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Published: July 24th 2010
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Today we left Las Vegas for San Francisco. We decided to head out to Death Valley from Las Vegas and drive up through the middle of Death Valley. Before getting to Death Valley we drove through Beatty where we filled up with petrol and bought some fresh "wet beef jerky". It was very nice. The shopwe got it from had all types of jerky from turkey to beef to buffalo and venison. After a while we came across the Rangers station stop where we needed to purchase a permit to drive in the park. It was $20 dollars so we carried on into the valley. At the top of the valley the temp was 32 degrees and by the time we reached the bottom it was 44 degrees so we cranked the air-con up a bit. The scenery was amazing and ever-changing. We couldn’t get over how vast the country was. The hills and the mountains just seemed to go on forever. One minute we were at the top of a hill, then the next there were hills on the horizon miles and miles away. We had driven for a couple of hours and the road suddenly came to a dirt
road that went for over 100 kilometres. Some spots were rather rough and we couldn’t do more than 30 kph. We kept saying to each other it was an adventure though. By the end of the dirt road we were glad it was over.
By this stage we had been driving for over 6 hours. We stopped at a town named Bishop and had a quick stop and picked up some food. We kept driving as we still had to drive through Yosemite. We carried on up the highway to Mammoth Lakes where there were a lot of lake houses overlooking the lake. There were people taking boats and jet skis for a strap on the lake, it was a very nice and picturesque. The drive through Yosemite was beautiful. It was a shame we didn’t have time to stop as there were so many beautiful stops and a few bits of snow on the ranges here and there that still hadn’t melted. There were also heaps of bush walking tracks where you can stop off and go for a walk. Going by the amount of cars and campervans it must be quite a popular spot to visit. Every
so often there was a sign saying SLOW DOWN SPEEDING KILLS BEARS...so we had to keep an eye out even though it was highly unlikely that a bear would come out and ask for a lift but you never know....
We carried on to San Francisco through a few different counties where it seemed like the stone fruit orchards seemed to go on forever. The landscape was very similar to Hawkes Bay in N.Z and they had little side stalls where you could buy fruit and veges. We spotted some cherries so we pulled off the road and got some to keep us going till we got closer to San Francisco. As we got closer the air temperature dropped down to 21 degrees and we were thinking what were we in for. The air was full of fog and the weather was very overcast and dull looking. We headed over the Bay Bridge which took you over the San Francisco Bay, ports and wharfs where the bridge overlooked Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. The views were awesome.
We headed on to our hotel where we off loaded all our bags and checked in. Stu took the beast
to the car park as the car park at the hotel was too small and the beast wouldn’t fit. We all got settled and I went out and got pizza and some pasta for dinner that was recommended by our check in staff. We were very tired after our 13 ½ hour day of driving so we headed to bed.
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Narnie & Robbie H
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Hay , great photos again, veiws very, very nice. looks like there were not many cars on the road up in the Nat park. Stu, the sky jump would have been a buzz. You can now say, been there ,done that wicked Bro love Robbie and Narnie