NYC to Toronto: And an amazing sunrise in Central Park for my 40th birthday

Day 6 - Birthdays - starting in Central Park and ending up in Toronto

Mark had convinced me I should go and do a sunrise in Central Park - he’d felt so safe there running that he was happy enough to let me go off on my own - catching the first subway of the day up to 72nd St, and heading straight for the lake that borders Bow Bridge. I arrived just as the streaky clouds were lighting up the sky for sunrise - perfect timing. I had such a ball here over a couple of hours wandering to my heart’s content through the same parts of the park I’d explored a few days earlier - but the big difference was NO crowds of tourists - just the odd dog walker and runner. It was a lovely warm morning too - the warmest we’d had so it was really special send-off to our time in New York.

Unfortunately our flight out of NYC was delayed a couple of hours - this time thunderstorms in Toronto - and we had to sit on a small plane (the size of a New Plymouth plane) on the tarmac waiting to see whether we would get there. 

 

Goodbye NYC (on the left), Hello Toronto (on the right!)

Mark had also had a bit of a scare at La Guardia when they told him his Canadian visa hadn’t processed properly but by the time we arrived in Toronto it had obviously been sorted as it wasn’t an issue when we got to Customs. 

By the time we got our car hire sorted and drove to the AirBnB we were pretty ravenous for dinner. After a bit of research (thanks Google) we decided to make our way to WVRST for our official April 10th birthday dinner - it had felt like one big long extended birthday - as people had started wishing us happy birthday right back on Sunday afternoon (April 10 NZ time) and here we were 24 hours later and it was still our birthday Canadian time! The restaurant turned out to be an awesome choice - a funky craft brewery with 25 beers on tap and about the same number of choices of artisan sausages - we tried both the elk and bison sausages and they were mouthwateringly good! 

 

Five days in NYC: Cruising on the Hudson, around Brooklyn Bridge and an Ice Hockey Match

Mark took advantage of a fine Sunday morning to run 10km around Central Park. He was impressed with how safe and serene the park felt at that time of the morning. Just lots of dog walkers and runners out doing exactly the same as him. When he got home, we headed out to the B&H Photo/Video superstore, something I’d been wanting to see with my own eyes. It was a tad overwhelming even finding the camera area and I was very restrained not buying anything I thought. At this point, we had to make our way to a pier a few blocks up for the 2 hour harbour cruise we’d booked. Little legs again were aching, so with all the walking later in the day still to come, we opted for our first taxi cab experience of the holiday. It was cheap as chips, but saved us about 20 minutes of walking - very handy.

The cruise we picked was for 2 hours heading south past the financial district and getting up close to the Statue of Liberty before heading towards Brooklyn and up past the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. The gentlemen who took the tour was very knowledgeable and worth listening to, though I spent most of my time out front of the boat taking photos so it wasn’t terribly easy to hear the running commentary. It was a beautiful day for the cruise with blue skies and high wispy clouds and gave us a great perspective on the city we couldn’t see from up close walking up and down the streets.

After the cruise we made a quick trip to back to the hotel to switch up some gear before catching the subway down to City Hall to make the walk over Brooklyn Bridge. I couldn’t comment on how busy it was walking over the bridge compared with a normal day, but being a super sunny and nice New York afternoon it wasn’t surprising that every man and his dog had the same idea. It was like moving against a sea of people in both directions - probably not as pleasant as it could have been but another thing to tick off the list.

Once we made it to the other side, I parted ways with Mark and the boys. They were off to the ice hockey - New York Islanders vs Ottawa Senators - it had been a big dream for Mark to attend an ice hockey game while in NYC and he managed to get super cheap tickets for the game. This meant of course they were up in the heavens miles from the pitch but an awesome atmosphere nonetheless. The evening was made even more special by Mark finally getting a photo with some NYPD officers - that in itself was amazing, but even more so when the officers pulled out real life NYPD badges and gave these to the boys to keep!

Meanwhile I was kept entertained by the lovely surrounds of photo opportunities down at Brooklyn Bridge - in the end I was here for nearly 4 hours waiting for sunset and just soaking up the last night in the Big Apple. I’d been on somewhat of a photographic mission to try and get a good New York by night shot for our bedroom wall at home - and the night didn’t disappoint. It’ll be a hard choice between some of these shots but I'm sure I have a winner amongst them.

And so ended our last full day in the city. It had been a crazy five days of full-on activity from dawn to dusk  but we really felt as if we'd seen the best New York had to offer and had filled our adventure cups right to the brim. 

The following day we'd be flying to Canada on our actual birthdays - my 40th and Mark's 39th!