After abseiling down out of our somewhat elevated bed we make it down to the dining room. We had to sign up for a particular breakfast time slot last night as they cook everything fresh, so I guess they don't want too many people at once. Some fruit and pancakes plus other assorted goodies later we set out for a tour.
First comes the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory Tour.
It's half an hour long, quite interesting, and contains a lot of cow based jokes, but more importantly you have a tasting session at the end. This was called the AmeriCone Dream (vanilla, fudge covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl- very healthy! We were assured it counted as part of our 5-a-day!) and was very enjoyable.
Part of their Mission Statement - makes sense!
Next stop was the Cheese store
A good while was spent sampling the wares as there were well over 20 different cheeses to try. They provided individual cocktail sticks to try little chunks. Eric agreed that the Smoky Bacon one was lush. Some seriously delicious cheese.
We gave the Distillery and Cider Factory tours a miss, not quite our thing, although we understand that you could taste cider flavoured donoughts (ugh), so we went to the chocolate factory instead. Not too photogenic in there and no free tasting but we could have bought some reject produce cheaply. However we spend more time in the adjoining craft jewellery display. We couldn't follow the connection but also couldn't resist a pair of earrings (oh no! Not another pair!)
To walk off the cheese we stopped in the rather pretty town of Stowe. There is a recreation path from behind the church that we follow for a little while.
As you can see Eric is enjoying the sunshine again.
Several sculptures are scattered along the route, including a group of green ears.
Eric tries whispering into one of the ears - surprisingly you can hear it by listening in one of the other ears - a bit like the whispering gallery in St Paul's Cathedral, or those cup walkie talkie things we used to make as a child.
Here we meet a young couple and have fun whispering into various ears whilst listening at others.
He notices Eric having his photo taken and asks us why we are doing that. We explain that we take photos of him everywhere we go. It turns out that this chap is an artist and paints small stones, see next pic
He places them at random places around the country (and other countries depending on where he is on tour), geotagging them plus photographing them in situations similar to Eric's photo montages. So he takes a photo of Eric with a stone. If you want to see some of Bryan's stone pictures in situ, check out Doodlestones on Google.
Returning to the car we take the advice picked up on the Ben and Jerry's webpage, and find our way to Stowe Mountain Resort, where there is a gondola to take us up the mountain. Not only that, but the lady in the Tourist Information place had given us a 20 dollars off voucher.
This is the gondola run.
Eric nearly falls off his seat as we go past the first pylon.
As well as the view back to the bottom
See those two wires in the foreground -
They are a zip line!
Well OK then
Never been this high back in Wales, it's 65 feet higher than Snowdon and we aren't even at the top yet.
It's getting quite close to Halloween perhaps?
We are told that there is cliff walk that will take us to the top of the mountain. This is the start of it. It warns that this is the only route (both up and back) and that the last gondola back leaves at 4:30.
They want me to go up there? What do they think I am, a mountain goat?
Back on the mountain road we travel on up through Smuggler's Notch, a pass between Spruce Mountain and Mount Mansfield. It is a very scenic route, with woodland and cliffs, with the two intermingled in places where large chunks of rock the size of a house had fallen of the cliff face and come to rest against the trees.
Back in Burlington and another 'stroll' to the waterfront.
Walking back up the steepish streets we need a break along the flat a again.
The church at the end if the shopping street, and some views of the pedestrian precinct.
It's getting dark as we head back to the B&B and we pass through the the university section of the town with a number of halls of residence that have students engaged in various activities, and not all of an intellectual bent.
This last one seemed to deserve a picture as we assume it houses the mature students.
