We are now back in the US for the final part of our trip. We are staying in a small town called Richmond, in Vermont. For those of you following the blog this randomly will be the third time we have stayed in a town called Richmond on this trip, the first one being in Vancouver, and the second one being in Boston. Anyway, it was a fairly long drive from Quebec City, including a rather long queue at the border, and when we finally made it we didn’t really have much time to do anything other than grab dinner at home and then head for a quick drink at the local brewery, only 5 mins walk from us.

The town is really nice and has a real “locals” feel about it. There was also a local farmers market going on across the road too, with a live band which we stopped at for a bit.

Day 1 in Vermont

We decided to do one final hike before we came home, and we decided on ‘Burrows Trail’ which came recommended online. I think it is safe to say that neither of us envisaged it being quite as difficult (or as long) as it turned out to be. Even though it was 5.8 miles (out and back) and labelled as difficult we still didn’t think much of it as we’d done plenty of hiking previously and it didn’t sound too bad. What also didn’t help was the car park at the start of the trailhead was completely full when we arrived (even though we arrived at 8:30am) so we had to park further down the road, at the start of another trail which would eventually take you up to the start of the Burrows trail. That was about a mile and therefore added 2 miles onto the total mileage and an extra hour of walking.

We were also unaware that the route was pretty much up hill the whole way, involving lots of steep sections and rock scrambling. It was very reminiscent of the Grouse Grind, although that probably still wins the title of “worst walk ever”! (thanks again, Tom!)

The aim of the hike is to reach ‘Camel’s Hump Summit’ where you get views of the Green Mountains. The hike took a laborious 4 hours total, and was the view worth the climb…hmmm, not sure! You can be the judge.

Ben & Jerry’s Factory

As the walk took us a lot longer than we thought we didn’t have long before we had to make our way to the Ben & Jerry’s factory, which, if you are a fan of ice-cream, is a must-see stop! This is Ben & Jerry’s first ever factory site, and although they still do produce ice-cream here, they can only make one flavour at a time, albeit this equates to around 200,000 pints/tubs per day, so not too shabby. Their other main factory is also based in Vermont, but is not open to the public, and is much bigger and can make up to 1,000,000 pints a day.

We had a tour booked which is a short 30 minute tour of the factory which includes a video about how the company was formed, a look at the factory floor seeing the ice-cream being made and packaged, and finally (and most importantly) some free sampling at the ‘flavour shop’.

There is also a ‘scoop shop’ where you can buy as much ice-cream as you want (we opted for a very modest 2 scoop cup, the flavours of which were Marshmallow Sky and Turtle Sundae). The possibilities of what concoction you could order was seemingly endless though and we came to understand quickly why there was such a long queue.

There is also an area known as the ‘Flavour Graveyard’ where visitors can “pay their respects” to flavours that have been discontinued. This was fun to walk around and I think the only one we recognised was Fossil Fuel. Some of the flavours that didn’t stand the test of time sounded really nice too, so it was surprising to learn they were no more. Here is a small selection below. You’ll have to enlarge the photos to read the flavour information at the top of each flagstone.

Cycling along Lake Champlain

On our second day we drove to downtown Burlington and rented bikes for the morning so we could cycle the ‘Island Line Rail Trail’. This is a 10 mile trail along Lake Champlain. As our bike ride in Quebec City was cut short we wanted to do another one, and fortunately Si’s seat did not break this time.

It was a perfect day for cycling and the route goes along a designated cycle path, which is mostly flat. The last 3 miles of the cycle are on a causeway too, into the middle of the lake. There is the option of catching a short ‘bike ferry’ to bridge a 200-ft gap in the causeway where you can keep cycling a bit further to a nearby island, but we opted to turn around at that point as we only had the bikes for 3 hours so would not have had time.

On the way back we stopped at this nice beach area for an iced coffee and a hot dog which was nice after the tough cycle back. Coming back along the causeway was super windy, and as the wind was against us it was harder going.

Finally, once we had dropped the bikes off we had a wander around a nearby park which was full of people and various stalls. We soon learned that there was a reason for this and it was actually something called the ‘Dragon Boat Festival’. It was really popular and loads of people had set up chairs along the waterfront to sit and watch.

We finished up the evening at home by going down to a small beach right by our house next to the river to finish up the few beers we had left. There were quite a few people slowly floating down the river in rubber rings as it was a hot day, and it was a nice place to hang out in the early evening before we went to grab some food.

We are flying home soon but before we do we will be doing a highlights post about our favourite bits from the east, so stay tuned for those tomorrow!

Lucy