’d said it would be pretty quick to hand the van back.

In the morning, while getting ready, I ran into a man from the south, I forget which state, who was very talkative and friendly, and told me that southerners were more friendly than northerners. He was chewing tobacco the whole time, and every so often turned away and spat out some tobacco juice. I couldn’t talk for long because I was needing to get my flight.

I threw out my remaining rubbish and I checked out of the RV park, making sure to sign out. For some reason they were particular about that. If you didn’t sign out you’d be charged an extra fee which was significant. I went next door to the Escape Campervan place, and parked opposite. There was someone in the office, which was quite small, and I handed back the keys. He had a quick look at the van, then went back in, and brought up my details. He said I’d done 9,500 miles, I think he said it was the second longest trip of anyone handing a van back there. I had bought 10,000 miles, and he was trying to process the refund of the miles I hadn’t used.

The figures weren’t working out, and he had to ring someone to find out what to do. I found out that the reimbursement had also been processed, of the money I’d spent on coolant, repairs and service. I was chomping at the bit a little, with the Uber expected pretty shortly. In the end he said to leave it with him and he would sort it out. I found the Uber driver was having trouble finding me – he had ended up at the RV park, but we found each other before long.

It was a fairly quick drive to that airport. I was glad it was also in Jersey City, not in New York. He told me that it could take three hours to drive to JFK airport, with the horrific traffic, and that Uber drivers were paid only by the miles they drove, not their time, so it was not a popular destination for Uber drivers. He dropped me off, and I checked in with plenty of time to spare. It was one of the best appointed airports I’d seen, so far as the lounges were concerned. Each seat had a charging socket, it looked like they all even had USB-C, whereas in most places you were fortunate if each row of seats had one socket, or there would be one much sought-after power point on a pillar somewhere.

I got used to showing my passport and boarding pass every time I boarded a plane, and sometimes also just to line up to go through security. It was sunny when I left, and I got some good views of New York City and the harbour as we went up. Air Canada are not big on meals. We generally got a tiny packet of pretzels or maybe a couple of small biscuits as snacks, and a drink. We flew over the Great Lakes to get to Toronto, and I tried to spot the column of mist at Niagara Falls as we went that way.

In Toronto we needed to go through customs, and I got to go through the Canadian citizens area, which was probably faster than the non-citizen line, as with the long wait in the non-US line in LA airport. They had a lot of terminals where you scanned your passport, then answered some questions on the screen about whether you had anything to declare, then you were issued a kind of ticket with your answers on it, which you showed to an attendant, then went on to a station where someone had a look at the passport and asked a few questions.

I had about two hours layover, which went quickly once you factored in getting off the plane, going through customs, collecting the luggage, then boarding the next flight. They never moved luggage on automatically to your connecting flight if you were entering a different country. They generally seemed to print all the destinations on your luggage ticket though, and I was able to just take the luggage, follow the signs for people connecting to another flight in Canada, and hand the luggage to someone to check in again. I got some lunch at the airport while waiting for the flight, then boarded again.

We had more views of the Great Lakes going up again. It was fairly cloudy, but I was able to see some scenic views of Prince Edward Island from above as we came in. It was pretty special to be flying into my birthplace again after 39 years. Charlottetown airport is like a country airport, it looked like there were just a couple of gates, and we walked along the tarmac to get on and off the plane. My cousin Crystal had offered to drive in to meet me, which was lovely. It was so nice to meet in person after such a long time.

I had hired a car via a company called Turo, which I was to pick up at the airport. They are rather like AirBnB but for cars, where people can rent out their cars, and they get ratings on the car and their service and the like. Car hire wasn’t cheap in PEI, and Turo wasn’t much cheaper than the car hire, but there weren’t the inevitable restrictions on not driving on dirt roads, which I thought I might be doing, and in fact did. Most of the time I didn’t really need the car as it turned out, because Crystal had taken some days of leave, of which she had only a few, to go around with me. This was so sweet, and I really enjoyed the time we spent together.

Once the plane landed and we could turn off flight mode on our phones, I had made contact with the guy who owned the car, and sent a photo of myself and of my driver’s license as he asked. The car parking at the airport was just a single level car park, with free parking for about half an hour, which was very surprising. We found the car, and I rang him, and he unlocked it remotely. Crystal had suggested we have dinner in Charlottetown, and I followed her to a restaurant called Maid Marion, where she had come quite a bit, and they knew her.

