So I woke up this morning (having arrived in the dark last night) and thought I was back in Australia:
But an hour back up the hill to the park apparently not:
Wawona is one of the early settlement areas around Yosemite. There’s this lovely covered bridge and a bunch of other historic displays.
I mostly loved the river – I sat on one of the big boulders with my feet in the water – listening to the water burbling, birds in the trees, watching dragonflies flit past, and the smell of the pine trees (or is it the redwoods? Either way it’s lovely).
A lovely peaceful way to spend some time!
From there I went to Mariposa Grove – beautiful Sequoia trees a little further down the mountain. Neither my legs nor Bertha would get me to the largest trees – it’s a rough track – the walking track dirt with roots etc, and another was a gravelly road which was pretty steep in places.
Lots more people here than at Wawona, but still just lovely. Those trees are just amazing:
And something a bit more artistic that I’m trying out:
From here I’m San Francisco bound. I didn’t make it all today – just too far to drive after having spent a large part of the day sightseeing. Once down the mountain I powered up the freeway, and got as far as Merced (I”m going to try to remember to put in maps for driving days: see here for today).
On the way there I apparently visited Holland:
Three continents in a day – pretty awesome. Central California around Merced is pretty depressing – there’s a bad drought, so not many jobs available for agricultural workers who are living on tiny incomes even when there is work. This has been one of the few places that I was careful about where I parked, slept, etc. I parked the car right under my hotel window and made sure I took anything even vaguely tempting looking out of the car.