What time is it there?!

Public transport here is a bit more advance than Tahiti. The buses look quite new, and there is even a timetable. Well actually there are two routes, clockwise and anti-clockwise, so it isn’t that tricky to work out.

Most of the tourists, particularly the backpackers, seemed to have hired scooters. The roads are nowhere near as busy as Tahiti, so being on a scooter is probably not that dangerous, however due to the inconsistent weather (ie. sudden downpours with no notice) we opted for a car.

Although there are many hire car operators on Rarotonga don’t expect anything close to a new vehicle. Budget seem to have quite new cars, but we used the local Avis franchise and our car had quite a large scrape down the side in addition to an apparently expired MOT. We didn’t have any problems with it though and it kept us dry on numerous occasions. We managed to clock up 280kms in 4 days which isn’t bad going for such a small place and meant that we circumnavigated it about 10 times!!!

In order to make a bit of money from the tourists the government have decided that you have to have a Cook Islands driving licence to drive here (International Driving permit not accepted either). All you do is show them your UK licence, have your mug shot taken and hand over your 10 New Zealand dollars (the local currency).

If you want to drive a scooter it’s even more entertaining, because if your licence doesn’t specifically mention bikes you have to take a ‘test’. It appears that it is virtually impossible to fail test, which seems to take about 5 minutes and entails driving up and down a straight road without falling off or getting lost!

It’s less than two hours flying time to Rarotonga, so after our sleepless night we arrived raring to go at 9am.

Rarotonga is an even smaller island, about half the size of Moorea, so small in fact that even the hostels offer free airport pickups! (The entire coast road is just under 20 miles around). We are back on budget here with a proper hostel stay, however it’s a pretty nice place and we have a room about 10 feet from the pool.

There are about 4 ‘towns’ around the island although most of the major businesses are in Avarua which is closest to the airport. We got to see the Christmas lights being put up outside some of the shops. It’s quite a nice change to see these things not appearing until early December, rather than just after Halloween!

The climate here is obviously quite similar to Tahiti, although we were told that we had just missed 5 days of almost constant heavy rain, and we found it more comfortable after the extremes of our last day in Papeete.

The snorkelling was pretty good again here. Not that much coral to see just off the beach, but larger fish than we saw on Moorea.

We had read about these and decided to visit for our last meal in Tahiti. They are described in our book as Food Trailers (According to our French phrasebook the word translates as ‘Gypsy Caravans’), so we had visualised some kind of burger van type setup. Every night they gather in a public square on the waterfront and set up shop from 6pm until 1am.

As is happened they did look like burger vans, but each van had plastic patio furniture laid out, complete with tablecloths and waiter service. Lots of Chinese food, but steak seemed to be a speciality along with crepes, waffles, and a couple of places barbecuing whole pigs! So, well worth a visit, and probably the best value for money you’ll get during your whole visit.

We needed to be at the airport for 5am on Saturday, but because of the lack of late night/early morning ferry service we needed to leave Moorea on Friday morning. This meant that we got to have a bit of a look around the main town of Papeete (and quite an adventure finding a cheap hotel bed for the night).

According to our book there are only 200km of road on Tahiti, but they are filled with some 35,000 cars. It’s fair to say that traffic is not good! This combined with the palm trees and local markets means that downtown Papeete looks a bit like somewhere James Bond might have visited back in the dodgy 70’s Roger Moore days.

We avoided the taxis this time and decided we had better try out ‘Le Truck’ just for the experience. Le Truck is what passes for the public bus system in Tahiti, although it seems like the buses are privately owned and licenced more like taxis. The instructions to build one seem to be as follows: Take one flat bed truck (the older the better). Then, look at a picture of a bus, and using the cheapest wood you can find build something that looks similar on the back of your truck. Get licence. But, they are cheap, they run from 5am to midnight, and they’ll pick you up and drop you off anywhere along the route.

