Category Archives: travel

food, friends, national park, roadtrip, travel, UK, vehicles

Right south & well north

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With a perfectly timed transfer from Southampton Central to the fast ferry terminal on a free bus, I got a ticket & boarded the fast ferry to Cowes with not a moment to spare. It worked out even better, as the ferry landed just as Ben was getting home from work & was able to walk down to the terminal & show me the short route to their house. The centre of Cowes is a cute little village with cobbled twisty streets, a fair percentage of sailing & boutique shops & their flat is only about fifty metres walk off the main street – fantastic location. I had however missed the chaos of Cowes Week a week or so before – when the place is one big sailing festival.

Gina had to work a little late, so we were charged with tea. Of course a scaled down version of one of the many Wellington St barbecues was in order. Scaled down because it was a very small charcoal burner & we were a little short of charcoal – with only three more weeks left in the country for Ben & Gina, there was little point of getting more. A short walk (1oo metres) to the supermarket topped us with essentials – Ben was particularly pleased at getting the small keg of Heineken that he had his eye on for a while. Eventually we were able to pour a glass of beer that wasn’t all head! The rest of the night was spent eating & catching up & sharing travel stories – I was even more surprised to find a second group of people to sit through the best of my American photos in less than a week.

After a fitful night’s sleep in the attic (no curtains & a pub just over the road & springs that felt they were coming out of the mattress to make the acquaintance of innards), I was happy to doze until much too late & got up well after Ben & Gina had gone off to work. What remained of my morning I strolled around Cowes & some surrounding areas & enjoyed the sunshine. After a bit for a late lunch I took the chain ferry across the river to East Cowes. One of five left in Britain it drags itself the hundred-odd metres back & forth the river all day on two rather large chains.

Also called a floating bridge, it was free for pedestrians & after the very short voyage I was off walking up the hill to visit Osborne House. Osborne house was built by Victoria & Albert & was a favourite residence of theirs to spend time in with their family & away from the public eye. The tour of the house was extensive (no photos inside unfortunately) – as well as the state apartments & the family’s living area, I found the table dresser’s room in the basement interesting. This is where the elaborate table settings were designed & made. I had wondered why we never saw the kitchen – Gina told me later that Victoria did not like food being cooked in the house (to do with the smell I think), so it was all done in a building not far away from the house.

The grounds & gardens were extensive & I enjoyed the remainder of the afternoon strolling around these & checking out the old ice store & the little fort that Albert had made for his children. I arrived home just after Ben & Gina had got home – it was soon off to a pub for dinner & then an early night as we were off to Cornwall early the next morning. We had a 4.30 sailing to Lymington, so the alarm was due to go off at 3.30 (it is a little drive through small IOW streets to Yarmouth).

So, up early & fed – it was off to catch an uneventful ferry (who wants eventful at half past four in the morning) to Lymington & Ben heroically drove us all the way to Cornwall & the Eden Project. I dozed a little in the back & was pleased when we got past all the caravans & arrived by nine o’clock. The Eden Project, with its two big Biomes (biological domes I assume) was quite interesting.

The bigger of the biomes was plants & climate of rainforest from around the world – thankfully it wasn’t too hot & only slightly humid. The smaller of the biomes was dedicated to plants from Mediterranean-like climates – the Mediterranean obviously, California & South Africa spring to mind. I’m not much of a horticulurist, but it was all pretty interesting – the stand out being the plant that curled its leaves up or drooped its stalks the instant you touched it, we spent quite awhile prodding it just to see it curl up in defence. Gina was quite disappointed that she could not buy one to take home to NZ.

In another building they had some big contraptions (overly complicated machines) made from all sorts of used steel products that went through a very elaborate process to crush hazelnuts – a bit like a machine you would expect to find in Wallace & Gromit.

Also in this building was a massive sculpture of a pine cone made out of a huge piece of Cornwall stone.

