Community News

Herald staffers paddle the Meadow Brook

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A group of Herald Community Newspapers editors, reporters and interns took a kayak tour on Nassau County’s wild side, at the Town of Hempstead’s Norman J. Levy Park and Preserve in Merrick, on July 24.

The tour gave Herald staffers a chance to get out of the office for an afternoon and enjoy nature and one another’s company. Before launching, participants enjoyed a picnic lunch of wraps and salads at the small amphitheater at the park’s entrance. The kayak tour, led by two town rangers, began at the north end of Levy Preserve, at the foot of “Mt. Merrick” –– a former landfill that was covered with plantings in 2000. From there, the Herald crew headed south on the Meadow Brook, the waterway that meanders alongside the Meadowbrook Parkway.

The excursion took place under sunny skies, as red-wing blackbirds flitted in between the Phragmites and Spartina marsh grass that lined the river’s edges and ospreys soared overhead. The tour led into Merrick Bay, where the Herald staffers dispersed in different directions to explore on their own.

For more information about kayaking at Levy Preserve, call (516) 804-2000.