Because of our early departure we considered sleeping in the airport. However, the heat and humidity was increasing by the day so we were eventually won over by the thought of being able to use a shower before flying. Our guidebook mentioned two cheap places near the airport which were OK for a quick over night stop. So like good British tourists we set off at the hottest part of the day to try and find them.....

They were described in the book as being directly opposite the airport and just a little way up a hill. We eventually discovered the first place, which turned out to be fully booked. It’s possible that they weren’t full, but just didn’t want our business, as by this point we were not looking our best. The second place in the book was described as being ‘just a little further up the hill’. Follow the road to the end and look for the green and white gates....

Well, it looked more like a prison than a hotel, and there was no obvious way in, but just as we were giving up the owner arrived and let us in. Well, she eventually let us in after looking us up and down and wondering whether we were likely to rob the place! And after all that we struggled to get any sleep whatsoever as it was sooo hot. But the shower felt like the best in the world after a day in the heat!

The only other real activity we have done is snorkelling. This was easy as it only involved hiring the mask and flippers and walking out onto the jetty at the back of the hotel restaurant. The jetty takes you straight across some coral and you just drop off the end and start snorkelling. (MUCH easier than 90 minutes over rough water to get to the barrier reef).

We’d read that some of the waters around the islands aren’t too clean due to ‘inadequate’ sewerage, but it’s evidently pretty clean here as there are hundreds of fish of many different types. There are a couple of photos but they don’t really do it justice (our ‘underwater’ camera consisted of the normal camera inside a watertight plastic bag!). Nemo wasn’t to be found but the array of other fish more than made up for his absence.

We decided not to do too much while we are here so we have only done one organised excursion. This was a 4x4 jeep ‘safari’ which took us out for about 4 hours. We went up to ‘The Belvedere’ which is basicaly a lookout point across half the island. At least it would have been if it wasn’t for the low cloud and heavy rain! The rain did clear long enough to get a couple of shots, and we did also visit another high point where we got some far better pictures.

Along the way we also visited the local fruit juice factory. They produce quite a lot of different drinks there, but Moorea’s big crop is pineapples so they featured heavily. All the tourists got a few free tasters in shop, these were all alcoholic ‘fruit liqueurs’ which seemed a blatant attempt to get you drunk so you would spend more money!

As with most similar tours around the world we ended up at a shop trying sell us something, in French Polynesia the items in question are pearls. We avoided buying anything (even with the ‘special discount’ offered to people on the tour).

According to a couple of the guidebooks Tahiti and the surrounding islands are the ‘most expensive corner of the Pacific islands’. It certainly isn’t cheap here, with most prices for hotels, food and drink similar to the UK. The other tip we picked up from the guidebooks was not to stay on Tahiti, so we took the short ferry journey to the neighbouring island of Moorea.

‘Public Transport’ on Moorea consists of two buses that meet the ferries. These buses then head off in opposite directions around the island, meet up on the other side, and then head back to meet the next ferry. The entire road around the island is only 60km, so there isn’t too much chance of getting lost. Unfortunately we hadn’t quite figured out the transport system when we arrived, so we had to wait at the dock until the buses returned to meet the next ferry 90 minutes later. We could have got a taxi, but after the price we’d paid for the taxi from the airport we decided to wait in the shade and read a book for a while instead.

TIP: When getting off the ferry on Moorea follow the scrum of local people heading for the buses. Ignore the bright, shiny yellow tour company buses and seek out the two ropey old buses that have definitely seen better days. Tell the driver where you are staying and he will tell you which of the two buses to get on. The fare is 300 Francs (about £1.80) to anywhere on the bus route, rather than the 700+ Francs that the tour buses charge. Only one of the buses seems to have luggage storage below, but this does seem to be the one that heads in the direction of most of the hotels!

The tourist industry on Moorea seems to be suffering at the moment, there seem to be several hotels that are either closed down or being renovated (and may or may not re-open). We assume this must be related to people being worried about flying, as you can’t get here from ANYWHERE without a fair old flight.