We had a good meal there, and then I went with her nearby where she was looking at a bed head that someone was selling. It was in a garage, and she could just go in and look. We parked, and nobody was home, but we found the garage and looked at it, and she was happy with it. We were able to manoeuvre it into her car, and get it to fit.

After that, I followed her in the dark back to Caledonia, and it was a bit of a thrill to see the Caledonia sign as we came in. We parked and met my uncle Mickey and cousin Caroline, and also I think a cousin of Mickey and his wife who were there. It was a cool evening and he had the wood stove going, the same stove that they’d had when we visited in 1984!

It was nice and warm inside, and lovely to talk with everyone. My room was on the second floor, and I wondered who had slept there in earlier days, perhaps my Mum when she was young, or one of my aunts. It was amazing to be able to stay in the house where Mum had grown up, and see it again. They were planning to sell it eventually, so I was glad to see it before it was sold.

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The day dawned with a lovely sunrise. One of the things I had wanted to do was to see the city from above, and there were three places you could do that. I had already ruled out the Rockefeller Centre. I think the Empire State Building was a bit booked out too, but there was a third option, the Edge, with an outside viewing area 100 storeys up, and it wasn’t booked out, so I booked for something like 10.15. I brought along a power bank this time, so that my phone wouldn’t run out of battery.

It was quite close to the terminal of the ferry I’d taken the previous day, so I took the ferry again, and made my way there. The building had shopping areas on the bottom, and I had a bit of trouble finding where to go to get to the lookout. I found it eventually, and there was a pretty long line up to get in, even with tickets. I was hoping that I wouldn’t miss out by getting to the front of the line too long after the time on my ticket. Someone next to me in the queue offered to hold my place while I went to the front and asked, and I found out it wasn’t a problem.

It was something like a 25 minute wait, after which we walked along an interestingly lit passageway with information about the area, and then up 100 floors in the lift, which exited onto the indoor part of the viewing area, with windows all around.

The views from there were pretty impressive, along the Hudson River, which it was close to, and over the city – I got a good idea of just how big the CBD was! The outdoor area had high glass walls all around. As I walked around, I saw someone lying on a part of the floor, and I realised it was actually clear, and you could stand there and look down 100 floors beneath your feet!

It was a beautiful sunny morning, and the views were great! Inside there was an area with (I think fake) autumn leaves and foliage, and some pumpkins, where people were getting photos. It was about the only autumn colour in the New York area at the time I think! There were a profusion of pumpkins around everywhere during the time around Halloween and Thanksgiving. After about half an hour I’d seen my fill and went back down again.

Outside this building was a curious structure, with seven oddly-shaped rings, each probably a storey or more above the next one. I was able to get into the bottom part, but you couldn’t climb up any further. Apparently at some stage people could, but I gather they had issues with people committing suicide by jumping off.

There was a raised walkway with a lot of plants on it, that used to be a railway, which people could walk along. There was an entrance to it near this building, and I walked a little way, but then it was blocked off. I think they were working on some parts of it. I was at a bit of a loose end at this point. I’d ticked off most of the things I wanted to do. I’d been thinking of visiting the 9/11 memorial and thought Wall Street might also be worth a look, as it was near there.

I took the subway again down to the south of the island, and paid my respects at the memorial. It’s a sobering thought looking at all the names, to consider how many people died there.

I had a bit of a job finding Wall Street, even with Google Maps, but I tracked it down, and had a walk along it. It was actually a bit of an anticlimax. It looked quite ordinary, and even the Stock Exchange, though it was an impressive building, was very quiet. You couldn’t go in as far as I could see, and nobody was coming or going.

The way the streets were laid out made for a curious building that was very narrow at the front, as two streets intersected at a sharp angle, and I saw a church peeking out from between the tall buildings. It was around 1 by this time, and I went by a place selling pizza, and had a good lunch. Afterwards I thought I’d have a look at Staten Island, with the free ferry. I walked down to the point nearby where the ferry terminal was, and got there just as masses of people were piling onto the ferry.

The ferry was bright orange, and quite large. There were no tickets, so people all just walked on in large numbers. The ferries left pretty regularly, something like every 20 minutes or half an hour. It was nice trip across to the island, taking about 25 minutes, and going near the Statue of Liberty again. I’d spotted gardens that were about 3.5km from the terminal, the Snug Harbor Cultural and Botanic Gardens. It was about a 40 minute fast walk there, along a road near the coast.