We were pleased to have missed most of the crowds & left slightly after noon to try & find somewhere to stay the night. One of Ben’s workmates had recommended Fowey as a nice little place. So we headed off there & parked well above the centre of town as we had to walk down a steep hill down some very narrow twisty streets (one way only & no parking). It turned out that a week long regatta was starting the next day & consequently, the town was packed. Somehow we managed to find beds for the night – so we climbed up the hill again & I think we passed a bit of the afternoon napping after the early start. Much of the rest of the day was spent walking around the town, sitting next to the harbour, eating & drinking – early night for all.

Sunday afforded us a nice sleep in – almost five hours on the previous day – & a large English breakfast to get us going (or slow us down). We were particularly impressed by all the local produce in the breakfast (all from less than ten miles away) – the mushrooms were easily the best I have had in a long time. We had to make our way back to Southampton by 7pm for Ben & Gina to catch a ferry back to IOW & me to train back up to London. I’m not sure how we settled on where to go for a walk, but we were keen to get out & stretch our legs (Ben & Gina need all the leg-stretching they can get – they are shortly off to Macchu Picchu) & headed off to Castle Drogo in Dartmoor National Park. Along the way we passed dozens & dozens of caravans & became proficient at identifying each make & model from a distance. The English also seem to like buying small cars & then realising they don’t have enough space for fitting everything in, so buy poxy little box trailers that have wheels the size of dinner plates & tow them along – it looks ridiculous. Although, kudos to the slightly large ones with bikes on top.

Arriving at Castle Drogo, we decided not to fork out the entry fee as Ben & Gina had seen too many castles already, & it was only built in the early twentieth century & didn’t look all that impressive. Instead we walked down Teign Gorge for a couple of miles admiring the view & getting to Fingle Bridge – a nice skinny bridge (we saw a Corolla find that it was much too skinny & leave a deposit of red paint on the walls of the bridge) & river & an inn & nothing much else apart from walkers & those out for Sunday lunch.

Completing a loop of a extra mile or so, we walked along beside the river for a while & then climbed out of the valley & back to the car to head off to Southampton. Along the way Gina managed to tick Devonshire tea & scones off her list as we stopped at a small B&B serving such wonderful homemade delights. Yum.

Got back in time for a earlier ferry for Ben & Gina; I missed a train by about twenty seconds & had to wait another half an hour, but I was home in Sidcup before 8.30, so that was good. The rest of that night & the next morning was spent organising enough clean clothes & good clothes for a funeral & two or three weeks in Edinburgh.

More trains in to London, across London & up to Retford, I was met by Mum’s only maternal cousin Tony & we were back to his house to prepare for his father’s funeral. Although not the best occasion for it, it was great to catch up with family – somehow I think I became a Spurs supporter (family allegiance & all that). Thankfully, I’m not much of an expert on funerals, but I think it went OK. I was surprised to see the limo we rode in was a big stretched Aussie LTD sedan & the hearse was a flashed up Falcon with a lot of glass & higher ceiling.

Tuesday afternoon saw me on another train – now I’m in Edinburgh & it’s nice to be back & especially during the festival – the weather is much as I remember it for summer, mostly cloudy & drizzling, with patches of sun. I haven’t quite worked out why (unsure if it’s just the festival time) but there is so much trash around on the street – I’m not sure I’ve seen anything like it outside of Asia. They seem to have small wheeled skips on the residential streets for depositing household trash & recycling in – only problem is they must get overfilled, as a lot of it is on the ground. I’m staying with a guy that Mum used to nanny a fair few years ago. Thomas has a flat about twenty minutes walk from the centre of everything, so it’s really convenient. Haven’t done too much, just getting settled & have seen a couple of street shows – & finally saw the Half-Blood Prince (where were you Elizabeth?), it was OK – mostly a lot of development, like the book really.

