Apple Picking and Hiking!
We inadvertently stumbled upon hiking when we went apple picking at Ochs Orchard in Warwick, NY. I had read on their website that there was an area to have a picnic lunch so I packed some food for our day. After having a fun time picking (the apples were delicious!!), we went down to the main store to get some apple cider and donuts. I asked the cashier where it was that we could picnic. She kind of gave me a funny look and said there were tables at the side of the building. Huh. Didn’t remember reading that there were actual tables. So we went and took a look. It was a lone picnic table on the side of the building in front of the parking lot! Uh, fumes! No thank you! I was baffled and I knew I read that there was a place to picnic so figured there must be a park nearby. After driving for about 20-30 minutes, we found Sterling Forest park. It’s a National park and not your typical regular neighborhood park. We were really hungry by that point so parked in a lot across from the visitor’s center. We sorta tailgated and then ate on a rock.
After we ate, we went and took a look in the visitor’s center. That’s how we discovered there was hiking! There was a big display inside of the park and different trails you can go on. This is the hike we ended up doing.
It was fun! Sienna wanted to do more but we were afraid if we did, she would get tired right in the middle of another hike. We didn’t want to deal with that! So we promised to come back the next weekend. And we did! We did a different hike, the Lakeville Ironworks Trail. We also did part of the Sterling Lake loop but that got a little boring. It was mostly flat ground, the beginning was anyway, as we didn’t finish it so don’t know if it got more exciting.
The last four photos was from the Sterling Lake loop.
Yves got all gung-ho about hiking and bought 2 hiking poles and a cooler backpack! We wanted to try it out so went again the next weekend! We decided to try Long Island and went to West Hills County park. It’s very close to White Post Farms, so about an hour out. We got spoiled with the other park where there were trail markers that showed the beginning. We couldn’t find where it started! We had to ask next door at the horse stables. Once we found our start, we headed out.
We didn’t finish the hike as we weren’t sure how long it was so after going about 1.5 hours in, we turned around. There was also a playground at the beginning to the trail so Sienna was excited for that.