Staten Island, or at least the part where I was, was much quieter than Manhattan Island – not a lot of traffic, no horns honking, few sirens. There was a bit of a plaza around the ferry terminal with some shops, then a footpath along the road near the coast. It went by what had been some kind of large complex, but was fenced off, and abandoned looking.

Further on there was an industrial looking area, and across the river, in Jersey City, lots of industrial tanks and things. There were some pretty spots by the water along a small road closer to the waterfront. Along the way I stopped at a service station and bought something to drink. I was always having to make sure I looked the right way before crossing the road!

I reached the gardens, and started to look around. There was a museum but I didn’t go in because I was still consuming what I’d bought from the service station. The gardens were pretty and peaceful, if not spectacular. There were squirrels everywhere, and it was fun to watch them galloping around with their long bushy tails behind them, sometimes as long as their body.

Some of the attractions were closed, like the Chinese Garden, but there were still flowers blooming in some places, and it was a beautiful warm sunny afternoon to relax there and walk through everything. There was an area with a rectangular pond and fountain, and quite a few buildings around, which perhaps were for functions or exhibits that were open at some point.

I walked along through less structured areas, with a track by a rather overgrown lake, through a tunnel of trees. Coming back toward the entrance, there were a number of quaint looking, rather ornate small brick cottages. I think maybe people lived in some of them, or had small businesses there.

The road exited through an arch in a pretty little building that looked like a guard house, and I hiked the 40 odd minutes back. I found that there was a ferry (not free!) leaving from a similar place to the Staten Island one I’d come on, which went to a spot on the river on the New York side pretty much opposite Paulus Hook, then a ferry from there took me across the river.

I hadn’t wanted to linger while it got too dark the previous day because of my phone being dead, and not wanting to get lost, but this evening I stayed for quite a while, watching the New York skyline across the water and the light slowly fading, while the buildings lit up. I sat for a while by steps near the Colgate Clock, as a couple of girls practiced kicking a soccer ball around, until one of them fielded a phone call for quite a while, leaving the other one at a bit of a loose end.

It was a peaceful spot, and a nice end to my explorations of New York City, a place I was glad I saw, and I enjoyed the visit, but wasn’t left with a great deal of desire to see it again. I was around an hour by the water there, before I started back. I was very glad to have my phone working this time, because (being the poor navigator that I am), I managed to get onto a different street, and had to use Google Maps to work out where I was meant to be. I walked past the marina, pretty with the lights reflecting in the water, and got to the RV park a bit after seven, and it was fairly dark by then.

I wasn’t sure how much the fridge would have used up the battery – I was pretty impressed by how long it went without the van running, but it had been over two days, so I drove around the RV park a little bit just to make sure the battery was still ok, and to charge it a little. I had gathered that the fridge cut out if the battery got too low, but I didn’t want to risk having a flat battery when I needed to leave. I had dinner, and finished up everything I could, in preparation for handing the van back the next day, and got things as packed and ready as possible so that I could make a quick getaway.

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I had wanted to do a cruise around Manhattan Island, and this day looked like a good choice. I had booked the cruise online with Circle Line cruises the night before. At the RV park reception they had mentioned a ferry to get across to the island, and I looked on Google to see how to get there by ferry, and found one going from a place called Paulus Hook (what strange names they have sometimes!) which was about 10 minutes walk away.

I set off, back up towards the train station, then off in a different direction, along a street with four-storey brick terraces, all joined together, and stairs going about half a storey up to the front door. It looked like the set they had on Sesame Street where people would sit on the steps sometimes. I’m not sure if they were apartments, I guess they were, as they would be pretty big for townhouses. Perhaps at some point they were part of a less affluent neighbourhood, but they seemed now to be pretty upmarket, with gardens planted in the small areas between the houses and the footpath.

I got to the ferry terminal and got a ticket for the ferry to a pier on the west side of Manhattan Island, not far from where the cruise started. It was fairly cloudy to start with, and I wondered what kind of scenery I would see, but it cleared up as the morning progressed. We were picked up by a small ferry which didn’t actually tie up anywhere – it just kind of nudged up to the dock and then ran the motors hard while people got on and off, keeping it jammed up against the dock, then backed out and went on. It was quite a nimble and quick seeming vessel – rather fitting in with the feeling of New York I thought.

