Saturday 7th October - day 18. Lake Tahoe to Yosemite National Park. Up at 7am after a very cold night and frost on the grass outside to prove it! After hot drinks and a quick wander by Walker Canyon Creek, we made an early start south for Yosemite National Park. As usual, scenery was wonderful, not least Mono Lake. On a whim, we stopped at Mono Basin Scenic Area Visitor Centre - mainly because the building looked cool and it had beautiful views over Mono vo...

Friday 6th October - day 17. Sacramento to Lake Tahoe. A 6.30 start - on our way to Sacramento Airport to meet Chris st 8am. There was still no sign of life at the camp registration building and the barrier into the campground was firmly locked. We had no idea how much, where of how to pay so we just drove away. It was a beautiful camp site in a lovely peaceful country setting. It’s new-looking ‘nature centre’ was modern and glass fronted, looking like...

Thursday 5th - day 16. Avenue of the Giants to Fort Bragg, Port Reyes, Napa Valley, Sacramento International airport. Another big drive today, so another early start. Last nights ‘last resort’ campground was actually very nice - we were surrounded by giant trees and the washrooms have a definite Scandinavian feel. We were on the road by 8.30 - the amazing road called Avenue of the Giants, where gigantic spruce and redwoods rose up into the sky, right next ...

Wednesday 4th October - day 15. Cape Blanco to The Avenue of Giants, North California. Lots of driving today, however we started the day well with a run through the forest, along the headland and down onto the beach. From here there were idyllic views of the lighthouse and also of Needle rock and Humbug mountain to the south. It was very peaceful down on the black sand beach with blue skies over a smooth sea and the sun gradually rising over the headland behi...

Woke up after a much needed 8 hour sleep in our technicolor cabin at Nine Palms Inn. Each wall / door / window frame was painted a different colour and these included lime green, apricot, yellow and damson-fool purple. It was striking to say the least and at $46 a night we were not complaining! The owner moved here from Warwickshire and previously ran a hotel in Baryow-in-Furness. He had a series of ten coloured fountains in buckets outside his cottage designed ...