Rocky Mountain NP

Picking up some maps Tue morning from the info centre and then the hire car, we departed Denver after a short stay, headed for Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park. The drive was only a bit over an hour plus a bit of time in Safeway to stock up, beer, chips, m&m's... all the essentials!
The accomodation, Amberwood, turned out really well. Made a call in the morning after seeing it online, had quite reasonable rates. When we arrived we were greeted by a nice woman who showed us our room, with a fireplace, balcony and view of the rockies. Its still cold, so apart from pick up some info on the area we just chilled out in the room and watched some quality tv, family guy and scary movie!
Day 1 - today is a hiking day, we headed to the closest area in the park Bear Lake. Many of the trails are covered in snow still and were inaccessible (altitude is about 10,000 feet). We ended up doing the Cub lake loop and up to Fern lake.


The hike to fern lake was 3.8 miles, via fern lake falls. The falls were nice but not quite as spectacular as Yosemite, although a lot less people was nice. The last part of the hike (which was mainly uphill) was difficult and covered in snow. Just as we arrived at the lake the weather turned, rain and then snow. This was our lunch stop, so we ate quickly under a tree for shelter. The lake was nice but the cold and snow meant we didnt get a lot of time there. The lake was surrounded by larger snow capped mountains very scenic. (altitude about 11,000ft)
The loop back took us to a sunnier lake with lillies and was surrounded by hills with pine trees. Called Cub lake their were in fact no cubs or bears :(
We saw many Elk and Big horn sheep off in the distance. Lots of Squirrel and Chipmunks The Elk actually roam accross the road and cause traffic jams!
After walking about 10.5 mile we were pretty tired, so the evening we just lazed about the cabin, watched the Nuggets game, lost to L.A.

Day 2 -
We did a sceinc drive today over the Trail Ridge Road which is the highest continuous paved road in the U.S.A. We saw the Big Horn Sheep, which is the Colorado State Mammal, close up on the side of the road which is pretty rare, lucky us! Also saw a few Marrmot, which is a little fury animal, a bit bigger than the squirel.
It was a nice drive with great views of the mountains, and continual changes in the weather. We took a few short hikes which were all partially through the snow and very tiring due to the altitude.
The highest point in the road is 12,183 feet above sea level. Just the other side of the highest point is the continental divide. This is the point in the country which divides the way the water flows out to sea (east or west).


After the drive we returned to Bear lake area and walked the trail around the lake which was also covered in snow. Again another very scenic lake surrounded by mountains. - No Bears. On the way back to the cabin we did see a Snow Hare and a Coyote.
Tonights entertainment, Pizza and Tad Hamilton!
Day 3
Our final day in the Rocky Mountain National Park we headed south to the Wild Basin area. We hiked along a trail which took us past 3 different waterfalls (Copeland, Calypso Cascades, Ouzel falls), about 6 mile return. Feeling quite luthargic today bit tired, saw some deer but not as much wildlife todat, had hoped to see Beaver but no luck.
Back at the cabin by 4pm to rest, drink beer, eat chips, nuts and pasta and watch the basketball. We lit the fire in the cabin and saw a Marrmot outside the cabin.

Denver, Colorado

Arriving into Denver late due to an evening flight, and then a delay we took a cab ($70, including a loop around the neighbourhood with the cabbie going "i don't know where it is" - despite being able to see the hotel!) to the hotel, arrived about 1am.
Set the alarm and got up at 9am for a huge breakfast, mmm waffles, then back to the room to rest, still pretty tired.
The weather is not great, raining 60's (high teens celcius), so lazing about for a few hours didn't worry us.
In the afternoon we took the bus downtown to 16th st which is a nice shopping walk type area. Tree lined, shops, bars, restaurants and this weekend an art show.
We ended up in "Lime" a Mexican restaurant for dinner and to stayed to watch "the game", Lakers vs Denver Nuggets NBA play-offs.
That was the plan anyway, until just before half time Christine nearly feel off her Bar Stool, apparently the margarita's are pretty strong! Damien finished our drinks, before heading back to the bus and the rain.
Denver, from what we saw seemed like a cool town, there were lots of Brewery pubs we could have gone to, as well as heaps of park lands.

San Fran 2

We arrived back at San Fransisco on Thursday arvo. We dropped off the car and hauled our packs to the HI in the downtown district. This is the area that we were advised to avoid by the last San Fran hostel we stayed at. It was an interesting walk puctuated by odd smells and homeless people.

The hostel is a very nice old building that was a hotel, but due to the location (nearby to homeless shelters) could no longer survive. But that's ok becasue we have a lovely 5 share dorm with a private bathroom. It's the simple pleasures in life.

We saw most of what we wanted to see in San Fran on our last visit so we had anticipated some down time. We have been sleeping in a bit but still taking full advantage of our 'free' breakfast that consists of yummy bagles with strawberry jam.