The ferry trip was pretty scenic, going along the Hudson River with views of the city both sides. It first stopped part way along, on the Jersey City side to pick up more people at a spot called Hoboken with a fancy kind of front to it, and some boats parked in alcoves. From there we went across the Hudson and disembarked. We were right above a tunnel that went under the Hudson, the Lincoln Tunnel, not the one I’d taken, though you couldn’t see anything of it from there. There are a lot of piers on that side, each numbered. This was Pier 80 or something like that, and the cruise was from Pier 82, just a little way further along.

It was interesting to see the Manhattan Island waterfront in more detail. There were buildings on many of the piers, and going along the length of that area was the road I had driven in on, but hadn’t had much time to look around. I was fairly early for the cruise, and made my way to the place. I had bought the option for premier seating, which I gathered meant you had access to some reserved seats on the upper storey of the boat. It turned out not to be very helpful, because the reserved seating was indoors, and I wanted to be outdoors. There were already quite a lot of people on the boat, but I was able to get a seat by the edge, though it was near the enclosed area, so not quite a full view. There didn't seem to be many edge seats left, and I didn’t dare leave the seat I'd got before the boat started, in fear of losing it.

The cruise started at 10, and we had a man with a very authentic sounding New York accent telling us all sorts of interesting things about the buildings and their history as we went by, as well as the piers and bridges. We saw the Empire State Building from a distance, and other unusual buildings like a couple that looked as though they were built on an angle, and one which looked as though it had four giant smokestacks on it, but they seemed to have windows all around them, so probably there were rooms inside them.

Further along we passed what I think was a stadium that had been built over the water, which looked as though it was resting on a lot of huge golf tees, and a statue of a head with a hand on the lips indicating silence, that was several storeys high. Given how noisy New York City was, it didn’t seem to be working!

There were some quite fancy looking old buildings as well by the waterfront, as we headed towards the Statue of Liberty. On the way was the Colgate Clock, a huge clock with the Colgate logo on it. It turned out that was near Paulus Hook, where I had taken the ferry in the morning.

We spent a while near the Statue of Liberty, with the boat turning all the way around so that everyone could get a good look. I had considered a cruise to the statue itself, but it seemed like viewing it from here was a great view of it. I wouldn’t have minded going up into the crown of the statue, but you had to book weeks in advance for that from what I could see, and I hadn’t really booked anything beforehand in the New York stay.

From there we kept going around Manhattan Island, passing the ferry to Staten Island, which was free! This was unlike most of my experience in the US, where it seemed like you had to pay for everything. I gather that there was a lot of pressure to keep it free.

There was also an island which had been leased to some organisation for something like $1 a year, but they had to maintain all the buildings on it. The guide spoke about how rubbish was disposed of on Manhattan island – they had nowhere to bury it, so they put it on large barges and sent it to other places, even interstate I think, where it was buried. We passed one of the rubbish barges on the cruise.

We passed under some impressive looking bridges, including Brooklyn Bridge, which I wanted to walk across later. It was quite sunny by this time, as we passed by a building made in the shape of a squared off arch, and another with two huge pillars with a gap in between them (but each pillar was a building in itself) with more built on top of them, and one of the pillars was at an angle, not square.

There were a couple of power stations on the water, I guess it was easy to use the river for cooling. We passed along the Jersey coast, and the guide spoke about Jersey City, and how it had been cheaper than the New York side, but there was a lot of development, and it was getting expensive too.

We kept going, past the UN building, hearing about how the river sometimes got cordoned off when there were dignitaries there. It was a 60s art deco looking building, which looked rather unexciting in comparison with the buildings around it. We went under more bridges, including at least one that was able to open for large ships, and the guide told us how depending on the tides, the boat didn’t always fit under one of the bridges. On we went past Yankee Stadium, and a large cliff with a huge C painted on it, where college students sometimes jumped off into the water.

We entered into a large channel with one side in the distance quite forested. It looked like some kind of reserve or national park, and it was interesting to see such a large area of forested riverbank so close to the city. I had been on the back of the boat on the upper storey for most of the trip, but toward the end I also spent a bit of time in the indoor seating I’d bought access to, and on the front of the boat, where you got quite close to the water, but it got rather chilly up front!

