This hotel is in a beautiful spot – but it is bizarre. For example, the first floor rooms now have en suites – but the push fit waste plumbing comes straight through the ceiling of the huge, posh dining room – each neatly surrounded with a ceiling rose! Waste water gurgling over your head as you eat!

We left at 7 (the hotel breakfast started at 8 – what use is that?) and, for the first 50 miles, we were on very similar roads to yesterday – soon racking up over 3000 feet of climbing on the rolling mountain terrain. But now the towns were a little larger, and more frequent, and wealthier. And the lakes and woods were as lovely as ever – albeit under a very grey sky. 

   
 
We stopped for breakfast at Tupper Lake after 20 miles. The lake here was very serene, beautiful reeds where once there had been a huge logging industry. More pancakes, eggs and bacon! 

Saranac Lake was also beautiful – so we celebrated with a blueberry muffin.  Having eaten two before leaving the hotel, this was a record muffin morning!

The approach to Lake Placid, from Saranac Lake, was the only section of road with significant traffic. Do they just drive up and down that bit?

At Lake Placid we stopped for lunch in the most hippy place yet. Run by two gay men, the place was a complete mess of cafe, art gallery and bookshop. And the salad and coffee were great. Lake Placid was busy, as expected, so we admired the lake but didn’t linger over the shops! 

After lunch it was all downhill for 40 miles to our 5th and final ferry of the trip. On the way we stopped to admire a fantastic gorge and waterfall.

  
With about 20 miles to go I realised that we had a chance of catching a ferry earlier than planned, in exactly an hour’s time. So we did a team time trial and knocked the miles out at at well over 20mph, arriving with 10 mins to spare. We have become seriously bike fit! 

   
 In Burlington we stopped for an outdoor beer – enjoying the buzz of a large town with youth, music and pavement cafes, having been in the sticks for ages. But it finally began to rain, and the last few miles to our hotel were wet – for only the third time on the trip.