Our hotel also seems to have recently changed hands, and although there is some work going on it isn’t really getting in the way (we’re talking about laid back Tahitians replacing a few wooden boards rather than the mass construction you might stumble across in Spain!). Most of the people who are on Moorea seem to be staying at the two big resorts (Intercontinental and Sheraton), which is a shame really because if they came here to ‘get away from it all’ they would have been better off in our hotel, rather than sharing the Sheraton with 150 other honeymooning couples!

Ia ora na! We've travelled almost halfway around the world now, and we're in..... France! Well, most people speak French, and in order to help maintain French culture the government subsidise the price of baguettes so that they are pretty much the cheapest food you can buy!

In the very early hours of Saturday morning we arrived at our much anticipated tropical island part of this trip ..... in the rain! After being robbed by a taxi driver whose legs were shorter than Nikky's (apparently all Taxi rides are daylight robbery) we arrived at the port of Papeete to take the short ride to Moorea. By the time we arrived it was no longer raining and was beginning to get HOT - it was only 7.30am! Buses on Moorea are few and far between and the next one going in the right direction was not until 9.30 - 9.45 (depending on who you spoke to!) It actually left about 10.05am. After clambering aboard a rickety old bus whose air conditioning system seemed to consist of leaving the front door open! we arrrived at Hotel Kaveka ..... our little piece of paradise for the next week.

Well it is now time to leave North America and head to another hemisphere. We have travelled 4800 miles, we've checked and this is 400 miles more than the combined length of the English and Welsh coastlines. To do this amount at home we would have been stuck in traffic for at least half of the time! Here, we saw only one real traffic jam (the LA stuff was at least moving albeit rather dangerously!) and we managed to nip on to the slip road and take an alternative route so were weren’t affected. We have driven for miles and not seen another car .... if only the M25 was like that!

California is a state of many contrasts, where beautiful scenery meets the ocean, where the weather is perfect for most of the year, where obesity and stick thin glamour fight for front page news and where movie stars really do become governors.

We’ve also met plenty of really nice, intelligent, friendly people who are nothing like obnoxious, obese American stereotypes you may envisage (you need to go to Universal Studios to meet them!) and certainly prove that you can’t judge the country by it’s government.....

Our experience has been wonderful and we have been blessed with some spectacular scenery, magnificent memories and numerous ‘firsts’, ‘longests’, ‘largests’ and ‘tallests’. You name it and we have probably seen its, oldest, tallest, largest, longest and highest versions. Was this really the first toilet that Princess blah on her first state visit from blah occupied ......... you betcha!!!!!!!

Thanks America. Have a nice day.......... or should we say Adios as English seems to be the second language in this state, not that any politician would ever admit it!

We picked Universal Studios over Disneyland, partly because everyone goes to Disneyland and partly because we have decided that we will go to the new one in Hong Kong in 2006. At our age, one visit every 5 years to Disneyland is enough. So, armed with a back pack of food and drink for the day we headed off. Our first encounter was the parking attendant who was fleecing the unsuspecting tourist $10 just to park the car. This was on top of the $55 we were later to be charged as entry fee. We were also acutely aware of signs informing us that our bags would be subject to search and no food except that for babies is allowed to be taken into the park. This means that you had to pay the exorbitant prices inside for junk food on top of the near fortune you have already paid just to get this far. So we opted for an ‘all you can eat’ package for one ....... You aren’t allowed to share, but Nikky strangely developed some severe food allergies and could not have one! ...... and both of us proceeded to try to eat the park out of all the food they had, whilst also saving a bit for the next day too .... bags aren’t searched on the way out!

Despite being told many times that Universal Studios is the largest working filming lot in LA and that there were live shoots of Desperate Housewives going on, we didn’t encounter anyone on our tour of the recording areas ...... not that we would have recognised anyone from the show as we don’t watch it but I am sure someone would have pointed anyone out for us! Anyway it was quite interesting to see the Jaws set (despite its’ age), King Kong and the Bates Motel from Psycho.

