A Weekend Away

This Friday, in celebration of our one-year anniversary thingamywhatsit (A year? How did that happen?) David and I took a trip down to the incredible National Parks of King's Canyon and Sequoia.

Having visited around ten of America's National Parks, I must say that each and every one of them is truly spectacular, in their own unique way. I'm very definitely of the opinion that if you visit the US, the big famous cities are nice, but it's the National Parks that you really have to see. These two are no exception.

We were camping in King's Canyon, and arrived a little later than planned, thanks to the ineptitude of Apple maps, and some of the thickest fog I've ever seen. There is definitely something quite fun about setting up camp in the dark, and then emerging from your tent in the morning, to discover the true wonder of where you are staying. There were trees well over a hundred feet tall and insanely wide, and the loos weren't nearly as far away as they had seemed in the unfamiliar darkness.

We started with a wander to see the second largest tree in the world, the General Grant Tree, which is by no means the tallest in the world, but the second largest by volume. Its trunk is estimated to have a volume of around 1,320 m³!

This doesn't really capture the scale.

Along the trail, we also walked through a massive fallen tree trunk.

 Having David stand in there puts it in perspective a bit, doesn't it?

One of the coolest things we got to see, was the view from above the clouds we'd driven through on our way up the previous night. We took a walk up Moro Rock, to get an absolutely stunning view of the clouds flooding the valley below.

Bit of a climb it was, too!

The view from the top was truly one of the most spectacular things I've seen. I'm sure the normal view of the valley is pretty awesome too, but with the clouds, the blue sky, and the mountains, it was truly awe-inspiring.

A giant basin of clouds.

 Kind of makes you feel like you're on top of

the whole world, it does.

 Sunglasses reflections are cool.

That afternoon we took a tour of the Crystal Caves, of which I took no photos, because it was dark, and I would not have been able to get very good photos, so decided to simply enjoy myself and not worry about documenting things for later enjoyment. They were, however, utterly gorgeous, and much cheaper to tour than any New Zealand cave I've ever visited. The absence of weta was made up for by the threat of possible rattlesnakes on the path down to the caves. What with all the bears, cougars, and snakes I am continually warned about, I'm beginning to like camping in my safe little Aotearoa more and more. Fortunately none were encountered, only a few squirrels and chipmunks.

After the tour we went to see the General Sherman Tree, the largest in the world, and goodness it was massive!

Again, not capturing the immense scale.

One of the things about these giant sequoias is not just the size of them, but the sheer amount of impressively large trees there are in one place. Not only do the parks contain the biggest in the world, and the notable trees that you can walk through, drive through, park a car on, or build a house from, but everywhere there are huge trees, just hanging around on the side of the road, or along a path, that nobody really pays any attention to, because in this place there are just so many of them. Giant trees are everywhere here!

Sunday, after packing up camp, we took a drive to get a better look at King's Canyon. Once again I was blown away by how stunning America's national parks are.

Once again, not capturing the scale of incredible.

We didn't actually get the chance to go all the way down into the canyon, which was a bit of a shame, but what we did see was incredibly gorgeous. Guess that just gives me an excuse to go back another day!

Last stop before we left for home was a grove of giant tree stumps. Apparently I didn't actually take a photo of the whole thing, but here's two pictures of one stump, with David to put it in perspective. Keep in mind that I was also standing on the same stump when I took them.

 Insanely giant tree stump! Fun to climb on, they are.

Camping in America is a little different to camping in New Zealand, I've discovered. I've been several times, and some of the differences are minor, some more notable. I think the biggest one is the bears. Fortunately I haven't seen one yet (other than running across a field in Yosemite in June), but needing to be wary of them, and store all food and scented items in these big metal bear boxes is definitely a bit different. Camping where the worst thing you might encounter is a weta* or a possum certainly has its advantages. I'm not overly fond of having to guard my food from bears, raccoons, and mountain lions. Keeping an eye out for snakes along the path isn't much fun either.

 

Overall, it was a very awesome weekend, and I'm already looking forward to planning my next trip to far away exciting lands, wherever they may be.

 

*Side note. I just showed David a picture of a weta, and he is no longer so keen on the idea of New Zealand outdoors. For any Americans reading, this is what a weta looks like. And yes, they can jump.

The Past Nine Months

It's been rather a while since I wrote something here, huh? I've honestly no real idea were to start, or if it's even worth trying to do an update on what's been going on for the past almost-year. Maybe whenever I get around to updating this thing, I'll just ramble about whatever I feel like, instead of feeling like I need to keep it updated on every single thing I've been doing, which is quite clearly not possible, as staying up to date on things like this is just not something I'm good at. We'll go month by month, for this time.

January:

That was the last time I wrote anything, wasn't it? Goodness, I can hardly remember what I was doing then. Went to Oklahoma for a long weekend, which was very lovely. Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum was incredibly well done and very moving. I remember Oklahoma as very flat, which made going up what I was told was a mountain rather awesome, as we could see out for ever and ever.

Pretty awesome view, yes?

