Olcott Beach NY | The Beauty Around Us

Posts tagged ‘Olcott Beach NY’

Three Night Getaway – Day 2: A Day of Relaxation

We are back home, after a three-night getaway. We spent October 23 through October 26 at Airbnb “LaVida Cottage” in the town of Newfane. This blog post is about our second day at the cottage. You may read about our first day at the cottage here.

On the morning of our second day in Newfane we went for a walk through Krull Park to Lake Ontario. Airbnb “LaVida Cottage” provides easy access to the park. Directly across the street from the Airbnb is Park Lane. A short walk on Park Lane takes you to the park. I walked about 1 1/2 miles, before asking Bob to go get our car at the Airbnb. My arthritic knee was hurting badly. I sat outside Olcott Beach Carousel Park, while I awaited Bob’s return. When Bob picked me up, he said it was another 1/2 mile walk to the Airbnb.

We decided to spend time at “LaVida Cottage” today.

Early morning light shining on the back yard
of LaVida Cottage.
The back yard ends at a cliff that drops to 18 Mile Creek.

Soon after our walk I took my kindle out to the fire pit and read.

Bob joined me and played his ukulele for a short while.

Bob took this picture of me reading at the fire pit.

We met Michael, our Airbnb host. He stopped by late morning to repair a pipe in the basement that was leaking. He was a friendly and engaging person.

We ate leftovers for lunch.

We ate dinner at Gordie Harper’s Bazaar in Newfane. Gordie’s is a family restaurant but also features individually owned shops featuring unique themes, antiques and collectibles. We visited only the restaurant.

It was a wonderful day, relaxing at the cottage.

Three Night Getaway – Day 1: Warren PA to Newfane NY

We are back home, after a three-night getaway. We spent October 23 through October 26 at Airbnb “LaVida Cottage” in the town of Newfane. Newfane is a small Western New York town located on the shores of Lake Ontario in Niagara County. If you look at the listing for LaVidaCottage, you will see that Burt NY is given as the location of the Airbnb. The town of Newfane includes the hamlets of Burt and Olcott, among others.

We ate breakfast at Wendy’s in North Warren, before leaving Warren. Bob ordered a Big Breakfast (3 scrambled eggs, bacon, home fries and toast) with coffee and orange juice. I ordered one scrambled egg, one chocolate chip pancake and tea. Bob gave me two pieces of his bacon. It seems Wendy’s is becoming our go-to place for breakfast, whenever we travel north. Breakfast was good, as usual.

En route Newfane we made a brief stop at The Canalway Trail: Lockport.

This bicycle trail being only 12 miles (a 19-minute drive) from Airbnb “LaVida Cottage” makes it probable that we will make a return trip one day to Newfane NY.

We arrived in Newfane around 12:30 pm. Check-in at Airbnb “LaVida Cottage” wasn’t until 3:00 pm, so we drove past the Airbnb and visited the Lakeview Village Shoppes, Krull Park, the East Pier, and the Harbor Overlook in Olcott. The Lakeview Village Shoppes were less than 1/2 mile from our Airbnb.

Lakeview Village Shoppes overlooks Lake Ontario.
Lakeview Village Shoppes is home to a unique mix of specialty gift, clothing,
antique, and food shoppes on a boardwalk.

Lakeview Village Shoppes
Beautiful bouquet of flowers!

Lakeview Village Shoppes Autumn Decorations

Lakeview Village Shoppes is adjacent to the Olcott Lighthouse.

It was a short walk from Lakeview Village Shoppes to Krull Park.

Ye Olde Log Cabin in Krull Park is a replica of the log cabin built by
the Pioneers Association of Niagara County in 1888.
The cabin functions as a Niagara Pioneer and Olcott Beach history museum.
Unfortunately, the cabin was closed for the season.
I think it would have been interesting to take a peek inside.

Ever since we arrived in Olcott I noticed that Autumn was in its glory. Back home we are past peak, and many leaves have fallen off our trees. Olcott appeared to be at peak.

Krull Park
Look at the size of that leaf!

We exited via this Entrance to Krull Park

We ate lunch (two hot dogs and curly fries) at Park Place Restaurant. We sat at the counter and ate our lunch.

This was our view, as we ate lunch, at Park Place Restaurant

We walked back to, and past, Lakeside Village Shoppes to the East Pier. Oh, I forgot to mention earlier. We mainly just window shopped, as we walked by Lakeside Village Shoppes. However, we did make one purchase — a bag of coffee that was marked down 50%.