After a few cuddles with some well known kiddies characters (apologies to our older audience who are a little confused at this stage!) we headed off to Jurassic Park, another little rollercoaster type ride which Mark also hated and The Mummy Returns ride which Nikky went to on her own! It was in the dark and backwards .... this would have been off the hate scale for Mark.

We saw a couple of 3D shows which had been developed to 4D by the inclusion of moving seats and water being squirted in your face from the seat in front (when Donkey in Shrek sneezes for example). These were fun.

The Waterworld show (based on the movie but thankfully nowhere near as long) was a great demonstration of how the whole pyrotechnics thing works. Nikky hasn’t seen the movie or heard of all the controversy about the cost to make it and the total box office flop it was, so all this passed her by! But, despite this, it was a good show.

We arrived in Los Angeles feeling a little tired. When we leave LA on Friday it will be seven weeks since we left home and there has hardly been a day when we haven’t been getting up reasonably early to go and do something or embark on yet another long drive!

We decided to stick to the coast road on our journey from Santa Barbara so that we could stop at the beaches as we passed through Malibu and then Santa Monica. This didn’t really work as we encountered quite heavy fog and could barely see the beach! Allegedly it is excellent surfing territory although we couldn’t see anything to confirm or deny this. You could have told us that the sea was made of liquid gold and we would have been none the wiser.

So instead we headed off to find our hotel and enjoyed the legendary LA traffic. The traffic on the freeways is pretty bad, but to be honest if you’ve experienced the UK motorway network around the M3/M25/M4 area then you’ll be well prepared. We have actually found that in general Americans seem to be quite reasonable and courteous drivers, and quite good at observing roadsigns etc. However, stick them on a freeway and all sense goes out of the window. Moving lanes is obviously OK, but do they have to make sudden sharp movements at 80mph or more? It also seems that at least 50% of them completely disregard the speedlimits on the freeways as well.

Anyhow, back to LA, depending on your point of view you could either spend a month here and not get bored, or you could find that even one day is too long. So after a month of visiting some of the finest works of nature it is something of an anti-climax to see what you can do with a few million tons of concrete, glass and steel. We decided to limit ourselves to one real touristy visit (see Universal Studios) in addition to seeing a bit of the city.

Hollywood Boulevard (for those of you who don’t already know this) is all a bit of a disappointment. Yes you can see footprints in the concrete, and stars in the sidewalk, but other than that the street looks remarkably similar to the place we stayed in downtown Vancouver (ie. everything from tattoo parlours to far seedier places).

We decided not to purchase one of the ‘Maps of the Stars Homes’, but instead just headed off into the Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills and Bel Air to see what we could find. We didn’t encounter anyone we recognised, but we did get to see some houses that we definitely cannot afford. You seem to be able to tell just how rich the owners are by measuring a) the thickness of the steel gates, and b) the number of signs advising you of the security company providing "24hr Armed Response".

By contrast, the area where we are staying is definitely inhabited by real people. A couple of reviews of our hotel made it sound like it was in the middle of a warzone, but I think these were probably written by people who normally live behind gates (or perhaps get scared when they see anyone with a slight tan...).
We had to walk a couple of blocks to reach a laundrette, so we got to see how things really work around here. There are two or three mobile fruit & veg vans based on our street, but we think it’s just some kind of tax scam as they don’t seem to go anywhere they just stay parked there and people come to them to shop! (good way to keep down rental costs on your ‘shop’ though). Then there are the two guys selling food outside the laundrette. One of them is selling barbecued corn cobs, which he cooks on a portable BBQ propped on top of a shopping trolley, the other is selling some sort of crisps and snacks in plain plastic bags. They seem to be very popular, although we suspect they may not be declaring all their earnings to the taxman! The other side of us is ‘Little Korea’ where we have our second experience of burning CD’s at an internet cafe where the computers run an Asian version of Windows with very little English.

