We had three great days in Yosemite National Park. Arriving in the nearby town of Oakhurst at Tom's house, our couch surfing host, it quickly became apparent that he was a lovely guy, and it ended up being an absolute privilege to stay with him. We were also joined by Sonja's brother, Kevin, who we hadn't seen in over two years. Catching up with Kevin again was full of good times and it was as if those two years hadn't passed by whatsoever. It was quite interesting to see the stark contrast in travelling styles between siblings; where Kevin is more laid back, go with, enjoy the moment, Sonja is organised, make the most of it, don't waste a second. It was clear both have their pros and cons so I think we all learned a little from each other.

Yosemite National Park is famous for a reason, it has a lot to offer visitors, the dramatic, sheer cliff faces are a site to behold and the high number of people in the park is testament to that. Our first day of hiking was a quite gruelling walk up one of the cliff faces to a lookout to the top of what is usually the highest waterfall in the USA, unfortunately, the time of year combined with the ongoing drought in California meant it was dried up. Even so, the views into Yosemite Valley were spectacular to say the least.

Our second day of hiking threw up a real curveball. We had heard that there was a forest fire in the area that had been burning for a number of days, we had seen the smoke from a distance too but we never expected what was to come when we planned an "easy" walk to the top of Nevada Falls. After starting the return journey from the falls, which actually had some water, the smoke bellowing up into the sky from over the hill began to increase rapidly until it was as if a volcano was erupting. We could then see flames making their way over the top of the ridge in the distance until they were much too close for comfort. All of a sudden water bombing helicoptors were on the scene trying to prevent it from moving any further towards Yosemite Valley where the majority of people in the park camp or day trip. Although people were actually sprinting past us in fear, we were convinced we would be informed if we were in any real danger but as we were leaving the mountain we discovered the whole area we were in had been evacuated and were probably some of the last few stragglers. In the end, we got some pretty incredible and somewhat unnerving photos of the fire which thankfully didn't do any harm to anybody.

With Kevin we tried to find a big "gruelling" day hike to show Kevin what Yosemite was all about and picked a very highly rated walk to a bunch of lakes. Unfortunately the weather was not on our side which never helps when trying to appreciate the beauty of nature. On top of this, the walk was actually quite tame and we had prepared for the worst based on reviews we had read. None the less, the rain didn't stop us from enjoying many hours in the wilderness to catch up with Kevin and listen to his many hilarious travel stories.