The highlights of our time here have been walking through the Golden Gate park, which is sort of equivilent to the yarra and the botanical gardens in Melbourne. We also had a fantastic time at Alcataz. We did the night tour which left at 6:10pm so the ferry ride over was still day light so we had a really good look at the whole island. It wasn't long after landing that it started to get dark and a bit spooky looking, this was helped by the fact that it was FREEZING and most of the city was not visible due to clouds. We did the audio tour which was very interesting and gave an insight to the history of the island and also how the prisoners lived. We were also lucky enough to tour the hospital wing and hear stories from one of the tour guides. The last part of the tour was a demonstartion with the doors. This sound has been recorded and used in Jerrassic Park and Terminator. Very cool.
Sunday morning we also got down to the Mission district which is where the spanish population is. The had a Carnivale Parade and festival which was interesting, everyone from the primary school kigs to the elderly were parading on floats and dancing down the streets.

Leaving San Fran we are flying to Denver before taking another car through the Rocky Mountains all the way to Seattle.

Napa Valley

Sadly after 3 days in Yosemite and 2 in Tahoe, we still havent seen a Bear! I even left some chocolate and bananas out for him, but no show :(
Leaving Tahoe we basically drove straight to the wine regions, about 4hrs.
We started out in the Sonoma Valley, checked out Jacuzzi and Cline wineries.
We still didnt have accom so spent a long time looking... Finally found a place in a little town, petaluma, a bit out of the valley.
We had take away Lasagne, a bottle of Cab Sauv and a crappy movie was our plan for the night!


First thing next day was to sort out our accomodation for back in San Fran, Should be easy, back to the same hostel. When we rang, fully booked, despite 2 staff telling us not to bother booking when we were there a week ago! Few more calls, all fully booked. Its a long weekend, we just found out! Finally found some beds in a hostel but in a dodgy part of town, ahhh the smell of urine!
Back in the car we headed to the Napa Valley. Did a tasting at V. Sattui, which had a really interesting Muscat and Brandy blend. All the wines we tried were nice, although I think we are a bit spoilt by the quality of Australian wines.
Last stop was Mumm winery, ironically we were served by a pregnant woman! Here we sat on the patio and drank champagne. We had hoped to get lunch but they didnt do food.
We then headed back to San Fran to drop off the car and find our beds for the night.

Lake Tahoe

We were a bit slow getting out of our accomodation at the Yosemite Bug, due to only getting back to the room at about midnight after our sunset walk and the drive back. Heading from Yosemite to Lake Tahoe, the Tioga Pass through Yosemite was still closed due to snow, so we took the Sonora Pass, not in the park but a bit further north. The drive was quite fun, long winding bends which you could take at about 70miles, a nice change from the hairpin turns in the park. We stopped along the way for lunch by a lake. We arrived at Tahoe at about 6.30pm, and still had to find some accomodation. We headed to the West side of the lake, we had been told it was a bit nicer. Crusing along we found a little place called Tahoma, and by chance the second place we tried was quite rewasonable, nice and had vacancy... nice! After beer and pizza in a local restaurant we headed back to the accomodation. We got talking to some guys who were opening a cafe in the building and had about 3 days to get it all set up. They were working pretty hard and were really nice, so christine helped them out and painted a few things for them, including the Icecream Sign! The following day we explored the lake area, the lake is massive, we only made it about 1/4 of the way around it. We saw another waterfall, eagle falls, was nothing compared to those in Yosemite. We had lunch at Cascade falls, another walk which wearing thongs did not make any easier! We then did a bit of the Rubicon Train in DL Bliss state park, which had great views of the lake, emerald bay and a little lighthouse. We had leftover pizza and beers on the pier while watching sunset before retreating back to the accomodation and helping out in the cafe for a bit before bed.

Yosemite

After the Big Sur we headed inland across the coastal mountain range, across flat plains then back into mountains. It was amazing to see the dramatic landscape changes. One minutes it would be lush green rolling hills then the next barren grey foothills. We arrived at the Yosemite Bug early enough to get some washing done and cook dinner. Clean clothes are sooooo exciting when your living out of a back pack. Our dorm was looking quite festive with our clothes lines being a rainbow of clean undies. We were in a twelve bed dorm and had though we were incredibily lucky having only 6 people in it, but then sure enough a bus arrived along with a very vocal snorer. I didn't sleep very when that night. ):
We drove one of the guys we met at the dorm, Ray, into the park. He was a texan, who had previously spent 3 weeks in the park and had only been into town to pick up supplies before spending another month on the trails. He had a lot to say and gave us a few handy pointers as to what to see.
Ray took us to bridal veil falls, a short walk to a water fall, where you get soaked from the viewing platform, and then up to tunnel view, which gave us an overview of the Yosemite Valley. We then dropped him in town and parked the car. The shuttle bus is the best way to get around the valley.
We spent the rest of the day on a hike up the Mist trail (because the mist from the falls soaks you again), to Vernal Falls and then on up to Nevada Falls. Along the way we met 2 college girls doing a big road trip, they had just graduated. The hike took most of the afternoon and gave awesome views of the two massive waterfalls and back through the valley.





