We had promised ourselves a day outside New York City as so many people had told us that upstate New York was beautiful and the scenery was spectacular. Not really knowing where we would be best to go, and not having long if we were to guarantee going there and back again in one day we settled on Poughkeepsie. A small amount of googling had shown us that it was home to the longest footbridge accross the Husdon, which we thought might be an interesting thing to experience.

We got our train from Penn Street Station, lacking the grandeur of Grand Central station but equally close to our hotel. The train journey was roughly 2 hours and was comfortable and peaceful - unsurprisingly Sedge fell asleep. As I watched out of the window I saw the river change, and the the foothills of the Appelacians began to rise up alongside the river. Despite the weather being more overcast that the previous day clearly this was beautiful countryside. Had we stayed on the train eventually we would have ended up in Canada.

When we alighted at Poughkeepsie we really didn't know what to expect, and it seemed that the town didn't generally expect to see tourists. However we walked up to the start of the footbridge and began to walk across. At 1.28 miles long the Walkway over the Hudson is the longest elevated pedestrian bridge in the world, mostly because once upon a time it was in fact a railway bridge.

As we began to cross the bridge it was clear that there was a thunderstorm brewing. The clouds were building and the thunder was rumbling some distance away, but we thought we would probably make it there and back before we got wet, and we were at least armed with our cagools. What we hadn't anticipated was the sign on the far side of the bridge which stated that in the event of lightening the bridge would be closed. We had intended to spend a short while exploring the Highland side of the bridge but on reading that sign we hightailed it back accross the bridge before someone came and told us to get off on the wrong side (which would of course cause us to miss our train back into the big city).

In fact we got back across the bridge and down to the riverside where we enjoyed watching some people have fun on jetskis on the river. All the time watching the storm build and the draw ever nearer. Just at the point that we decided to head back up to the station the heavens opened and we found ourselves sheltering in the backdoorway of a bar whilst the worst of the torrential rain passed.

We then caught the train back into New York and got ready to go out for a meal on our last night. We had heard that the rooftop restaurant 230 on Fifth was a really good place to go and eat. I had phoned and asked about reservations and was told that on a wednesday evening we wouldn't need to do that. It would seem this was another time when we fell foul of the way things are done in New York. We were in fact supposed to reserve a 'bottle' if we wanted to reserve a table. When we arrived there was in fact an hour long waiting time for a table and the restaurant was very busy. Fortunately one of the waitresses took pity on our frustration and found us a table. When we stood up we could see the lights of the empire state, the chrysler building and the rockerfeller. Although we had to wait a long time for it the food was good, we got chatting to the people on the next table to us. In some ways it would have been good to meet them earlier in our stay as they gave us a number of tips on how to survive in New York. However we headed back to our own hotel for our last night.