Road Trip - Fish Creek Pond to Watkins Glen

We woke once again to an incredible view out across Fish Creek Pond. I rolled up the canvas side of the tent facing the water, and we lay in bed for a while watching the mist on the lake slowly evaporate as the sun climbed higher and higher.

After breakfast we drove back to the Wild Center, as our tickets from yesterday were good for two days entry. We’d missed most of the outside part of the center the last time we visited, as the weather wasn’t very nice. We arrived once again just in time for a live animal presentation, this time the star was a Blue Jay! The presenter was the same lady that we’d watched talk about otters yesterday, and she tried to get the jay to demonstrate their ‘caching’ behaviour, where they dig holes to hide food to dig up when they’re hungry. Unfortunately the bird was hungry now, and so just gulped down the pieces of cashew she handed to it.

Outside, we walked over to the Wild Walk, which is a boardwalk that climbs up 40 feet in the air, with display boards and signs along the way explaining the things that happen in the forest at each altitude. There were little pipes that you could look down, which drew your attention to holes that woodpeckers had made in nearby trees, and a directional microphone that you could use to listen to the birds fluttering around some hanging feeders.

The Wild Walk was just as well, if not better, presented as the exhibits that we’d seen inside the center yesterday. The boardwalk itself was beautifully constructed, with stylised trees made of steel holding up sections of it, and a huge hollow white pine trunk with a staircase winding around the inside of it. The trunk was fake, but apart from its size I couldn’t tell that it was until I touched it!

At the end of the boardwalk there was a life-size recreation of the largest bald eagle nest ever found (at 2.9m across, 6.1m deep, about 35 years old, and weighing 2,700kg!), and a giant spiders web made of rope netting overhanging the forest floor.

After spending over an hour wandering through the treetops, we hopped back in the car and began our five hour drive westward towards Watkins Glen State Park in the Finger Lakes region of New York. There are 11 long narrow lakes in the Finger Lakes formation, and we’re headed for the southern tip of Seneca Lake. Seneca Lake is one of the deepest in the USA, 188m at its deepest point, as is 61km long. The climate along the lakeshore is very conducive to growing grapes, and there are over 50 wineries lining the edges.

Watkins Glen is famous for both waterfalls and car racing, at the nearby Watkins Glen International race course. It’s now 10pm and we’re sitting around the hot coals of our fire, listening to a unique mix of crickets and other raspy sounding insects, murmurs of conversation from nearby campsites, and racing car engines.