(I’m going through some months-old draft posts; better post late than never, I reckon. Sorry for the disjoint nature of the posts …)

We junked our plans to visit Martha’s Vineyard once we’d looked at the times of the ferries, the crossings, and the bus services around the island. So on advice from Rebecca and Alistair we headed instead for Newport, Rhode Island. In particular we walked most of the famous Cliff Walk that skirts between the ocean and the backs of the houses on Newport’s Bellevue. This was once the richest road in the US, full of massive mansions built for the likes of the Astors and Vanderbilts in the second half of the 1800s. The building spree stopped with the great depression, and most of the houses were sold off by the 1940s. (BTW, good stretches of it are a rock scramble, not just a cliff walk …)

We could imagine the Great Gatsby being set here (and we later discovered part of the film was shot here), and someone walking with us thought that the party scene in Meet Joe Black was filmed in one of the gardens. We took a hint seen on www.tripadvisor.com and parked on Narangasset Ave, walked about 2.5 miles to Ledge Rd. We then walked back along Bellevue Ave to the car looking at the fronts of the houses, complete with little signs giving some history. On many of them we saw that these houses were regarded as “white elephants” even at the time. Much money doesn’t necessarily buy much happiness or much sense …

We drove a few miles to Fort Adams where we admired the view over the harbour and to the Claiborne Pell suspension bridge, and read our books for a while. Our stopping point was a generic Best Western, which we reckoned was much better value than the posh-ish Royal Sonesta we’d stayed at in Boston.

There’s been one thing that’s puzzled us so far: a number of houses have had large 5-pointed wooden stars painted red fixed to them. We haven’t yet worked out what they’re supposed to signify …

We went for 2 walks – first starting at Horsebridge and the second around Tytherley. As we mosyed slowly around the second we saw lots of unusually-shaped trees. Despite Tim’s iPhone being sometimes in signal range, we couldn’t work out what all of them were, but we suspect a type of Cypress and Elm. This was the most striking:

Near it is a church, which had this weather-vane atop its spire:

Why a rooster? The preacher on Sunday had just happened to explain this: its a reminder of Peter’s denial of Christ. Yes, the same St.Peter who God then used to found the church, which is somewhat encouraging for this rest of us failure-prone followers of Christ.

The start and end of this walk was the Star Inn, Tytherley, where we had an excellent pint of Hidden Old Sarum bitter before an excellent meal.

Many thanks to Tim and Ann for a great few days – good food, great company, and space to chill.

Here are a few more pics from our gallery

We then moved to the rather splendid Ranvilles Farm B&B as a basis for the rest of our tour. It’s one of those old houses where nothing’s quite straight or level, and shows the character of its cheerful owners (in this case huge cricket fans). Slightly bizarrely, our 16th century room had a wet room hidden in what looks like a cupboard in the corner of the room.

Sam’s dedication saw the opportunity for another family gathering in Bristol. Martha, myself and my parents decided to make a weekend of it. We stayed together at 9 Princes Buildings B&B in Clifton, just down from the Avon Gorge Hotel, with similarly great views out over the Avon Gorge.

Our hosts, the Fullers, were charming, as was the house. With lots of thoughtful touches, and a great breakfast, the only possible thing to complain about was that the sherry waiting for us in the rooms was an Amontillado, not Croft Original.

We took their advice and went down to Hotwells and caught the ferry into the city centre, which was fun, and itself had some surprisingly good views:

We visited the amazing Valley of the Rocks just up from Lee Abbey at Lynton in Devon. I’d looked up the details and found a few geocaches in the area, and had jotted down the coordinates.

The first, The Valley of Rocks was too hard to start with, being the smallest possible size — a keyring hidden under an overhanging rock. I think I hadn’t quite figured the subtle difference between two types of coordinate representations either, and so I could have been 30m off. Dispiriting, as I climbed most of the White Lady rock the hard way to find it.

The second wasn’t far away, even higher up, called Beachcombers Treasure. The instructions were misleading, suggesting a moderate hill walk. Not from where I started, going 300m straight up a 1:1 hill covered with bracken and brambles. At this point I still hadn’t been able to get the Garmin GPS to accept a waypoint of my choosing, despite reading the manual twice. Most weird user interface. This meant I was having to mentally compare the current coordinates with a set in my head, and work out with reference to the coast (which was roughly N) which way to go next. I didn’t find it; I think in the end I transposed two numbers of the coordinate in my head. Well annoyed by now.