A curious anomaly in NZ English – we say ‘route’ as the English do, pronounced ‘root’; yet we say ‘router’ (as in a networking device) as Americans do, pronounced ‘rowt-er’, but laugh at them for pronouncing ‘route’ as ‘rowt’. I’m not sure if that makes sense or not, but I thought it amusing. While I’m on differences, it’s pleasing to be in a country where there are lights installed in ceilings in living areas & you don’t have to rely on lamps; also, I’m back in a country where switches (lights, power etc) are off at the top & on at the bottom – I never really worked out why the Americans would do this the opposite way around – units & driving I can understand, but this just seems so contary to every way I’ve ever know. It’s also nice having pound coins & no dollar bills.

friends, travel, USA, vehicles

Goodbye America, for now

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That great time for updating the blog has arrived – travelling. It’s my last few hours in the USA & the international part of Philadelphia International Airport doesn’t have as many flights & airlines as some of the bigger international airports – so I flew through check-in & then security with only a couple of minutes of waiting. Consequently, I now have two hours to pass before boarding for Frankfurt. The convenience of flying from Philly & sticking with Lufthansa for the airdollars means I have a couple of extra hours from that German dogleg on the way to Heathrow. On the upside, I’ve managed to get through my US trip without buying too much stuff to push me over the generous baggage limit (which I’ve been pretty close to the whole time) & my travel agent back in NZ must have pulled the right strings & got Lufthansa to waive their ridiculous $US200 fee for flying with a bike (even when it is undersize & underweight).

Since returning from DC, I’ve been pretty lazy overall & haven’t really done all that much. Just generally hanging with the Lindes & amusing Katarina & pleasantly getting back in to reading a few books (some fiction, some non-fiction – the most interesting of which was about the surveying of the States beyond the Appalachians & also explained how the country is still stuck with archaic set of physical units that it uses).

One morning last week, Doug & I rode out & around Lake Galena – mercifully, the humidity & temperature were not quite unbearable. As it was midweek the path around the lake wasn’t too crowded & it was a pleasant ride; on the way back we detoured a little & Doug showed me a huge Polish Catholic church & associated facility. The place started in the sixties (I think) & apparently it is well patronised by Poles from New York & New Jersey.

Continuing with the theme of different religions – on Thursday we took a day trip out west to Lancaster County & dropped the kids with Jessica’s parents on the way. Lancaster County was one of the first places in America that the Amish, Meddonites & Amish Meddonites (I forget all the differences, but the Amish are the most conservative) established themselves. As well as showing me the area & the people & part of their lives, Doug & Jessica were on the lookout for a couple large collapseable wooden drying racks – I think I marvelled at the Amish furniture making skills previously. So over the course of the day we stopped & browsed around numerous furniture stores & I was no less amazed at the quality & sturdiness of the craftmanship. We eventually got a couple of drying racks from the first store that we visited – in the amusingly named town of Intercourse.

We spent a couple of hours with Ada, an older Amish-Meddonite woman, sitting in the back of the CRV guiding us around the local area while she pointed out & explained different aspects of Amish life. It was all very interesting & quaint as one would expect – from the buggies,

one room schools, horse drawn farm equipment,

all sorts of implements running on compressed air (generated using diesel engine, instead of electricity) – I was intruiged by the ceiling fan with the air piston – the communal telephone in a little hut some distance walk from the houses,

the plain but large houses & barns, scooters instead of bicycles, to the plain dress. We stopped at a few stores where the Amish have gone in to cottage industries as the land is becoming more & more scarce & therefore expensive. The quilts were all hand stitched & incredible and the soft pretzels were amazing; there was the huge variety of produce, preserves & so forth that we had seen at the markets in the Poconos. Back to have dinner & collect the kids, it was then back to Doylestown.

Friday I was planning on going in to Philly & riding the singletrack at Fairmount. Alas, the weather forecast discouraged me from that – over the next few days we would have a big storm some time in the afternoon. I quite liked seeing the rain & always like big thunder storms – Katarina had quite different ideas however. Sunday was a cracker of a downpour with some quite good flooding in the storm water overflow area across the road & also in the yard & a little in the basement.