We had a short journey from Lompoc to Santa Barbara which made a change as we have really clocked up some miles in our trip to date. We arrived in the early afternoon on a Sunday and joined the other people on a walk along the beach. Considering it is only a relatively short drive to Los Angeles we thought it would be busier on a weekend afternoon but we were pleasantly surprised. Santa Barbara is a nice town with a real Mediterranean feel, worth spending a night or two if you're in the area! According to the guidebooks you might also bump into the likes of John Cleese and Oprah who apparently live in the hills behind neighbouring Monteceito (though not together as far as we know, we wouldn't want to be responsible for starting a tabloid rumour!).

We decided to swap our planned visit to San Diego for a view of the Central Coast. Our experiences of the North Coast had been wonderful so we were hoping for more treats. Whilst San Diego would have also been fun, we probably didn’t have the time to do it justice so we will leave this for another occasion-any excuse! We based ourselves in Lompoc, known primarily for its’ Alcatraz style Federal Penitentiary and the Vandenberg Air Force base ...... hummm nice .... it was actually.

We were now getting into the real city dwellers weekend vacation territory and it was all a lot more crowded than we have been used to. Pismo Beach was a hive of activity with what appeared to be a local majorette competition (actually related to the Veterans Day weekend around November 11th we think). There were people everywhere in spangly outfits and t-shirts proclaiming the name of their band. It was fun and the award presentation brought a lot of excitement with lots of girls screaming!

Splash Cafe was recommended as serving award winning Clam Chowder, with people queuing around the block. Well, they really do queue around the block, so we joined the queue (well, ‘line’ actually, now that we speak fairly fluent American) just to see. Verdict - definitely the best Clam Chowder we have tasted out of our huge sample of ... 2 !

We then went on to Hearst Castle. 28 years of work and never officially finished. It certainly looked quite grand from out view point several hundred feet below. You can’t go for a quick nosey and a few pictures, you have to do a guided tour which includes the history etc. Next tour available was the next day.

TIP: Don’t just turn up hoping you will be able to just have a look around the outside and not bother with a tour. The carpark is at the bottom of the hill and it looks like a two mile bus journey to get to the top, which you can only do if you’ve paid $24 for the tour. Book in advance if you want to go (you can also do it online).

As the sun was beginning to set we went to Point Piedras Blancas which rewarded us with a sight (and smell) to put Hearst Castle to shame. The beach was literally covered with Elephant Seals fighting for space on the cool sand, cavorting in the sea and on the beach and sneezing (or what appeared to be sneezing). It was a truly wonderful sight (forget the smell!) and made for some superb photographs. The ‘David Bailey’ in us came out again but we have spared you with just a small sample.

We were quite surprised to see Palm Springs on the map in our vicinity as we both were convinced this was in Florida but no ... in the middle of the desert is mini Marbella. Oh yes it is a thriving Mecca for golf lovers and ladies who lunch, have their nails done and take their pets for grooming as regularly as they go themselves!

Of course the other similarity to Marbella is that most of the people in any kind of service industry speak Spanish....

The Trona Pinnacles, several hundred spires of calcium carbonate, some nearly 140ft tall standing together in the middle of the desert near Trona can’t be that hard to find ..... can they? They weren’t hard to find but it was 5 miles along one of those ‘not roads at all’ roads which certainly shook every bone in our bodies and put the car through it’s paces (don’t worry Dan, we really have been looking after it!). We had seen a clapped out Datsun (not 4WD) hurtle along the road so we guessed we would be fine. We were, just more leisurely and careful - we have to bear in mind that it isn’t our car, or a simple hire car so we gave the desert road the respect it deserved and the car did us proud. A little drive round Edwards Air Force base - no shuttle landing today and we were on our way.

