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New York to start a New Year

In New York, boy, money really talks – I’m not kidding

The Catcher in The Rye

When I moved to Vancouver, one of the places high on my list to visit during my time here was New York City. I first saw New York in July 2011 and it was everything everyone had hyped it to be, and more. To top it off, back then the Aussie dollar was worth more than the greenback so I was able to spend a good 5-6 weeks in the US , including 10 in NYC, without burning a hole in my pocket.

But that was an exceptional time. For someone in Australia, New York straddles the inconvenient circumstances of being at least two flights and 20 hours away, as well as enormously expensive. And since it’s so far away you can’t just spend a few days there.

From Vancouver it’s only 5 hours away, and with plans to return to Australia in 2020, as well as a week off over Christmas – it seemed the obvious time to tick ‘Christmas in New York’ off the list. To top it off The Strokes were playing a New Years Eve show.

It didn’t disappoint. Returning to a location 100 months later is a fascinating experience. It highlights the differences of the location as well as the differences within yourself. Last time around I was hitting all the tourist spots, museums, galleries. I was splashing cash at every bar in town until the early hours of the morning (with perhaps a touch too much confidence), meeting all sorts of wonderful people.

The Strokes were incredible

This time around was more about restaurants (including hitting every Aussie cafe in town), areas I hadn’t ventured last time, and finding new and interesting spots to photograph. And I still met a bunch of friendly folks. It really is an incredible place. Bizarrely I still knew my way around as though no time had passed at all.

But Summer in New York still wins easily over Christmas in New York.

The year began in the greatest city on Earth, and it will end in my favourite city of all, Sydney.

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Whitehorse, Yukon and the Northern Lights

Back in September I flew up to Whitehorse with the hope of witnessing the northern lights. Understanding just how many factors had to work together in order for this to happen (most of all the weather), we lowered our expectations and ensured we planned other activities at Yukon Wildlife Preserve. We saw deer, elk, muskox, foxes, wild sheep and caribou. The lynx were too shy so we missed those, and the moose and mountain goats were just too damn ugly to photograph.

We also were treated to some incredible autumn foliage. Summer is my favourite season back home, but in Canada it’s the season which follows.

After the wildlife tour, we went out the following two nights to try and spot the aurora. At 10 pm we piled into a van and were driven 30 minutes out of town to a field with cabins and campfires. I set up my tripod and camera and started snapping shots of the stars, assuming this would be all I manage to photograph. Fortunately at around 2 am the magic started dancing across the sky and I’d ticked another item off my bucket list.