10 September Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island

Interesting fact; entrance to the national parks at Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island museum are free. You only pay for the ferry to take you there and, if there are tickets available to climb to the crown of Liberty, the add on tours. When I looked online back in May crown tours were already sold out for September. Today the first available date is in December.

When we arrive at the dock to board the ferry there are long lines of barriers for crowd control, but today there are no lines of people and we walk straight on. An advantage of visiting NY in quieter September. The ride is quick, the upper decks full of passengers with cameras at the ready to catch that perfect shot.

Life size

Disembarked we are shown where to collect our free audio guides and we begin exploring and learning. The story of the Statue of Liberty is very interesting and seeing this icon of America close up well worth the trip. There's a new museum with lots more visual info to complete the story and a full size replica of her face.

Ellis Island registration hall

Those who arrived

Ellis Island entrance

It took us more than two hours to see everything before we continued on to Ellis Island. The museum in the building is vast and we were suffering from information overload. Three floors of exhibits, illustrations and history took the rest of the day and I think we caught almost the last ferry of the day back to The Battery. The weather had improved with the sun shining more later in the day and this was when I got the better pictures to remember the day.

However, we weren't finished. We'd arranged to meet an old friend, Laurie Griffith, who lives in New York. We met Laurie on our honeymoon in Africa eleven years ago and have kept in touch through Facebook. Laurie, us and two girls from Bosnia who were in Africa as medical volunteers booked the same three day kayaking and camp on the Zambezi.

Navigating the NY Metro in rush hour was a challenge in interpretation for newbies to the city. First I made the mistake of getting on a train heading south not north and having to find the corresponding uptown line at the next station. Line found and we board the train and it's an express meaning not stopping at all stations. But does it stop at the one we want to get off at? No. So we got off and waited for the following 'all stops' service. I thought I was a savvy traveller on the underground but the NY subway beat me today.

In the end we made our rendezvous on time, had a wonderful catch up with Laurie and a tasty barbecue dinner. By the time we got back to Jackster it was past 11pm and we were tuckered out.