Barstow was another nondescript desert town in which we stopped the night. The next morning we drove around for an hour or so trying to find the Rainbow Basin Natural National Landmark. Apparently lots of large rocks in red’s green’s and yellow ochre ..... nope they were hiding from us on that day. This seems to be a bit of a theme, we have found several areas like this where there are natural landmarks on the map, but the signposts are so poor, or non-existent, that you struggle or fail to find them. Probably quite a good way to avoid them being trampled into oblivion by thousands of tourists really.

The other method used to avoid destruction of such natural wonders is to surround them by hundreds of square miles of restricted military areas. This was what prevented us from seeing the 16,000 year old petroglyphs at China Lake, near the town of Ridge Crest. You have to book 30 days in advance, and us mucky foreigners needed more forms of ID than it took to get into the country in the first place. Then you need to get there at 6:30am for a 90 mile round trip into the naval base, during which time you MUST travel at least 4 to a car, the vehicle doesn’t have to be 4 wheel drive but must have good ground clearance, and the road may become impassable after rain. Then you’re allowed 6 hours at the site (where there is no shade) in the middle of the day. Oh, and there are rattle snakes there..... So, er, maybe next time we’re in California (because it really does look like it’s worth the trip). More details here.

We also went to Calico, an old ghost town from the mining days but they wanted to charge us $6 ..... another scam like the drive thru tree we think, charge an unsuspecting tourist who is merely passing through and exorbitant amount of money to take a picture of a few holes in a mountainside held up with rickety wood, claiming it was once a mining town ....we can see that at the movie, thanks but no thanks.

We had to take a quick 114 mile detour back to Baker where we had missed something the day before (sounds like a long way but here in he US, people travel that far to get groceries!). It was a 134ft tall thermometer which was built to represent the highest ever recorded temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit in 1913 in Death Valley - why Baker was chosen for this we have no idea as it is 56 miles from Death Valley. The only other thing worth mentioning about Baker is ‘Mad Greek’ ..... wonderful over the top, stuccoed to with and inch of its’ life diner which seemed to serve great food but we were too late for breakfast and too early for lunch so we didn’t eat but lots of people were!

Armed with full stomachs after our Bellagio breakfast we set off through the Mojave National Preserve ..... A.K.A. desert! Its home of one of the largest area of Joshua Trees and they did look pretty funky.

In the middle of all this desert is the small town of Kelso (no populations quoted on signposts in Arizona or Nevada so we cannot comment on the status of the smallest town competition at this stage although there must have been one or two around here that are in the running). Kelso is technically in California so we may write to Arnie when we get back and ask where the sign is - unless there are any volunteers in the interim. The only thing happening in Kelso is a train station - originally for steam trains to top up on water, now it has been restored and gets 3 passenger trains a week ..... hardly Paddington!

Nearby are the Kelso Dunes, according to a Geology student that we met there, they are pretty spectacular in the geological world. They we ok ..... The lady we met was too scared of heights to hike to the top with the rest of her classmates for her lecture so watched from lower down and missed out on the lecture altogether. Instead she got to talk to us and although she confirmed that Northampton is a bona fide University as that was where she was studying, she claimed to have never heard of you Simon so we figured that you have been having us on all these years!

Nikky’s Vegas
Cheesy as hell but a good laugh. We didn’t make it out of there millionaires so we will have to come home and earn a living ........ one day!

We stayed in New York New York and not to do the rollercoaster would have been a sin. Mark hated every second of it whilst I was in my element! (Payback from the aeroplane factory!).
Editors Note: She never told me that she didn’t want to go to the factory, in fact she sounded quite interested!

Mark’s Vegas
Wow, how depressing is this place?! This was a real disappointment to begin with after all the national parks. Row upon row of tourists pumping cash into slot machines hoping they’ll get lucky (it’s even sadder to watch at 9 in the morning).

Unfortunately, having attended the “Paul Knight School of Finance” during my latter days at Safeway, I have developed something of an aversion to throwing money away. So it was with some trauma that I put the odd dollar into a machine! On another Safeway related note, a certain Mr Potopaev will be pleased to know that there are many slot machines which are only 1 cent a go.