We docked back about 12.30, and I set off to get lunch then head to back across Manhattan Island again. I walked along one of the roads leading back into the centre of the island (it was 3km (a bit under 2 miles) across, so not hard to walk back to the centre, but it was fairly long, and the subway was helpful to get around from one end to the other). I had wanted to have lunch at a deli. A friend in San Francisco had said, somewhat jokingly I think, that the delis were all run by Jewish people and they would be rude to me, but that was all part of the experience. I found a deli on my way and went in there, but it didn’t appear to be run by Jews, nor were they rude to me, so I felt I'd missed out on the experience! The food was good though. It was more of a cafe than our Australian delis would be.

There was a referendum on in Australia, and voting was compulsory, but not if you were overseas. But you could vote early in a few places in the US, including the Australian High Commission in New York, so I thought I would walk across to that building and vote. While I was getting there I passed through Times Square, which was very flashy with lots of huge electronic billboards.

There were a couple of people dressed as the Statue of Liberty and a Ninja Turtle, who I took a photo of, then they asked me if I’d like a photo with them, for “tips”. I didn’t have much change, and they eyed off a $10 note which I gave them. It was an expensive photo. They were pushing for money for each of them, but that was all they got.

I kept navigating along using Google Maps on my phone, and the GPS was struggling to track where I was going. Sometimes I would walk in one direction to see what direction I was facing, and it would look as though I was going one way, but then my location would change and go back the other way, so nagivation was a bit difficult! I guess it was struggling to get a signal because of all the tall buildings.

I passed the Rockerfeller Centre, where you could go up and get a view from high up over the city. There were people lining up, and I asked how long the wait was. Turns out you had to book in advance, and the next time slot was in the evening. I think even the next day it was booked out during the daytime.

So I kept going towards the High Commission, and came on Grand Central Station. I looked inside, and it was grand indeed, with fancy hallways with chandeliers, and a huge central room with a green ceiling painted with outlines of gold figures, and sculptures by the windows. There were a lot of people around. It seemed it was a bit like Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, where you could catch both local and interestate trains, and there were a lot of platforms, and screens with departure times for trains to all sorts of destinations.

I found the High Commission a little further along, and enquired about voting at the desk. The Commission was just one tenant of a large skyscraper, on one of the higher floors. There was a sign where people voting could line up, but I was the only one at that time, which was great. It was about 2.30, which I had suspected might be a good time. The attendant took me in the lift up to the floor where the High Commission was, and there was another spot where it looked like people could line up, but I went straight in after showing my driver’s license. They gave me a Tim Tam for my troubles. It was interesting to hear Australian accents while I was there, I had got so used to American accents.

From there went back to Grand Central Station, which was just up the road, and took the subway to the south end of the island, where Brooklyn Bridge was. I found the entrance to the walkway that went across it, and started over. There were large crowds of people also walking across, and many street vendors along the sides selling tee shirts, trinkets, art, and all kinds of things. As I got a bit further along these stopped – perhaps there was a limit as to how far along the bridge they could go – but there were still people set up to take your photo for $10, right through the middle of the bridge.

It was a bit hard to get good photos, because the walking path was in the middle of the bridge. There were three lanes of traffic on either side, and a lot of pillars and wires. There were a couple of spots where there was a clear view, and I was able to get photos from there.

I ended up on the other side, in a district amusingly called Dumbo. It was starting to get cloudy again, and there were a few drops of rain, but just a small sprinkle. As I walked across I could see the waterfront a long way down – these bridges were quite high, and they went not just over the water, but over quite a bit of the shore too with buildings below, before connecting to the main road network. I worked my way down to the shore – it took a while to take this street then that one, going down until I got there.

I got to see the bridges from below, and started walking towards another bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, that wasn’t too far away, probably less than 1km (1/2 mile). I had hatched a plan to walk back along that bridge, as I could see that the walking path was right on the edge of it rather than in the middle, and I hoped there’d be better views. I found a building on the shore that had some shops and a toilet, and you could go up a few storeys and look down at the river. The upper storeys seemed to be offices.

Then I started the journey up various streets, looking for a way to get onto the Manhattan Bridge. Again the entrance was quite a distance up and inland. While I was finding it, I saw some people taking photos, and when I looked at what they were photographing, I saw a great view of the bridge looking through buildings.