The only other thing of real note from the remainder of my stay in Doylestown was being bitten by a dog (just a scratch really, but more of a surprise – considering I’d just walked the entire length of the section on the sidewalk past it) – I suppose that is a disadvantage of the unfenced sections. There doesn’t seem to be Animal Control to call, so I got to talk to another of America’s finest late on Saturday night. Thought I better get a medical opinion as I wasn’t too thrilled by the very slim possibility that I might die of rabies in a few months. So the family clinic wouldn’t see me, so it was down to the Emergency Room of the hospital for me. In the space of an hour I think I had my blood pressure & temperature taken, answer enough questions to fill in three or four forms, was told that it wasn’t infected (duh) & rabies is not common in the area. When it came to explaining that billing me next week was not really going to work as I would be in Britain, things got a little complicated. When I was told that I should pay five hundred dollars, I laughed a lot – I couldn’t help it. What a screwed up system. Yay for travel insurance.

My last few days in Doylestown consisted of too many little treats from various food shops in town (wonderfull organic thin crust pizza, water ice, gelati, ice custard & so forth), amusing Katarina, changing the brake pads & tyres on my bike (varying success on the brakes – one rubs a lot, one seems to have some air still in the system), packing, watching the Phillies (lose a lot) on TV (I think baseball is a lot like cricket – it can be really slow at times, exciting in other parts, but a lot of interest is in the details – of which I don’t really understand for baseball).

So now I’m in London & it’s great to see familiar faces & places again – Vittoria has grown & there is a new addition to the family, Amelie. My longing to hear a NZ accent was fulfilled earlier than I expected – shared the flight from Frankfurt to Heathrow with a couple from Invercargill. They had just finished four weeks of campervanning around central & west Europe with their kids. It was great to swap travel stories & even find an Oamaru connection (boarding school at St Kevin’s). Sure was great to have some bread that wasn’t full of sugar, but I’m sure there are some things that I’ll miss from the States (wide streets spring to mind for some reason). A big thanks to the Lindes for having me to stay & taking me all sorts of places.

friends, travel, USA

Bacon?

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Realising how exhausted & lethargic I was from my time in NYC, it was great to be going away for a long weekend up in the Poconos to do be doing very little. So Thursday morning we managed to get organised & packed up & left for the hour an a half of driving approximately north. Driving around Pennsylvania is a lot different to out west – there aren’t as many of the big 8-10 lanes on each side freeways, but rather a lot of smaller dual carriageways that connect all sorts of places to each other. Stopped for gas (it seems to be coming down – less than $2.40 for a gallon) & made it to Stoddardsville for a late lunch. Unfortunately the kids weren’t too appreciative of the change in routinue – as we were continually reminded over the next two days. Stoddardsville is quite the has-been town. It is on the Lehigh River & back at the start of the nineteenth century it was expanded by a guy called Stoddard & was quite the little boomtown – awaiting a canal that was to have been built up to the town. Of course, the canal never quite made it & the so the town never made it & Stoddard went bankrupt. All the infrastructure was pretty much left & there are a few ruins of the mill & other buildings lying around. Now there are ten or so houses on either side of the river which are mostly just used in the summer. Our tie to the place is that Jessica’s grandparents used to live in the old mill house & Jessica spent a fair bit of time during her childhood here. After her grandmother’s death the house ended up in the hands of a local guy who has worked hard at preserving the local history.

Pulling up to the house it was obviously quite old (never did find out exactly how old – greater than a hundred years) & it had sprawling grounds down to the river with some great big trees around.