However, after I remembered that it’s really just Disneyland for adults I enjoyed it a bit more. There are so many good shows, live music and comedy events here that you could easily spend a week and not go onto the main casino floor.

TIP 1: We had seen a TV programme on the Food Channel (which has now become required viewing for Nikky!) that recommended the buffet breakfast at Bellagio ...... we must have eaten for 7! It was fab, so much to choose from and easily means you can miss out lunch and maybe dinner! It’s very popular so it is advisable to get there early .... gives you more time to eat too!

TIP 2: Get out of your hotel and find a decent restaurant. All you can eat buffets for £8 are all very well, but they aren’t all that great. Firefly on Paradise (On Paradise Road, just south of
Twain Avenue) is a tapas restaurant and was another TV recommendation. Well worth the short trip.

TIP 3: If you’re only visiting Vegas for a couple of days, go out of your way to avoid being there over a weekend. Sunday and Monday night were much, much cheaper (almost half) than Friday and Saturday.

ADDED 9/1/2006:
A short video of the inside of the Excalibur casino. Quality isn't great, but hopefully it shows the size of the places here.
(The video is around 2MB so will take a few minutes to download for those of you with a dialup connection)

After the Grand Canyon we drove to Kingman for our nights rest and recuperation. Having done quite a bit of interstate driving over the preceding few days we decided to go back in time and travel along Route 66.

This is the original Chicago to Los Angeles road although much of it has now been replaced by the I-40. The longest remaining part is between Seligman and Kingman and we cruised with the best of them (well, some kids on motorised scooters anyway). We stepped back in time at the Snow Cap Cafe which has apparently not changed in the last 40 years. It was once a really popular hang out on the route and still is good, although the owners gags are decidedly back with the cafe’s origins!! Kingman itself was nice enough although it took forever to find a Supermarket to get some dinner!

The next day we took a little trip to Lake Havasu City to see ‘London Bridge’ ...... we were not really sure what to expect as the guide books had said that an old bridge from London was dismantled and rebuilt in the middle of the desert!!!!!

Sure enough, there it was stretching over part of the lake, a real piece of London now residing in the desert. They had tried to make the pavement cafe’s and shops resemble London but there were some MAJOR things wrong ......
1) The sun was shining.
2) There were no shopping trolleys in the water.
3) People were swimming and there was no fear of nasty diseases.
4) The tourist tat shops aiming to be in a British style were blaring out US radios stations ...hummmm!

The bridge was moved and rebuilt between 1968 and 1971. Strange thing is that it looks almost new. With the totally dry weather in the desert, there is nothing to make it look weathered, no lichen growing ........ which kind of ruined the effect. Anyway, curiosity answered, we were on our way.

It is quite difficult to describe just how spectacular this was. Apparently many people’s first word when they look over the rim is WOW! Our reaction was much the same. We had booked a night in the cheaper of the rim side lodges (it gets quite pricey) to ensure that we maximised our time there.

We took a relatively short hike compared to those that are possible. As everything is DOWN, all have a difficult or very difficult rating so there wasn’t much choice! 780 feet down and about 1.5 miles of rough going, rocky and dusty trail let us to a spectacular point where all the rocks around us fell away and we were standing on a point inside the canyon. Obviously there was still another 4000 (ish) feet further down and the other side 8 miles away! It was breathtaking ...... so was the hike back up, real heart beating out of your chest stuff but worth it. Having achieved the hike according to the guideline times, we were pretty pleased with ourselves and expected a few muscle aches the following morning but we had none, obviously we are fitter than we give ourselves credit for!

We then joined the masses at the most popular sunset place (Hopi Point). As soon as the sun went down, it was pretty cold. This was nothing compared to the -3 degrees that it was at 5.30am when we caught the bus for the sunrise!! We were the only ones who made the trip to Yaki Point.

