Day 6 - Thursday 12th March 2020

I woke up feeling a bit anxious about travelling back. Kathryn was able to check us in, and we went out for breakfast again. We wanted to do something fairly substantial for our last day, and so we went on the ferry again. But this time, we travelled all the way up to midtown up the East River.

Pier 11 ferry terminal

The ferry stopped at the Brooklyn Bridge, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and then made it's way up the river, before we got off on Roosevelt Island. This is about level with Central Park. We had some nice view along the way of the skyline down in Downtown and Midtown. We didn't venture onto the open deck as it was a bit cold, about seven degrees according to the sign. We also didn't see any sunshine, just clouds today.

Brooklyn Naval Yard

Manhattan Bridge from the ferry

Power station in Manhattan on the riverside

View of Midtown, UN is the white building on the right

Another view of Midtown, Chrysler Buidling is just in the middle

Williamsburg Bridge

After disembarking, we made our way to this shuttle thing that run from the island back to Manhattan. It's official name is a the Roosevelt Island Tramway, it's kind of like a ski gondola lift thing. We were able to get straight onto it, and it's just the same as the subway.

Entrance to tramway

The journey was pretty quick, about 5 minutes from after we set off. It was surprisingly scary experience. However, it did have some nice views and a unique perspective on the infrastructure. The last few minutes took as directly over one of the avenue, literally about 10 metres off the ground.

View of bridge from tramway

Another view of bridge

Tramway descending into Manhattan

View of downtown avenue, traffic going updown

Same view again, next avenue over, traffic going downtown

Afterwards, the whole journey uptown had taken us to twelve o'clock. Therefore, we jumped straight back on the subway to the Financial Distrct to have lunch. We had a pizza at a nice restaurant which was a good thing to have for lunch before travelling. We came back to the apartment, packed our bags and cleaned. Smiti was getting an earlier flight back, so we wanted to make sure everything looks good for her arrival.

We left at about half past three for our flight at half seven. Getting on to the subway was easy, we had a short wait to get the train which was for the airport. It was about three trains until the right one turned up. It's a pretty quick journey, going to Howard Beach/JFK is definitely the best way. Most tourists are advised to go via Jamaica Center which is often very busy. In comparison, there is virtually no-one at this stop, so no queues to use the ticket machines.

Check-in JRK

I was very relieved to be at the airport which is unusual for me. We got our bags checked, and had a short wait of about 40 minutes to get through security. We had a little McDonalds meal as a treat so that I didn't need to eat on the plane. I hate airplane food! We departed about on time, and it took us about 30 minutes in the queue to take off. The flight was pretty uneventful, I managed to get some sleep. It took about five and a half hours.

Plane home

We were able to get through immigrations fairly quickly in Manchester and on to a train that departed at five minutes past seven. It is always such a struggle to stay awake. We made it back to our house at about twenty past nine, so I think the total journey time was about 14 hours door to door.