Friday 10th June, 2011 - Day trip to Yosemite National Park

Got up early, the campsite made a packed lunch for us and we headed first to Mariposa Grove where they have giant redwood trees - they are very big and some are over 900 years old, although my highlight was seeing little chipmunks!!!!!!

Got in to Yosemite valley, roads were very busy, lots of tourists on lots of coach trips but the views are breathtaking, the photos we have taken give you an idea but El Capitan and Half Dome really do tower above you! And the park is 6000ft above sea level!! The views are spectacular and driving around the park was fantastic, but we found an amazing spot for our picnic lunch as you can see in the pics, this beats our wee picnic trips to Mull and Glencoe!!!

We walked to Yosemite falls which is only a couple of miles, its definately catered for tourists, not as remote as we thought, but the waterfall was beautiful, the power of the water was immense as all the snow waters are flowing down the mountain, apparently spring is a good time to see it, standing in front of it you get exteremley wet from the spray!!

Then we took a walk to mirror lake and back towards El Capitan where if you zoomed in enough with your camera you could see the crazy climbers! We were exhausted at the end of the day but the campsite cooked amazing meals and most important they served beer and wine - camping up in the mountains with fresh air makes you sleep so well which is important as there were lots of daddy long legs and spiders which aren't my favourite things!!!! I used this excuse to drink lots of wine before bedtime!

Onwards now to the Big Sur and southern California!!! Lucy xxx