We had an early start today - picked up by the Green Tortoise bus at 7am, both still suffering from our bonus night out in Vegas! We slept all the way to Zion where we transferred onto another bus, our home for the next week on the Canyons of the West tour.

We weren't really in the mood for a day of hiking but we managed to make the most of our day in the park We took the free shuttle bus to the end of the line and did one of the trails marked 'Easy' on the map (!) which was the riverside walk along the bank of the Virgin River. The heat and our hangovers didn't make it the most enjoyable walk we've ever done. We managed to dip our feet in the river but it was freezing cold so we couldn't stand it for long. We sound like a right pair of moaners in this entry, it's a hard life as a traveller sometimes! As we were eating our lunch, a squirrel came right up to us and pinched a crisp I'd dropped which cheered us up a bit.
We visited the museum in the park and watched a film about how the park was formed, while we cooled off in the air conditioned theatre! We then made our way back to where we would be spending the night - a campground on the edge of the park. We got chatting to Charlie, one of the bus drivers, who told us about how he is due to get married for the fourth time to a girl from Manchester that he'd met on a Green Tortoise tour six weeks ago. Oh, and there's a slight 29 year age gap! Good luck to him We started to help make dinner as a group and people started to come back from their hikes and introduce themselves. We had people from the US, Germany,Switzerland and Australia amongst other places. After dinner, everyone helps to clear up and pack everything back into the bus and somehow 34 people get fed - an impressive operation!

We got chatting to a few people after dinner and Jimmy, the other driver, told us a bit about what was coming up. Then we both spent our first ever night under the stars, no tent, just a foam pad and a sleeping bag! Saw so many stars, an amazing experience.