East Pier
The 18 Mile Creek enters Lake Ontario between the West and East Piers

View of Lakeside Village Shoppes and houses from the East Pier

From the East Pier we walked to an overlook of the Olcott Harbor.

As we walked back from the harbor overlook to where we had parked our car, I stopped briefly to take a picture of a memorial that stands at the Lockport-East Main Street intersection.

This Civil War Memorial commemorates the residents of Olcott Beach who served in the Union and gave their lives
in the American Civil War (1861-1865).

We checked into our Airbnb, LaVida Cottage, around 3:30 pm after a grocery stop at Tops Market. We spent rest of the afternoon and evening relaxing at the cottage.

A Visit to the Southern Shore of Lake Ontario, New York

Bob and I spent the weekend of June 25-28 at the Best Western Crown Inn & Suites in Batavia, New York. Batavia is located approximately 120 miles northeast of our hometown of Warren, PA. While in Batavia we visited the Genesee Country Village and Museum on June 26th, which I blogged about here. On June 27th we went on a motorcycle ride along the southern shore of Lake Ontario — the subject of today’s blog post. Click here for a map of our route and keep it handy, as I will refer back to the map throughout this blog post.

We began our tour of the southern shore of Lake Ontario in Olcott Beach, a quaint hamlet in the town of Newfane.

Civil War Memorial

Olcott Lighthouse
This lighthouse was built in 2003; it is a replica of the 1873 lighthouse.

Carousel Park

Olcott Beach’s Carousel Park is a vintage amusement park. It features a 1928 style Hershell-Spillman two row carousel, five vintage kiddie rides, and a 1931 Wurlitzer band organ. Unfortunately, the park was not open during our visit to Olcott Beach. We arrived in Olcott Beach shortly before 9:00 AM. We were disappointed to learn that the park would not open until noon. We had plans for dinner at 4:00 PM with Bob’s cousins at their home and didn’t know how long it would take us to make our way back to Batavia. We left Olcott Beach an hour before the park opened. We hope to return to Olcott Beach next summer and will definitely time our visit so that we arrive when Carousel Park is open.

Krull Park offers excellent views of Lake Ontario.

We had a pleasant time walking the streets of Olcott Beach and sitting at a picnic table watching the boat activity on 18 Mile Creek.

18 Mile Creek

Bob, with Lakeside Village Shoppes in the background

The Lakeside Village Shoppes interested me with their individual shops of different colors and unique merchandise. But, alas, all I could do was window shop as the shops did not open until noon.

After spending a couple of hours in Olcott Beach, we rode to Golden Hill State Park near the village of Barker, where we saw the Thirty Mile Point Lighthouse.

Thirty Mile Point Lighthouse

We didn’t pay the $6.00 admission fee to enter Golden Hill State Park, so we were only able to view the lighthouse from the parking lot. We plan to return to this state park one day, pay the $6.00 admission fee and see the lighthouse properly!

Our last stop along the shores of Lake Ontario was in Waterport at Brown’s Berry Patch. At Brown’s Berry Patch visitors can pick their own fruit on the farm. Sweet cherries were in season during our visit. At other times during the year visitors can pick their own strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries, elderberries, apples, and pumpkins. We didn’t pick any fruit; however, this appeared to be a favorite pastime as we saw several families entering the farm area with baskets in hand.

Brown’s Berry Patch

Inside Brown’s Berry Patch you will find Lake County Marketplace, where you can buy fresh picked fruits and vegetables, gifts, ice cream, bakery items, sandwiches, subs, salads and wraps. We choose to eat outdoors at the Farm Grill, which featured burgers, hot dogs and fries.

the Farm Grill

From where we ate our burger and fries we had a good view of Barnyard Adventure.

Barnyard Adventure

a Berry-Picking Wagon

Cherries were in season at Brown’s Berry Patch.

Imagine our surprise when we saw goats on top of the barnyard. Children feed the goats using a can on a pulley.

Wouldn’t it be great to have something similar to Brown’s Berry Patch near where you live? I wish Brown’s were closer to where we live. I’m sure we would take our great nephew and great niece there.

After lunch at Brown’s Berry Patch we rode back to our hotel in Batavia, arriving there around 1:45 PM. The fresh air must have made me tired. I took a nap!

We returned home on Monday, June 28th, full of good memories of a great weekend and with plans to make a return visit to Olcott Beach, Golden Hill State Park, Brown’s Berry Patch, AND, yes, to Genesee Country Village and Museum sometime in the future!