New York; Sunday, 18 December, 2022

Another 6am wake up, so I once again had an early breakfast and then headed out of the hotel back down to the southern tip of Manhattan, this time though to pick up the ferry for the very short trip across to Governors Island.

Located about 800m south of Manhattan this small island has been an important fortification point overlooking the city and harbour for centuries, before becoming a coast guard station for a while prior to the eventual sale of the island back to the city in the early 2000s. Today it’s a public park which used to just be open in the summer, but is now open all year round, albeit with most of the buildings on the site closed during the winter months including both of the two forts.

However, it’s still an interesting small island to have a walk around, and to take in the excellent views from the island across the channels to Liberty and Ellis Islands, as well as good views of the southern tip of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Jersey City. I spent a couple of hours wandering around the island before hopping back on the ferry back to the mainland.

I stopped off for a quick lunch before visiting the former Customs Office located on Bowling Green at the southern end of the main financial district. The grand building is now home to the National Museum of the American Indian which looks at the history of the native peoples from across the Americas from Patagonia up to the Arctic, and I spent about an hour looking around the exhibits there.

From the museum I walked north a couple of blocks to Wall Street, where outside the New York Stock Exchange the largest Christmas Tree I’d seen in the city was standing – trust the bankers to one-up everyone else. From Wall Street I decided to hop onto the subway and head north up to 86th street, about the mid-point (albeit a couple of blocks back) from Central Park, and then headed down there.

I spent a good couple of hours wandering around the lower half of Central Park, including taking in the Belvedere, The Rambles and ending up overlooking the Ice Skating rink as the last of light of the day disappeared, the rink illuminated both by flood lights, but also all the light coming off of the surrounding skyscrapers.

From Central Park I wandered back down to the hotel as it was only about 10 blocks away, getting back in time to grab dinner. After all that walking and then stopping for dinner I felt the several miles of walking catch up with my legs and feet so I decided to stay in the hotel for the evening and then have an early night – given my body clock hadn’t got any idea what the time was now I though, with an overnight flight the following night, I would probably best just to sleep when I felt tired and hope I could sort it all out once I got home.