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Published: November 3rd 2009
Our car
oh! and CharlotteMonday morning and we awake to another glorious day! How did we get so lucky! Up, shower, breakfast and off and away to find our car! We walked past the shop yesterday, so we know roughly where it is! A good 15-20 min walk downhill!
We get there & guess what, they don’t take our pre-paid card, or my debit card, or Liam’s card without his driving licence! (what licence?) Liam offers to run (well, walk fast), back to the room to get my spare credit card, as he knows I will only slow him down! Whilst he is doing that the lady is doing her best to upgrade us to a Mustang or a very pretty convertible! No, down with the man! We are looking to travel the cheapest way possible!
I get a huge Ford focus, that is an automatic! I have not driven one of those since won the use of the sporty Vauxhall at work a couple of years back, but soon get used to it!
Back to the hostel, load our growing collection of bag’s and away we go! We did not go for the option of renting a sat nav, so are relying
Buffalo A
Our little home for 2 nights on Liam’s Map reading skill’s! The computer reckons it is about a 3 hour drive away!
American roads are weird, all big and scary, until you get on, then it just feels like a small M25. And they don’t give you much warning about upcoming junctions! We divert only a couple of times as we thought we were on the wrong road or an upcoming junction was ours!
After closer to four hours we arrive at a beautiful rustic mountain resort (Thanks again Caz, top tip!), the sun is still shining through the trees and we are pointed towards a log cabin just above check in. This cabin has the biggest, squashiest, most comfortable bed in it! All decked out in some lovely decor.
We settle down for a glass of secret wine on the veranda before heading down to the very basic kitchen (me thinks that they want us to use the very nice looking cafe) for dinner. We are lucky enough to find a Yosemite map in there and start to make a plan of action for the next day. Which after meeting on of the spa attendance and having a peak at the super
spa & huge hot tub, will involve an evening in there recovering from all of the hiking!
Charlotte decides an early morning is in order, to make the most of the day & get back to enjoy the spa! Up, breakfast and away! We have a lovely drive along more windy roads to the park entrance, avoiding a rock slide on the way, then on to the village itself.
Well, we were very pleased to find that it was mostly flat, so went up to have a look around the visitor centre. We hiked up to the base of Yosemite falls which were nice, it was actually three waterfalls making up one big one. But there was not a huge amount of water due to it being fall!
We then headed on over via the bike trail (naughty!) to the swinging bridge, which was closed for repairs but it afforded us some lovely views of Yosemite falls with the river in the foreground, the three brothers with all of the trees in the fall colours to the right and the cathedral rocks and there spires to the left. A very nice little walk.
We then headed
Big Lovely Bed
A bed that lovely and big down to bridal veil falls which was a similar length walk, but a little steeper incline. We managed to climb up and over some of the boulders at the base to have a closer look, it was spectacular! Off for a look at the El Capitan vista and with the aid of Liam’s binoculars managed to spot some mad people, opps I mean climbers half way up! Not too hard to spot as they were mostly in bright yellow jackets. I don’t know how Sean climbed it in 3-4 days, sleeping up there too! Caroline make sure when you climb half dome you do it for charity, seeing the height of it, you’ll raise loads!
Off down the 41 we went with a quick stop before the tunnel for a great snapshot of the whole valley and a little trip down to see the giant Sequoia’s. Well this is what we thought, an hour or so later we arrived at the park to see the trees, but it was getting both late and cold, so we decided to call it a day as we still had a long twist journey home and were feeling pooped!
No time for
The Map
of the valley an evening at the spa, but as a treat we had supper at the cafe, which consisted of a soup starter and mashed potatoes with a lovely pork in a tomato & basil sauce with fresh green runner beans, all steaming hot! A nice glass of wine and Ale and we were off for a well deserved sleep in the most comfortable bed in the world!
Not up so early today, a little light breakfast (raisin and cinnamon toast and coffee), back to see the big trees, properly this time with the tram round the trees. Then again no! $25.50 each for an open air tram in the cold or walk for free! (Now let me think?)
Good Lord these things are huge at least 6ft diameter(apparently it needs 8 people holding hands to reach around it), but not as tall as you might think. About an hour of walking around The Fallen Monarch, Bachelor And The Three Graces, Grizzly Giant and The California Tunnel Tree (sounds like the lost Harry Potter books) we felt we had had our fill of large vegetation, so decided to head to our next stop over in Montara.
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