Apparently it was built before studs were common practice & so the walls are solid walls of up to eighteen boards of wood – it would explain why the lighting in the house was so poor – retro-fitted wiring must have been a nightmare. The floors were wonderfully unlevel; the basement was what I have come to expect from Bill Bryson’s stories – dark, damp, low-ceilinged, with an ominous looking furnace & fuel oil tanks; the furniture was old; a warren of rooms upstairs; a large attic further up. Adding to the old setting, the place had been turned in to a mini-museum by John Butler (the only guy I’ve ever been introduced to as “Commander” [ret.]) – the guy who is preserving Stoddardsville, with old photos & captions, newspaper clippings, models of ships & submarines, letters (some from George Washington) to do with the settling of the area, the Wyoming Massacre, the Revolutionary War, WW2 & all sorts. It was like staying my own Night at the Museum. As we had climbed a bit from home, the temperature was about ten degrees cooler & pleasantly, the humidity had dropped right off from home. Apart from the kids, it was very peaceful & I found a Patricia Cornwall paperback lying around & probably spent the rest of the afternoon napping & reading. Popped down to river that evening for Doug to see if he could hook a fish & Katarina to throw stones in.

After a nice lie in Friday, Doug & I loaded up our bikes & drove twenty minutes to a state forest to see if we could find somewhere to ride. We had some luck in finding a place to park & then we followed a gravel road up & into the woods. It was quite nice to be out riding in the woods & not really caring where we were going. On the way back we wandered down an emergency access road in between high-fenced deer exclusion zones & suddently came out in a clearing & found a hunting lodge in the middle of nowhere – not really what we were expecting. After returning for lunch, it was out again for another ride – this time with Jessica in to the nearest town (a few miles uphill) to post mail, check voicemail & most importantly, get some donuts. By dinner that night, the kids still hadn’t settled at all, so we had to open another bottle of wine to help us through. It quietened down a bit when everyone else went on a nice settling drive & I stayed behind to do the dishes & read.

Saturday morning, we all loaded up to go to a couple of markets in town – the first mostly run by Amish. They had a lot of home grown fruit, vegetable, meat, cakes & so on. Their wooden furniture was very solid & well constructed – & very comfortable. I didn’t think any of it would fit in my luggage, so wasn’t really tempted to haul a very fancy gazebo to London. The second market was just plain strange – it was mostly just a whole heap of junk. Similar really to the exhibit at the MOMA, except these people seemed to expect people to pay money for their rubbish. At least I know where to go if I ever want scores of cassette tapes, VHS tapes, Master System II, Nintendo 64 or Atari games. Back for lunch & put the kids down for naps.

That afternoon, family friends of the Lindes turned up to stay for the night. Scott grew up with Doug & now works on the golf course Doug grew up on – Scott’s family is his wife Lisa, & two boys Noah & Deacon (older than Katarina) & daughter Gracie (two in October). Katarina seemed to quite like Deacon & followed him around a fair bit & generally settled down a lot. It was quite different having noisy, active & adventurous boys around. A lot more time down at the river throwing stones, fishing, climbing rocks, swinging, letting off fireworks & making & devouring Smores (roasting marshmallows, & sandwiching them between biscuits & Hersheys). Also treated to perhaps the loosest interpretation of a haka I have ever seen & an amusing attempt at charades by the boys. And somewhere in all of that, I finished my book – it was OK, but a pretty weak ending – I hate it when someone gets the main character out of a bind with the psychopath & the author doesn’t have the decency to explain why they were even there. Still it was nice to be reading a book again.

Sunday was pack up & clean morning, with a bit of time down at the waterfall & river. I don’t remember much else of Sunday – except I had my first Philly cheesesteak – it was good & Doug & I went for a good workout ride around Doylestown after dinner. Monday Jessica & the kids & I brought home a big pile of books from the library – I’ve already finished a good Harry Bosch one. In the afternoon Doug & I went out to the golf course he grew up on (Scott is the greenskeeper there now) & did some measurements on a couple of the greens, before we were off to Limeport Stadium to watch a ballgame. Doug used to play for these Dodgers & it was neat to be at a local level game & try & understand baseball a bit more (there’s not too much to it & I’ve seen a few major league games on TV). There was a good sized crowd in & the game started with a hiss & a roar after the Star-spangled Banner played & our pitcher had a shocking first innings. The vistors were up by four runs straight away & I thought it was going to be quite exciting – alas, there was only one more run in the next thirteen innings & our team was held to love (to borrow a tennis term). A cool night watching the game, even if it wasn’t the most interesting, & trying to explain cricket to a few people – they seemed to get some idea.