February:

David got back from Oklahoma in mid-February, which did wonders for my sanity levels. I also took a trip out to Tahoe with my host family, which almost ended in an attempt to put me in skis, but fortunately for us all, my arm was still not recovered from my last incident with strange things strapped to my feet in cold stuff, so I escaped unscathed. I did get a day to take a bit of a look around some of Nevada as well, including a look at the State's capital, Carson City, and an old little touristy mining town, on the way to pick Hannah up from a friend's house.

Tahoe is really rather pretty.

March:

I don't think I did all that much travelling in March. Had an Open Circle retreat out in Santa Cruz one weekend, which was very awesome. Met a ton of awesome people, and had a great time. I also had my first ever manicure, which was an interesting experience. I got them done in what I decided to call "TARDIS Blue", because I am a nerd like that.

April:

April was a busy, and incredibly exciting month. My dear Susan came to visit me, and we had many fantastic adventures around the place, seeing some of San Francisco and Monterey, and generally getting up to all sorts of mischief. I also took a four day trip to Vancouver with David, which was definitely a highlight of my travels thus far. Very beautiful, it is, and one of the only places I've been on my travels in North America that I could actually see myself living for a while. April was also the month that I decided to stay in the US for another year, which was a fairly huge decision, and one that I'm still very happy with. I miss home hugely, but the opportunity for travel (not to mention the bribery on part of my host mum) was just too much to pass up. I'm not quite finished with America yet, and I need a little longer to get as much out of it as I can.

May:

In May David and I took a roadtrip. The plan was to go a few hours south to Big Sur and camp for a night, but upon discovering that all the campsites were booked up we ended up driving south along Highway 1 for quite a bit further than we'd originally planned. We ended up spending the night in Santa Barbara, and making it all the way to Los Angeles the next day.

Well over a thousand seals, chilling out on a

beach we found along Highway 1.

June:

June was another very busy month. My mum and dad came to visit, and I took two weeks off work to go travelling around with them. We did Yosemite, Death Valley (Maximum temperature of 49°C/120°F was a bit too hot for me...), Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and the Hoover Dam. America really does have some absolutely incredible national parks. I also turned 21 in June, which was a little interesting, as they don't really do it the same way here. In America, turning 21 just means that you're allowed to go to a pub, rather than the whole big party that it is back home. It made me miss home and all the people I have there a fair bit, but was also plenty of fun. Twas also interesting to have my parents meet some of the people in my life over here.

July:

In July I went on one of the most incredible trips of my life thus far. As part of her bribery to have me stay another year, my host mum took me to Africa with her and the kids. I highly doubt I will ever be able to travel in the way  that we did ever again. We flew business class, and stayed in some of the most amazing places I've ever seen. We flew into Johannesburg, then went up to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, spend four days at two different camps in the Okavango Delta, in Botswana, two more nights in Botswana at Chobe National Park, then to Windhoek, Namibia, where we rented a car and drove down to Sossusvlei, the world's largest sand dunes. We spent the last five days on the beach of a little island resort just off the coast of Mozambique. And yes, I am fully aware of how insanely lucky I am.

August:

I spent the first ten days of August in Europe, where I took an extended stopover on my ways back to the States, in order to sort out the renewal of my visa. My travel went a little less smoothly after leaving Judy and the kids, what with a fair bit of running around in Frankfurt to sort out some hidden costs of my visa, a confusion with airports that had me taking the fastest taxi ride of my life (180km/h on the autobahn anyone?), the friend I was meeting in England being seven hours late to meet me after being hit by a car on his way to the station, and a nasty case of food poisoning while camping. But that's the stuff that makes life more interesting, right? I got to stay with my grandparents for a few nights, which was really wonderful, as it had been a good five years since I last saw them, and also catch up with my dear Anastasia. On my way back to Frankfurt to fly out I spent a couple of nights in Brussels, staying in a little hostel down a little alleyway leading to La Grande Place. Fantastic city, is Brussels.
The rest of August was pretty much just getting back into the swing of school and general life after having been away for so long.

En Manneken Pis. Much

smaller than you'd expect.

September:

At the beginning of September, David and I took a trip up the coast for Labour Weekend. Labour Weekend is in September here. Very strange. It's generally my favourite thing about October. Most of the rest of the year, too, for that matter. I'm incredibly gutted to be missing my Wellyfest two years in a row. We drove all the way up Highway 1 to Portland, Oregon, and back home past Crater Lake. It was rather a lot of driving for four days, but fully worth it. Highway 1 really is incredibly gorgeous. It goes all the way up the West Coast of the USA, from San Diego to Seattle, and there are many portions of it that are just stunning.

A river we camped beside on the way home.

That about brings us up to date, I'm reckoning. I've got various plans for the rest of the year, including a trip to King's Canyon/Sequoia National Parks next weekend, a few days off over Thanksgiving that I am yet to figure out what to do with, and three weeks back home over Christmas and New Year's. All much excitingness.

If you're interested in photos, I've been rather slack at organising whole albums for facebook, but I have been managing to put up one every day or so over at a tumblr I was coerced into getting, which you can find here.