Yellowstone National Park Day 1

---

Yellowstone National Park is not far from Bozeman. Just a short 2 hour drive and you are there but being school holidays and high season, the traffic can be bad so we set off at 8am.

We decided to, instead of squashing everything into one day, we would camp overnight and were lucky to book the last campsite at our destination inside the park, Madison.

It was a beautiful day and we had a nice drive down to the park at a leisurely pace. At the entrance Leanne donned her sunglasses and passed herself off as Sarah so we could use their annual park pass. We were in the park no longer than 15 mins before we met our first "animal jam". Sarah and Joe had warned us that the traffic queues caused by these can be frustrating to say the least but being our first one it was quite novel and we have to admit we added to people's frustrations as we had to see what the fuss was about. Of all times to stop we were definitely rewarded as across the river wondering around the pine trees was a small black bear.

After putting up our tent for the night, we hopped back in the car and started our drive around the southern loop. Our first stop was at the trail head of one of the few paths in the park you can cycle along. This gravel path was relatively flat and took us past one of the main geothermal areas. Unfortunately it wasn't long before we were on our back. As we were speeding along on our bikes, Matt suddenly ground to a halt. There standing a couple of metres off the path was the most beautiful male elk we had seen with a very huge impressive set of antlers. We were not too sure whether it was sensible to be stopped this close to a wild animal. The photo op was one we did not want to miss but we did feel a sense of false security on our bikes. Amazing experience! Before completing our ride to the car we decided to lock our bikes and take a detour walk to fairy falls. As the forest fire had been here relatively recently, it was a strange experience walking through the new growth and old charred stumps. Although Fairy Falls was by far, not the most impressive waterfalls we have seen, it was still worth the visit.

Back in the car we continued to drive around he southern loop stopping at the Lower and Upper Basins, 2 large and very impressive geothermal areas. With the lovely aroma of sulphur in the air we looked through the steam to see the huge range of yellows, oranges, blues and greens. It was a spectacular site. There were also plenty of thermal water holes bubbling away and small geysers that erupted every now and then. By far the most impressive geyser was Old Faithful. Given the name as its eruption can be predicted. With that in mind we waited with many other tourists to watch the eruption and it was worth the wait. Right on queue Old Faithful blew out water and steam 30m into the air while the crowd watched in awe.

The day was starting to get away from us and we still had a lot more ground to cover if we wanted to get back to camp before dark. So to avoid missing the last attraction here, we whipped out our bikes and darted down the track for a quick viewing of beautifully coloured thermal pool called Morning Glory.

We followed the loop round around in search of one of the last animals on our check list. We were not disappointed and within 20 minutes we were stuck in a Bison (Buffalo) road block. What huge beautiful creatures they are and being so close to them, it was nice to be sitting in the safety of our car. This is definitely bison country and when we finally got past our road block, we were rewarded with the view of huge herds of bison on the grass planes.

From here it was a scenic drive racing the sun set back to camp. With many siting of deer and antelope along the way we managed to arrive back to camp right on dusk. Being somewhat lazy campers we settled for gourmet sandwiches, beer and wine.

---

Photos

Baby Bear!
Got to wonder where your mamma is....

Old Faithful
Check out the Video when she Blows..

Fire
Fire and burnt trees are natural part of the park