Day out in Brooklyn

My friend was kind enough to take me around her neighborhood of Brooklyn on my last day in NY. I hope I have that kind of energy a few decades from now. We walked over the Brooklyn Bridge so I could see things from that perspective, then went to the Brooklyn Public Library and Brooklyn Museum. I rushed back to Times Square to see the Moulin Rouge musical – it was amazing and had additional recent pop music mixed in since the film to make it even more fun. It was a sweet final taste of NY!

 

Brooklyn Bridge

Skyline from the Bridge

Interesting acronym here - DUMBO stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass

Boats out

Checked out the brownstone buildings

Dogwalkers are for real

Great architecture and bustling city life

Gorgeous Brooklyn Public Library – so culturally enriched even just at the entrance

Library is trying to go for a more bookstore vibe to attract readers

Library space looked inviting

Brooklyn Museum had mummies and an interesting explanation of how recent feminist scholarship has shown that some women were honored with male names temporarily to trick the gods, something like that, that it wasn’t a typo like previous scholars thought

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago – a feminist art display from the 1970s – a reimagining of a dinner party with famous women across history (eg Artemisia Gentileschi). Each place setting is customized to a particular woman, and they get more elaborate the closer they get to modern times.

Artemisia Gentileschi place setting

Mary Wollstonecraft place setting

Emily Dickinson place setting

Another beautiful Tiffany stained glass

Classic George

Love that Romanticism

Classic Abe

Kehinde Wiley’s modern take on Napoleon (explanation follows)

Brooklyn Museum

More brownstone buildings

Moulin Rouge musical – amazing and had additional recent pop music mixed in since the film

Downtown was happenin’ at night

 

South Island Itinerary: Mount Cook and Hooker Glacier

On our second day in Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park, we hiked the longer Hooker Valley Track, which took us through a beautiful, almost enchanted glacial valley with mountain peaks towering over us on either side and lots of snow and fog. The peak of Aoraki stayed stubbornly shrouded in cloud, but it was still majestic in its mystery. The end point was a lake full of bits of ice, and people were dumbly trying to stand on it to see if it would hold their weight (yes, I might have tried it a bit too - the thrill and sound of cracking ice are too cool!). We had to cross several swing bridges there and back, and the rain started up just as we made it back to the parking lot - we were quite lucky in the weather while here! This walk and photos will definitely be a long time in memory.

You can just make out the glaciers

weta bug near the restrooms

Gorgeous mirror effect in the lake

Rob Roy Glacier Hike

I planned on doing the biggest and longest hike -- the Rob Roy Glacier Hike -- on our first full day after arriving in Queenstown to ensure we would have the energy to finish it. And it's a good thing I love glaciers, because it was a hard day for sure. To get to the start of the track, it was an hour to Lake Wanaka, then another hour, which I hadn't realized.

rough idea how far the glacier area was from Queenstown

The last 30km were on an unpaved farm road, and 30km doesn't sound like a lot until you're on an unpaved road for that long and your hands are going numb from the vibrating steering wheel and you're wondering when you are finally going to be done with it. We saw a glacier on the way there which helped encourage us to stick it out. Like the guidebook said, there were 9 fords to cross on that road. Thankfully, none were too bad. When we finally made it to the parking lot, we were glad to see many other cars there and other hikers preparing to start out.

this was a promising sight while on the dirt road -- a glacier!

I was not prepared for the blasting winds and droplets of rain/river water pinging my face as we traversed the first section of open fields. It literally stopped me in my tracks and almost bowled me over several times. I was tempted to turn back, but I saw that the track went into forest ahead and figured that that would cut down on the viciousness of the weather.

We made it across the swing bridge and settled into a slow but steady hike with our rainhoods on to keep out the constant sprinkling. We hadn't hiked in a while, and it was uphill most of the way. We reached the Lower Lookout after 2 hours and were tempted to head back, but the view wasn't that great and since we'd come all this way, we decided to keep going the 30 minutes more to the Upper Lookout. So glad we did! The view of the waterfalls and several glaciers was great, despite the rain making it difficult to photograph. It's hard to capture the sounds of the hike -- the river running alongside most of the track was so loud, it was hard to think sometimes, but that's part of the enjoyment of hiking for me. The wind blew one of the waterfalls sideways at one point which was fun to watch.

view from the Lower Lookout

view from the Upper Lookout

Glaciers are awesome!

The hike back was difficult because of having to go downhill -- hard on the knees. A few groups of fresh hikers passed us and I felt relieved to be on the way back to the carpack, not just starting out. Of course, now we had to go back another 30km on that dirt road. We did get to witness sheep crossing a bridge in front of us and took a video of them running and leaping to avoid the car. Their "bahs" are so cute! We stopped briefly in Wanaka to stretch our legs, then made the drive back to Queenstown.