Tag: wildlife

How to Spend a Day in Corona, Queens

On my recent trip to New York I wanted to explore more than just Manhattan. So I spent a day in Corona, Queens. I found great Mexican food and got to see bears and the most ostentatious bathroom ever.

One of the reasons I chose to spend ten days in New York rather than just a week, was because I wanted to give myself chance to get the feel for the city. I knew I wanted to do all the big touristy stuff, but I also wanted to have time to sit in coffee shops and wander round back streets and generally pretend I was a New Yorker. 

Okay, so I knew that ten days was never going to do much more than lift the hatch on New York, but at least the hatch would be lifted. 

Ten days also meant I had time to get out of Manhattan. Technically I was out of Manhattan every day as I deliberately chose to stay in Brooklyn, but I also wanted to spend a day exploring somewhere that wasn’t Manhattan. I looked at ways of getting out to the Hamptons or upstate to the Catskills or even to some of the towns along the Hudson, as they all seemed the sorts of places New Yorkers would go when they wanted to get out of town. But none of them really worked for a day trip without a car. 

Step forward Corona, Queens. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either. Corona, that is. Of course I’ve heard of Queens. 

Continue reading “How to Spend a Day in Corona, Queens”

Books

A few good book finds

On my days off from walking I went on a book hunt in Minehead’s charity shops and tourist office, and Dunster National Trust shop and got myself a few bargains.

I’ve got a few bird books but never take even the smallest of them out with me when I’m walking as I don’t want to carry the extra weight. Then I see a bird and want to know what it is. I look it up when I get home but by that time I don’t remember exactly what it looked like, just that it was small and brown (usually). My bird books have about twenty small, brown birds in them so I end up no wiser. 

So when I spotted the ‘I Spy‘ bird book in the tourist office I pounced on it straight away. It’s meant for children and is basically a tick list so they can tick off the birds they see, but it’s small, light, has clear pictures and basic descriptions and was only £2.50. I was so pleased I bought the one on wild flowers too. 

 I also picked up a printed out copy of the South West Coast Path Association’s guide to the section of the path I’m walking. It has quite a lot of detail and should be quite useful. 

Then I found a big, softback geology book which seemed quite simple. Most of the geology books I’ve looked at are categorised into sections that you have to understand before you can find anything. I really need an idiot’s guide to get me started off and so hopefully this will do the job. 

One of my best finds though, was in the secondhand bookshop in Porlock. I found a Reader’s Digest book on being a countryside detective. It’s big, chunky and hardback so definitely not one for the backpack. But it’ll be good to have in the car or to read at home. It beautifully laid out and is very simple; pefect for my level of inexpertise. it tells me what can be found where and how to find it. Wonderful. 

So all in all, a very productive couple of days book hunting.