The next day I had accidentally found out how to set a waypoint, and headed with more confidence, with Martha to the third one, Old Baldy. Turned out we started from the wrong car park, which meant for a long walk up some difficult bridleways. Martha’s MBT shoes are normally great, but not on the terrain. She stopped and I went on, eventually getting to the proper car park, and then onto the cache location. Again, lots of bracken, brambles, and extra spiky gorse to contend with. Running short on time, I couldn’t find it, despite knowing from the GPS I was within the necessary 6m. Shown is the route we landed up taking (courtesy of Google Earth), and then the cache’s general location.

Finally, finally, finally, a success. Exmoor TB Lodge was in a lovely wooded location, only a few hundred metres from an obvious carpark, and almost on the level. Here’s a silly picture of Martha blowing bubbles from a tube left in the cache. The cache itself is sitting on a handy nearby log, along with the GPS unit. We updated the log, picked up a TravelBug which we’ll move to our next succesful find, and then tired and weary, but happy, turned for home.

We took it easy in Toronto, spending some time just reading and people watching in Queens Park: sitting around in the warmth in shirtsleeves just makes us feel good.

Other good finds include Tim Horton’s (a chain of very good value coffee shops which are half-way to being cafes as well) and Second Vinyl where we spent a happy hour finding lots of second-hand jazz and classical CDs. The former are quite common around the city; the latter is at 10 Wellesley St West.

Urbana Coffee was also a rare find at 1033 Bay Street, having free wireless, friendly service, and fair trade coffee, unlike the Starbucks everywhere around.

Finally, we had a lovely meal listening to light jazz (and more Elton John!) at Le Saint Tropez in the Theatre district, as recommended by Trip Advisor.

We thought we should try some sushi at some point, and walked past Grand Ichiban Sushi at 345 Adelaide St West at a hungry point. We were impressed with the Bento that we had, and how it was presented. I don’t think we had really graduated to proper sushi with this – certainly everything was cooked – but it reminded us again how great miso soup is, and that we need to find the ingredients when we’re back home.

We then spent a long time in Lorne’s Coats – a store simply selling women’s coats, with lots of enthusiastic and helpful staff. Recommended, if that’s what you need – at 101 Spadina Ave.

Less good was discovering that the Ontario Art Gallery is shut for redevelopment – only after we’d walked there. Still, it will clearly look rather special on the outside when its ready in November. Bit late for us, though.

We’ve done at least 12 hours in the car so far, and without any CDs on us, we’ve listened to a lot of radio. We’ve listened to some rock, soft rock, country and Christian stations so far. UK artists get more of an airing than we were expecting, with Phil Collins/Genesis and Elton John particularly standing out. Remembering that there’s no such thing as US nation-wide radio stations (I think) we were surprised to almost always be able to find a Christian station somewhere on the dial. Shame that no Bruce Cockburn music was played yet, but at least a great Rich Mullins (RIP) track was

As predicted by everyone, the Falls at Niagara are amazing – they should be one of the wonders of the world. Also as predicted, the area has turned into rather a tacky resort, but most of it can be ignored easily. The place I reckon is good for the American psyche – with the views and falls themselves better on the Canadian side. Lots of photos, but here are just 1 of each of the falls …

We can confirm that Niagara-on-the-Lake is a great spot, very popular it seems with honeymooners. Lots of posh boutiques and restaurants. We stayed in the Kia-Ora B+B, which felt better than all the hotels we’ve used so far. Lovely decor, very friendly hostess, and a gourmet breakfast. 5 stars!

It also hosts Jet Boat Niagara, which takes people on boats up the Niagara River to near the Falls, over a number of rapids. Not as white knuckle as expected, but still good fun, complete with a few exhilarating fast 360-degree ‘Hamilton’ turns.

We’ve arrived in Toronto and decided we needed a relaxing day, so we just chilled. Only one interesting photo: the view from our hotel window, looking west over the university area …

Today we drove most of the way across Massachusetts from Fall River to Lenox. We knew we’d be a few weeks early for the best of the fall colours. aren’t yet at their height, but still many trees are turning, and its wonderful driving through tree-lined roads, enjoying the colours and the sunshine.

We made a great little find, detouring a few miles off Route 9 near Worcester to stop in Howe State Park, part of Spencer State Forest. The visitor place wasn’t open, but we just stopped next to a mini waterfall and had lunch listening to the stream and watching the leaves being to drop from the trees.

Loads of familiar place names in MA: Gloucester, Worcester, Oxford, Shrewsbury, Nottingham, Bedford, Cambridge, Plymouth, Bristol … I write this in Ware (where!) having stopped at a Friendlys for a drink. This was a throwback to a US family holiday 20+ years ago, where the only places we ate seemed to be Friendly’s.

After a long drive we landed up at Lenox, within walking distance of Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Pops Orchestra. (Also home to another great memory from a family holiday of old.) Shame we’re a few weeks too late to hear them. But the place we’re staying – the Apple Tree Inn – has some fantastic views over the surrounding hills.