We left San Francisco at 8am, ready for our last full day of the trek!
Our first stop was Monterey Bay, location of Cannery Row from the famous Steinbeck novel. It looked like a typical old-fashioned American fishing village – it was like I had stepped inside one of Steinbeck’s novels. But with the addition of modern chain stores, such as the Dippin’ Dots store that we went into to. Dippin’ Dots are little balls of flavoured ice-cream, and they taste amazing, I wish they did them in the UK!
Tom and I managed to have a bit of a lie in today, which usually in a tent is impossible, because by about 6am the sun is already baking hot and causes a greenhouse like effect in tents. Once we had got up we headed to Market Street to do a bit of shopping in the giant Westfield mall. I could have spent so much money in there, but being in the last week of our time in America I was down to my last couple of hundred dollars!
At around 3pm we went to Chinatown to meet the rest of the trek group for a walking tour. It was pretty fun. We stopped to have our oracles read (mine said I would have good fortune and be famous!) Next stop was at a tea shop to try some herbal teas, and then we had some mooncake from a Chinese bakery. Had I just walked down the street on my own I would not have noticed half the things that I saw whilst on the tour, and would have walked past the places we stopped at without realising what was inside.
Chinatown
We were up at half 7 to pack up camp and set off for San Francisco. We got there at lunch time so we went to a park to have some food. There was a great view from the park – The Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Seeing Alcatraz in the distance reminded me so much of Azkaban, especially with all the paragliders which made it look like it was surrounded by dementors! The weather in San Francisco was a lot cooler compared to the rest of the trip, it was about 25°C with an added breeze, so it was like a really good summer day in the UK.
We had an early start at 5:30am to make our way to Curry Village in Yosemite National Park before the entry queues got too long!
Once we got there most of us decided to rent bikes (the rest of the group went hiking). It was $34 for the whole day – so not too expensive. The bikes were a bit odd, they had no brakes and instead you had to pedal backwards to brake, which took a bit of getting used to!
So, after deciding not to put the rain flys on our tents last night it decided to rain for the first time during the whole trek. It wasn’t a massive downpour, in British terms it would be called a light drizzle, but thing did get wet! Which made packing up camp a pretty soggy job.
We left Bishop at about 8am and headed to Yosemite. This was one of the places I was most looking forward to going to during the trek, so I was super excited. We stopped at a viewing point, Tunnel View, before heading to Tenaya Lake. It is a really calm looking lake surrounded by a forest – Tunnel View and Tenaya Lake were the first green I had seen since leaving San Diego. It was a stark contrast to the dryness and desert landscape of Death Valley and the Grand Canyon. We stayed for a little while to play some frisbee and volleyball, and to eat lunch. We then went to another viewing point (Olmsted Point) which provided some pretty spectacular views and photo opportunities, before travelling just outside of the National Park to Yosemite Lakes Campground.
Tunnel View
On day eight of the trek we waved goodbye to the bright lights of Vegas and set out on the road again!
We made a quick stop at the Hoover Dam, which provides electricity for nearly 8 million people in Arizona, Southern California and Southern Nevada. It’s located on the border of Nevada and Arizona, so it was pretty cool to be able to step between the two states.
Tom and I got in at around 3am last night, but we were up bright and early… well around 9:30am… eager to try a famous Vegas breakfast buffet. We went to the one in our hotel (The Golden Nugget) and there was so much food! There was a chef making omelettes to order, I had one with cheese, onion and spinach, which is more of a lunch or dinner to me, but when in Vegas! The chef loaded it with so much cheese though, that I could only manage to eat about a quarter of it before I felt like I was about to slip into a cheese induced coma. I ended up having a massive bowl of melon instead, which was pretty much the only healthy food available.
It is so hot during the day in Vegas what with it being in the middle of the desert, that you can’t really do anything. So Tom and I just stayed by the pool all day. The pool had a massive shark tank in the middle of it, with real live baby sharks. There was a baby great white inside, but even a baby one was about the same length as me! Only in Vegas!
Trekking Together 