I started across, and found that while the walkway was indeed on the edge of the bridge, there was chain link fence all the way along, presumably so nobody would drop things on unsuspecting people on boats below. But people had helpfully ripped holes in the chain link here and there, where you could poke the camera out and take photos. This was a double-decker bridge, and trains ran extremely loudly next to me as I walked. There were only a few people crossing this bridge, it was clearly much less popular.

As I got over to Manhattan Island again, there was a very run down looking neighbourhood below me, with graffiti on a lot of the buildings, and I was wondering, with some concern, what kind of area I would be deposited into. I reflected that I really didn’t know much about what was safe and not safe in New York. Perhaps there was a reason not many people took this bridge!

I got a look over to Chinatown from the bridge, which gave me some cause to hope that the area the bridge ended in might not be too bad. There were a few people sitting on bikes near the end of the bridge, and I didn’t feel entirely safe, but thank the Lord there were no incidents, and I exited into a better looking neighbourhood, and found a subway station to get to the centre of the island again.

From there I set out to walk the mile (1.5km) again back to Pier 80 to take the ferry back, because it was much more scenic than the subway, though that was right near me. The ferry cost around $10, while the subway would have been about $5, but it was worth the extra money to get a nice view instead of travelling underground.

I had used the phone a lot that day, and the battery was getting pretty low. I needed it to navigate my way around New York City, and find the right trains. I had put it into battery saving mode and turned on flight mode to try and eke out the battery till I got back. I got to the ferry terminal around 5.45 as the sun was getting low, and waited for the next boat while enjoying the river with the late sun on it. The sun was setting as the ferry went back to Paulus Hook a little before 6.30, and it was beautiful to see the sun lighting up the buildings, though I couldn’t get very good photos because I was inside the ferry, and the windows were a bit dirty or steamed up.

Paulus Hook had a beautiful view of the New York City skyline across the river, which was still being lit up by the sunset, a lovely sight. I stayed there for a while as the light faded, and my phone gave up as I took a few last photos, leaving me without a map. Thankfully I found the street that took me back to the main road to the RV park and found my way back ok.

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I left fairly early, around 7.30 or so, headed for the RV park in Jersey City, about four and a half hours away. This involved driving through New York City, which I was a bit nervous about. I was going south, so I didn’t need to go through Boston, and I didn’t have trouble with traffic.

I headed inland on I-93, before getting onto I-95, which was where most of my trip was spent. I entered the small state of Rhode Island, and drove through the capital of Providence. This was the only state I visited that I didn’t set foot in, I just drove through it. The highway went towards the coast, and entered Connecticut. I drove straight through except for a brief stop part way along.

Eventually I entered New York State, leaving the coast and I-95, and got onto Manhattan Island, going across to the Hudson River. The road seemed to go over bridges and through tunnels, and then onto smaller streets. There was a stretch that went along the edge of the river for quite a while. In one place, the lines between the lane I was on, and the next one, disappeared completely. I assumed that lane was going away, and started to get across to merge, and someone tooted me. After a while the lines appeared again. It seems that they had just completely worn away. I’ve never seen that before.

After going a fair way along the river, Google directed me through the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River to New Jersey. It got a bit quieter on the New Jersey side. I had marked out a service station to fill up the van, not far from the RV park. There was another van parked at a pump on the other side of the lane when I went in, and I just squeezed by, going over the kerb next to the pump a little, to get in. I didn’t want to wander around trying to find another service station. This was my last stop for the RV, and I was keen not to drive in New York and New Jersey more than necessary!

After filling up I drove along an increasingly quiet road down to Liberty Harbor RV park. I was surprised how quiet it was. Monday was a public holiday, at least for some people, and so perhaps that was why traffic hadn’t really been a problem on any of my journey, but that road never seemed to be very busy. I think the New Jersey side was just less busy in general. I checked in, and they gave me some useful information about how to catch the subway into New York, and some information handouts.

The RV park was almost just a large parking lot. The spaces were fairly decent in size, because it was designed for much larger vehicles than mine, but everyone was just parked next to each other, and there was no privacy. But it was a great base to explore New York from, just five minutes from the subway, and most people seemed to stay in their vans rather than outside. Though it was by far the most expensive RV park I’d stayed in, at US$150 a night, even a bed in a shared dormitory in New York City was going for $120 a night, so it was good value.

