We decided to give our legs a good stretch prior to the long flight home, so set off early for a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge.

On the way we stopped at Brewklyn, our new favourite coffee shop in New York – a great little place with a friendly owner who clearly took a lot of care in makin his coffee, with good results.

The walk to the bridge took us through more of Brooklyn, and despite the early hour, it was already hot and sticky. How we are going to cope with Melbourne’s cooler weather, I’m not sure. 

 Up close, the Brooklyn bridge is really a spectacular bit of engineering. A raised pedestrian walkway runs across the middle of the bridge, and provides magnificent views down to Liberty Island and New Jersey as well as up the river to Queens and uptown Manhattan.

There were lots of pedestrians and cyclists making the way across the bridge, a mix of commuters, tourists and posers – beautiful people seem to hang around wanting to be “discovered”. Two blokes in tuxedos were getting their photo taken by a professional with the financial district in the background – we weren’t sure if it was modelling or a wedding photo.

All up the walk to Manhattan and back was around 12km, so we were happy to plonk ourselves down in the hotel and get showered ready for the big trip. A decent (and cheap!) Mexican lunch and it was time to head for the airport, where I’m writing this now.

We have just discovered that our NY to LA flight has been delayed by 90 minutes so we have been re-routed via Sydney. Thanks, Qantas.