Today was not my favourite day.

We left camp at 7.30am and it was the most beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. I felt good for getting up and leaving early, despite Mike’s protests. Everyone we met said we must to to Watkins Glen, so we figured it was really popular, so an early start was a must.

I thought it was only 1.5 hours drive which would have got is there by 9am, but that somehow turned into a 2 hour drive by the time we filled up with petrol and a few other stops. There is a store here called the Dollar General, and it sells $1 chocolate which is yummy, so we stopped and bought a few packets.

We finally arrived at Watkins Glen and parked up and were on the trail by 10.30am. But we weren’t the only ones. There must have been a couple of tours arrive as it was heaving with people.

Watkins Glen is a natural wonder located in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. The glen is a series of 19 waterfalls that cascade over a 2.3 km stretch of the Genesee River. The waterfalls range in height from 15 to 60 feet (4.6 to 18 m), and they flow through a series of gorges, ravines, and potholes.

It was about an hours walk though the gorge, cliffs of layered strata towering over us, waterfalls gushing and swirling their way down. It would have been very beautiful, but it felt really touristy. The path was paved and there were formed steps, not like the lovely bush walk we had in Ricketts Glen the day before.

There were too many people to make it enjoyable, so we’d obviously picked the wrong time. At the end of the walk, most people turn around and go back, but we decided to walk up the 180 steps and walk back via the north rim trail, which was much more pleasant. We met another couple at the top from Pennsylvania, and they were blown away by all the people too. We walked back to our cars together, and they have given us some good information of things to do on the way to Connecticut.

We couldn’t wait to get out of the busy town of Watkins Glen, and head to the even busier town of Niagra Falls. We didn’t arrive until after 5pm, and there was nowhere to camp. I’d read that there were some 24 hour carparks we could camp in, but alas, we couldn’t find them.

We went to go explore by foot rather than driving around, but a guy stopped us and told us thunderstorms were imminent, within 30 minutes.

I asked at a hotel if we could pay to park overnight and they said no. We didn’t want to have to drive in the thunderstorms to find camping, so we ended up booking a very expensive room over looking the skyline in Canada and the spray of the falls. It was an awesome view and we even had premium seats for the fireworks display at 10pm.

Tomorrow, we are going to Canada!