I wasn’t sure what to see first. I got to New York about 1, and decided to look at Central Park. I found the subway terminal near the RV park. The train ran under the river, and went fairly slowly and a bit uncertainly it seemed. I knew when we were going under the river because there had been two or three stops, then quite a few minutes without any stops, when we went under, then more stops. A few stops later I had to get off, at 42nd street, and change trains. The subway under the river was run by a different company to the one on Manhattan Island, and I think this was the end of the line for that company.

I had bought a card that I could use on the train turnstiles, and put some money on it. I could transfer between trains on Manhattan Island and that service, but I had to pay two fares, one to take the subway from near the RV park, then the subway on Manhattan Island itself. The card worked on both services, but there was no transfer.

I Googled what train to take to get to Central Park. I found the right platform and caught the train with the right number, but the next stop wasn’t what I expected. I got off and realised that the train services had “uptown” and “downtown” routes. Uptown was going north I think, and downtown going south. Google had actually said to take, I think it was the uptown route, but I hadn’t noticed the distinction. Another train came pretty quickly, and I got to the stop at the southernmost end of Central Park.

Exiting up into New York, I was struck by how noisy it was. People were continuously tooting their horns, and there were often sirens. The city seemed to be in permanent gridlock. There were a lot of food trucks at the entrance to the park, and I got a philly cheesesteak for lunch and ate it at the entrance. The day was partly cloudy, with bursts of sun sometimes.

Then off into the park I went. It was quite large, about 2.5 miles (4km) long, though only about 0.6 miles (1km) wide. There were a number of streets intersecting it, but most of them seemed not to have any cars on them. I’m not sure if this was just because it was a public holiday, or if they had permanently closed them to cars. There were people cycling on them, and some horse-drawn stage coach type things going along. There were still traffic lights at the crossings. The crossings at traffic lights in New York had a button to press, as Australian lights do, but I’m not sure if it activated anything. Once pressed, there was a stern voice saying, “Wait!” every so often until it went green.

I have to admit to being a bit underwhelmed by Central Park. The autumn colour really hadn’t started yet, which I found a bit surprising, and there weren't many flowers. There were mainly large ovals, trees, a couple of lakes, and areas for playing sports. It was truly amazing to have an area that size in the middle of Manhattan Island, and I think if I lived in the city I would probably appreciate it a lot, but having been spoiled by the autumn splendour of the Adirondacks, and Butchart Gardens, this left me a bit flat. But it was nice to explore it, which I did for around three or four hours.

There was a large oval where people were eating, with the skyscrapers of New York in the background. Further along I found one of the lakes, which some people were boating on, and a fountain in front. The lake was pretty with the trees surrounding it, and the reflections, with peeks of skyscrapers here and there. There were a lot of deciduous trees everywhere, and I think the park would be a spectacular place when they changed colour.

A bit further along was a lake, with a small castle in the background, called Belvedere Castle. I climbed stairs inside the castle and looked out at the view below.

Further north again were basketball courts, with plenty of people playing on them. There looked to be areas for golf too, and baseball. Towards the northern end was a large lake, called Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. I walked along one side of that, then got to the northernmost section of the park. There were less and less people as I got further along. After a while I came to a stream and small waterfall.

I was looking in vain for a toilet, and eventually found a single one, which seemed to be occupied and stayed occupied for a while, so I moved on. I did eventually find a toilet block. They were not very plentiful. I realised after a while that not having many people around, though peaceful, might be a disadvantage. I was at one spot where there were a few people who looked a bit unsavoury, and one wanted to know if I had a cigarette. I didn’t feel entirely safe there, and was glad to get back to areas with more people around.

I walked across out of the park to a nearby subway stop – there were plenty of them – and went back south to the area where the Empire State Building was. It was interesting to see it towering above. As I walked around the city, one thing I noticed was that there were large heating vents every so often under the footpaths, pumping out warm air. It wasn’t especially cold, but they were going nonetheless. Manhattan Island has a huge steam heating system running through it, so perhaps they were something to do with that.

I took the subway back under the Hudson. The New Jersey station was near a mall, and I got a couple of donuts from Dunkin Donuts for snacks – they had donuts in the colours of the local football teams – then walked back to the RV park around 6.30, a little after sunset. I passed a marina on the way back, which was pretty. The park was close to an inlet off the Hudson River, with a large car park next to it, which I think was for people taking some kind of cruise from there, or for people parking to use the marina. I never noticed it very full. It wasn’t possible to walk very far along the bank of the inlet, so I walked back and set about making dinner, trying to use up the remaining supplies I’d brought.