Apparently there are more takers in the summer, but hardened tourists like us are few and far between in the winter!!! The isolation of the sunrise made it all the more spectacular and worthy of the 4.30 alarm call. The colours and shadows on the rock formations meant that we both went ‘David Bailey’ mad, but we have only included a few to give you a feel.

Tip 1: The film in the IMAX theatre (just outside the park) is worth a visit. In our opinion it is best to see it after you have seen the view for real or else it could spoil it a bit.

Tip 2 : Try to stay in the park for a minimum of a couple of nights to allow enough time to see sunrise and sunset and take in a couple of hikes. If you are really athletic, take a hike to the bottom and camp overnight (it’s made perfectly clear that under NO circumstances should you attempt to go down and up in one day).

ADDED 9/1/2006:
A couple of video clips, they aren't great quality but they do give a better idea of scale than the still pictures I think.
Video1
Video2
(Each video is around 2MB, so will take a few minutes to download for those of you with dialup connections)

After leaving Yosemite we headed south towards the west side of Death Valley. We stayed overnight in the town of Lone Pine. This just happened to be a convenient place to stop, but it was quite a nice place and has apparently been the location for a great many films. Unsurprisingly most of these films were westerns, but anyone who has seen the cinematic masterpiece that is ‘Tremors’(!) will recognise the local scenery as well!

Because of the time of year we didn’t get to experience the extreme high temperatures that the valley sees in the summer. This was no bad thing however, as the fact that it was only in the low 30’s centigrade meant that we could get out and walk around without having to worry about serious health risks!

Having said that, it was still quite hot and windy, particularly when we were out on the salt lake at Badwater Basin. At this point you could almost lean into the wind without falling over (which isn’t as funny as it sounds when the wind is also blowing salt and sand in your face!).

Death Valley was also the place where we first discovered that some of the “roads” marked on the maps in the desert parks, are actually what might be referred to in the UK as “not roads at all”. Now we understand why the locals favour huge four wheel drive trucks with high ground clearance.......

This was another thing on Nikky’s ‘must do’ list and we spent the best part of an hour viewing the valley from Glacier Point (see tip below). This slight over-run on the timing didn’t give us as much time in the valley as we had planned for. We were also hindered by some ‘tourist management development’.

It seems that in order to protect the environment, the National Parks Authority are developing a shuttle bus system around the valley floor and encouraging visitors to park their cars in one place and use the free of charge eco-friendly buses to get around and see the sights. This is an excellent idea, but unfortunately we didn’t know what was going on. Part 1 of the development seems to have been to remove most of the directional signage but it hasn’t reached part 2 which tells the visiting public what they are meant to do. This resulted in us driving about aimlessly for too long and we only managed to find the Yosemite Falls!

Our route out of the park was planned to be via the Tioga Pass, which at over 9000ft is the only eastbound exit from the park, and usually closed by late October due to snowfall. We were lucky that the first major snowfall of the season hadn’t happened yet and the road was still open. It was a spectacular drive along the top ridges of the mountains to get out of the park. However, due to our poor time management at the top and the parks poor signage, we were a bit later than planned and it was quite dark down the windy roads towards the end.

Note: For peace of mind it helps to not think too much about what you would do if you broke down on a 60 mile stretch of road, at nearly 10,000ft, in the middle of nowhere. Somehow I doubt you’d get a mobile phone signal to call the AA!

Tip 1: Take the Glacier Point road to the parking area (32 mile round trip from the main road). Walk a short distance and look in awe at the beauty around you. This is arguably the most spectacular view of Yosemite. Save a good amount of time for this as you will not want to leave in a hurry.

Tip 2: Plan at least a couple of days in Yosemite to really get the benefit of Glacier Point and to leave enough time to see other things too. Waterfalls run fastest and most spectacularly in the spring and the lakes are fuller too. Even if you have a short time make sure you park the car and use the shuttle bus to get around.