It’s raining today, so I’ve mostly been reading & trying not to think about packing to go back to San Diego tomorrow for one night & appearing in front of a judge. From San Diego I’m off to DC for five nights.

city, engineering, travel, USA

The rest of NYC

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Sunday morning it was off downtown to catch a tour of Brooklyn – still didn’t get to go over the Brooklyn Bridge as it is so old it can only take cars, pedestrians & bikes.

Another gorgeous day, with temperatures in the mid-seventies & none of the humidity I had been warned about. Brooklyn (would be the third largest city in the States if it was a city in its own right) was OK – but as it wasn’t a hop-on, hop-off bus it was hard to see much behind the main streets.

Back over the East River & walked a bit around downtown with the aim of getting up to Chinatown to find the three regular Flight of the Conchords outdoor locations. On the way wandered past Bodies: The Exhibition, that the tour guide had recommended – decided I might as well go in. The exhibit was really well done – basically it was quite a lot of (dozens) of cadavers dissected & preserved in numerous different ways (& quite a few posed in different actions – as opposed to just standing) to exhibit all the different systems in the human body (muscular, nervous, digestive, bones, circulatory, all organs & so on). The placards were really good at explaining how it all worked & while about half-way through it got a little stomach churning, it was well done & it was staggering just how complex our bodies are (I always knew they were, but this hit it home). Fortunately or unfortunately, there was no photography allowed (probably fortunately) – the weirdest thing was none of the bodies had skin, but they all still had finger & toenails. So quite the different thing for me to do – can’t say I’ve ever held a human brain or liver before – but well worthwhile.

It was a bit more a walk up to Chinatown & as I wandered off the main streets looking for Bret & Jermaine’s apartment building, I quickly realised I was the only white face around – it definitely did feel like the biggest Chinatown in America.

Just had to wander in to one of the supermarkets & marvel at all the live fish & seafood & all sorts of other strange & exotic fruits & vegetable (& some quite normal ones). Found the apartment building & also the pawnshop – but being Sunday it wasn’t open. The Consulate building on East Broadway was deserted & quite a dump – but at least there was no one pulling the fingers outside our consulate, alas I couldn’t say hi to tech support girl.

From here it was a short walk to Little Italy, which as been crowded out & shrunk by Chinatown – it’s just a touristy street or two full of Italian restaurants & souvenir shops & tourists. Being one of the said tourists, I couldn’t really resist a bowl of cheesy pasta (not nearly as cheesy as the four-cheeses in Devonport – oh, you of little Faith). Hopped on a bus to take me back to midtown (after buying a couple of t-shirts from a young artists’ market – I think that’s as close to a souvenir I have come to buying so far). Next it was off to the Top of the Rock (Rockefeller Centre), at about eight-something floors up, for some stunning views of Manhattan & over to New Jersey & the other four boroughs.

There must have been a bit of time left in the day so I thought I’d pop in to Madame Tussaud’s as it was one of the things close to the hostel that was still open & covered by my New York pass. At $35 admission, it was the most expensive entry of all the things I’d been to & by far the most overpriced – I would have been severely peeved if I had forked out to get in there & look at models of celebrities & some people with accomplishments to their names. Still it wasn’t all bad, just not worth that amount of money. The long days of sightseeing were starting to take their toll, so it was back to the hostel for an earlier night & catch up on world happenings & sorting photos.

Monday morning started out at the NBC Studio tour (Rockefeller Center) – it was quite interesting to see the some of the studios, but as I wasn’t familiar with the news & sports programs that the ones we went in were dedicated to, it wasn’t spectacular – the Saturday Night Live set was marginally more enjoyable; it was however amusing to watch a couple of kids in our group volunteer to be a newsreader & weather presenter. From there I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Some neat sculptures outside, & I had my height, name & the date recorded on a whitewalled room along with thousands of other visitors – it had a neat effect (the whole artwork, not just my name).