It was remarkably quiet there at night, especially considering how noisy New York City was, and I slept pretty well. There were tall buildings around, which looked nice lit up at night, and the Statue of Liberty was just visible from some spots.

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We got going fairly early to go to Mary and Charlene’s local church, Fort Square Presbyterian. Mary parked on the street next to the church. Opposite was a little triangular grassy piece of land covered with American flags on poles, with people attending to them. I’m not sure if that was a permanent thing or in honour of something. The pastor had arrived fairly recently, and was getting to know the congregation. He was quite an enthusiastic preacher.

After church Mary made salmon sandwiches and brought some other snacks, and we went to the place we’d spied out the previous day. It was a sunny afternoon, and we went walking there for about half an hour, up to the top of a hill. There was a peek of a view across to the city. We ate our lunch, and did a bit more walking, enjoying the sunny weather. We met a few people coming and going while we were eating.

When we got back to the car, Mary had the idea of going to a lookout at the top of a hill nearby, the Blue Hill Observatory. We all started walking up the hill to the Blue Hills Observatory. It was a bit of a climb, and Mary and Charlene wanted me to go on up without them, as they were going slower, and the observatory might have been closed by the time they got there.

I got up there, and the bottom floor had a little shop where you could pay to to onto the roof and look at the view. I went up through a room with measuring instruments in it, then onto the roof, which had a great view all around. In the distance you could see the buildings of Boston, and a little strip of sea. There was an instrument up there which concentrated the sun onto a strip of paper that was slowly pulled through, leaving a burnt line, and how much it was burnt as it went along told them how much sun there had been. The sun was concentrated through a kind of glass sphere, which was quite expensive, and the guide mentioned that one had been stolen one time.

There was very little autumn colour in the surrounding area, except for one very bright strip, which I think was probably what I had seen the day before, along some kind of river or marsh. I came back down, and rang Mary to see where they were. They hadn’t gone to the top in the end. We were having a bit of trouble finding each other, it was hard to work out where each of us was, but we sorted it out in the end. It was a lovely walk.

I had another look at the beautiful autumn foliage while it was sunny, walking along a small road taking photos, while Mary was driving after me for a few minutes as I got some good shots. They also drove through a very affluent area, where there were enormous houses. I had my usual Bible study at 8.30 with everyone, but this time with Mary and Charlene in person, which was lovely.

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In the morning, we got off to a lateish start. It was a grey, overcast day. Mary was working, and Charlene shouted me breakfast at a cafe which sold a lot of different kinds of pancakes, where she sometimes went. I ordered three pancakes, and bacon and egg, but I wasn’t prepared for the enormous size of the pancakes!

This was the last stop for the van before getting to Jersey City where I would return it, so I had to clear out everything except the bare essentials of what I would need for the three days in the RV park there. So I left the sleeping bag, food I hadn't used and other supplies. Also I had to leave some clothes there, some of which were still in the box that I’d taken to Phoenix, because I would be over my luggage allowance – I had flown over with 28kg, and I was taking a lot of flights from there before I went home, and some at least had only 23kg allowance, so my plan was to post some stuff back to myself.

I swept out as much of the accumulated dust as I could, and threw out some rubbish that had built up. I would be going to New Jersey with just three tins for dinner, some milk and oats for breakfast, 23kg of luggage, and otherwise only what had been issued to me in the van. It took quite a while to get all that done. I was rather sad to be dismantling my nice setup that had served me so well, in preparation for saying goodbye to the van, though it was also nice to look forward to staying in houses too.

Mary got home from work around 4, and drove us to a few scenic spots nearby in an area called the Blue Hills Reservation, including Houghton’s Pond, which was actually a lake, and had a small beach, and was surrounded by trees. After the colour in the Adirondacks, there was very little autumn colour in this area. Different areas seemed to lose their leaves at quite different times. There were a few people fishing in the pond, and a smaller pond with water lilies on it next door.

We visited an area on the reservation where there was a forest, which we thought would be good to go to the next day when there was more time, and hike there. There were small areas that did have beautiful autumn colour, which seemed to be along some kind of marsh. For dinner we went to Chick-Fil-A, a restaurant chain founded by a Christian, which doesn’t open on Sunday. I had been rather wanting to try it out, so it was nice to be able to eat there.

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