Yosemite! 1669 miles down!

Blog entry mega update continues. Lets crack on!

The Greyhound bus was at 10ish, so we had to get up fairly early, to pack etc, we ate breakfast and Piers guided us to the Greyhound station. We got our tickets and boarded the bus. I spent the first 2 hours of the journey listening to music, and the rest stairing out the window. The view was fairly uneventful, but after a while we entered Savannah like grass land,  with the occasion dilapidated American style wooden barn plonked on it. There were also a lot of cows. The grassland also looked a tad odd in that there were lots of rocks randomly sticking out of the ground, sharp pointy rocks. I assume they were probably dumped there by the Yosemite glacier back in the day. The hills gradually became larger, and were now covered in thick forest, and 5 hours later, we would stood outside the Yosemite bug hostel. After dragging our bags up a hill that never seemed to end, we finally signed in, got our room, and unpacked. It was now getting dark, and there wasn't to much to do. We had a quick look around, tried to find a board game to play, failed, me and Piers had laptop time, then we all went to bed. The next morning we got up fairly early as breakfast finished at 9:15... and you had to pay for it. The $5 continental breakfast turned out to be egg on toast, what a bloody rip off. We packed some stuff and set of for the park. IOur shuttle bus driver was a tad religious, and even those he kept going on about how the park was constantly eroding, he was sure it was the creation of god, and not a big fat glacier in the last ice age, each to there own. Soon the shuttle bus had deposited us in the park, squinting in the bright sun light. The park is massive, insanely big, incomprehensibly big, clouds float through the canyon. Water falls evaporate before they even reach the floor of the valley. Huge, smooth granite walls surround the park, its almost intimidating. We set of for our first walk, to mirror lake. Mirror lake turned out to be more of a pond, maybe even a puddle, and took about an hour to walk to. Obviously for the less adventurous tourist. Next we decided to head for the highest waterfall in the world, and took the scenic route along the north face of the park, part of the trail had a waterfall passing over it, and builders were trying to redirect it, I got the feeling that the park authorities are constantly battling to keep the park open as the waterfalls and rock slides constantly change the shape of the park. With slightly soggy feet, we arrived at the waterfall, it was of course, massive. The spray and wind in generated was massive, and surprisingly strong considering how far back from the waterfall we were stood, I still couldn't get the entire thing into a photograph mind. It was now starting to get a bit late, so we headed back to the park entrance and got our shuttle bus back to the hostel. We showered, and cooked a delicious meal of tinned chilli and rice. We met a couple of intresting people that night, an Australian girl who was here on a work meeting, and had used some time off work to travel afterwards, and an Irish guy who planned to travel for the next 5 years, he was really intresting, and gave me some good tips for were to head next, etc. Rosie later pointed out, this could be some kind of mid life crisis. We drank some of the beers we had bought at the park, then feeling lightly drunk, headed to bed.

Next Morning. We ate a quick breakfast we had made our self so we didn't have to pay for the crap hostel one, and Rosie got talking to the Ozzie girl again, who offered to drive us to the park. The weather had deteriorated a lot that evening, and it was now cold, wet and windy. The Ozzie lass drove us up to a look out point near the park entrance, we got a good view across the valley, and took some tourist snaps. Got back into the warmth of the car, and headed into the park. The problem was, it was now so horrible, that the more adventurous walks were off limits. So we walked over to Happy Island, this small island in the middle of the river that runs through the valley was the kids area of the park. It was alright, I guess, we climbed off the park to get some good photos of the rapids at the top of the island, then headed back to the park village, had a coffee, and some sweet American crap. We accidentally returned to mirror lake, then as the temperature started to drop, decided we should head back to base camp. We ate the remains of the Chilli, and discussed how we were going to escape from the park, down to LA the next day. There was a slightly akward moment, when it became clear that the Ozzie lady was doing the same things as us, but niether of us wanted to ask if we wanted to share a car. Not that it mattered, as she was getting up at some crazily early time. We drank some more beers, then headed to bed. Ready for the long drive tommorow.

Just a quick note to say that those Yosemite is huge and impressive, its not actually that pretty. I didn't like it all that much. The park I visited in Croatia, with its bright blue waterfalls contrasting with the yellow of the rock, was far nicer than Yosemite. Yosemite is just huge and grey, the waterfalls are massive, but the one's at Mount Hood were far more scenic. I guess I'm just not into the main stream waterfalls, I prefer the smaller indie one's.

Quotes.

Piers:- How was it Greg?
Me:- Excellent, no regrets!
*Rosie and Piers burst out laughing.*

So when the Ozzie girl stopped the car and me and her got out to take some photos of a cloud passing a cliff face, it turns out that Rosie and Piers were discussing if we were banging or not while they waited in the car. We weren't.