Naturally there was a lot of other works – some I was quite impressed by,

but most were just plain weird in that it didn’t really look deserving of being in such a museum. A whole room was filled with items that an artist’s mother (in China somewhere, possibly Hong Kong) had hoarded over many years, so as to be able to keep something just in case it could be refashioned or reused. It was astonishing just how many used everyday items were there dating back twenty or thirty years. After too many more unfulfilled architectural hopes & dreams, I was out of there for some lunch before wandering down to the Empire State Building to go up to have a look at NYC from the observation deck. While the ESB is taller than the Top of the Rock, the latter was much more preferable – I’m not sure if this was due to the view being slightly different or the much larger crowds as the ESB or something else (don’t pay for the Skyride simulator at the ESB – ok, but not worth it in a similar way to Madame Tussaud’s).

From the ESB I decided I would walk all the way down to the Hudson (near to where that plane ditched after birdstrike earlier in the year) & see if I get myself on a evening river cruise. On the way, I found a replacement pair of Merrels for the ones I’ve been wearing for close to three years (I’m not that hard on shoes) & not wanting to carry the old ones back to Philly or have the spare luggage capacity, I went all Jack Reacher & threw them in the first trash bin I could find. Managed to get a ticket on a 6.30 cruise that would go down the Hudson, across to the Statue of Liberty & up the East River before returning past downtown. Had a delightful Thai meal while wandering & waiting for the boat to board. The cruise was a very pleasant way to take a load off my feet & see Manhattan, New Jersey, Brooklyn & Queens from the water & the commentary was informative, but light.

For my last day in NYC I decided to visit spend a little more time in the boroughs outside of Manhattan. So it was on the subway uptown early in the morning to walk around the Bronx. From the train I wandered the streets & then found myself walking up Bronx Park & went in to the NY Botanical Gardens. Such a peaceful retreat from the city (although there is little escaping overhead planes) & I happily strolled around the rambling grounds – I think I preferred this area to Central Park as it was less groomed, more wild & you could walk for quarter of an hour & not see another soul. The rose garden was a bit of a disappointment (I have vivid memories of the one in the Esplanade in Palmy for some reason to compare it to), but I was still enjoying the quiet. From the gardens I wandered down the edge of Bronx Park & found myself at having to get across the park to the subway line – with this in mind I used my NY Pass to get in to the Bronx Zoo amongst a lot of kids on summer camps (one of the hazards of being a tourist in the States during summer holidays). After being spoilt rotten in San Diego, the zoo didn’t do much for me – although the polar bear was in a rather playful mood, so that was interesting. Beating a hasty escape & walking a few more blocks I found the subway line overhead & wandered around the town centre for a while, grabbed some white pizza (I’m still unsure what was actually on it – creamed cheese perhaps) for lunch & then road the train down to Brooklyn.

The main reason for going back to Brooklyn was to walk back over its bridge, but there was also the transit museum to check out. This was housed in a disused subway station, consequently it had a lot of historic subway cars on the lower levels. I found the place pretty interesting – especially the train & subway part – the bit about building roads & bridges was pretty ho-hum. Useless fact – the MTA (they run the public transport in NYC) is the biggest user of dollar coins. Another quick rush around what I had left of the museum, as it closed at four & it was out in to daylight again to join all the other tourists walking across the Brooklyn bridge taking pictures like these. Ducking off the bridge earlier than most, I was off downtown via any route I could find (not difficult) to catch the free ferry to Staten Island. I had planned, once on Staten Island, to take the train half way down the line & get off & have a look around at whatever was there. But after five days of pounding sidewalks, my feet were starting to protest so I walked a little around the waterfront & then settled down for a great dinner that was probably two or three days’ worth of food spending – but the NZ lamb was great & it was almost still alive – mmmmm. Nice setting sun on the trip back to Manhattan.

So that was pretty much my time in NYC – fantastic place with so much going on & so much to see & do.