The drive back to the accomodation took about an hour where we had leftovers for dinner, nice and simple.
The dorm had a guy from Japan who was in the area for a week just doing hikes, and Jessica and her friend - blonde sweedish girls who were also pretty friendly.
Second day in the park we were pretty tired after a poor first night sleep and a long day of hiking. We had hoped to climb Yosemite falls, another 5-6 hour walk.
We started with a short walk to Mirror lake which had reflective views of the surrounding snow capped mountains. Instead of then starting the big hike we went to the Awahee Hotel, a rather fancy place and had coffees.





We did do the lower Yosemite falls walk, which only takes about an hour. Christine checked out the gift shop and we bought some beer and snacks. Our last stop for the day was Glacier point and then a walk to Sentinal Dome where we sat and watched Sunset with 360 deg views of the valley. It was quite amazing how high up we were, the view dwarfed the falls which we had spent hours climbing the day before.
Suprisingly there were only a handful of people at the lookout for sunset, possibly something to do with the mile walk back to the car in the dark!

Big Sur

We picked up a hire car in San Francisco which we will be flogging around California for about the next week.
First destination was over the Golden Gate Bridge, via a few inconvienient oneway streets and dead ends. Also headed up into the hills on the other side of the bay for some nice views of the bridge and the city.
Heading south on Hwy 1, we stopped in half moon bay for lunch, traditional little american diner, pancakes and a greasy burger, mmm... The local sheriff was even in the booth next too us.
After a quick look at the Santa Cruz board walk which is another American theme park pretty much, we grabbed some coffee, and headed for our accomodation in Monterey, an old fishing village, very pretty.
We made friends with some girls from the UK, so might see them in a few months time. Both were near the end of their trips, one has been away for 3 mth and the other 8mth (she only had $3 in her account and had to wait up late to beg mum for a loan!)
Thursday
The 90 odd miles south of Monterey is known as the big spur, and is similar to Victoria's Great Ocean Rd. We drove the length of this and stayed in a tiny hostel in Cambria. Of the 15 or so guests were 2 noisy kids, and some american dude who was doing yoga in his underware when we walked in, nice!!!
The drive was amazing, unbelievable coastline. We made a few stops on the way, did some hiking in a national park, lunch on a windy beach, mmm sand sandwiches. We saw all sorts of birds and wildlife, sea lions and otters included.





It was an awesome drive winding roads on the edge of massive rock walls and cliff edges, i think Need for Speed (computer game), actually based a track on this road. I could try to explain it, but I think it will be easier to post some more photos at some stage... Watch this space...
Friday
Just a driving day, headed from the bottom of Big Sur, to Midpines, at the gate of Yosemite NP. Think it was about 350 miles.
The next few days will be spent hiking and in search of a big grizzly bear.

San Fran # 1

Arriving at San Fran at about 10am, we walked a few blocks to the hostel. Just a short one night stay before picking up the car and driving around California for a week.
Spent the morning relaxing in the hostel before heading to North Shore for coffee, lunch, and and a lay in the grass.
Saw some local girl doing head stands and a chiwowa trying to get it on with a pit bull and german shepherd!
We then headed to fisherman's wharf and Pier 39 to check out the shops, gallery's and Seal colony.

Leaving Las Vegas

Earliest Morning in Vegas - 10.30am.
Breakfast at Starbucks, light breakie after 2 days of food and drink. Viewed the Lion enclosure at MGM, huge animals.
After check out at Tropicana, we headed by duece to downtown, freemont st, the original Vegas.
Lots of older casinos, had a rest and a drinkl at Mermaids Casino. Then headed for the short walk, only 2 blocks to the Greyhound Station.
Great the Bus is going to be 2 hrs Delayed!
Well... it was just like they say it is... I was actually a bit disappointed at how uneventful our trip to vegas was.
First a 2hr delay, the overactive air-con, then the old guy who yelled at anyone who looked at him, the loud young guy who wouldn't shut up. Even the friendly guy that wouldn't stop talking to us as we tried to sleep.
But we made it and had no problems changing our ticket for the connection we had missed, so Greyhound... your O.K.!

Viva Las Vegas

After the 6 hour bus trip we pulled into the Las Vegas depot ready for anything Vegas could throw at us. The Greyhound Bus trip was rather uneventful, normal people, no freaks, no strippers :(
We lugged on our 20kg back packs and headed for the public bus line, just like any good back packer on a tight budget would. We arrived here in 30+ degree heat and then witnessed a woman pull up at the red light, promptly open her door to let out a Hyper colour pink spew, from the drivers seat. Welcome to Vegas!
After a stuff up with our room and a longer than it should have been bus trip we finally arrived at our beautiful, but slightly out of date accommodation 'Tropicana', I think the name says it all. (:
The room was clean, but had an awesome view of the strip - 18th floor.
As if on que, once the beer was on Ice Juzzy ad Kristy arrived! Was great to have a quick catch up with them before heading to NY NY for dinner and drinks at Hooters Casino.
Saturday
When we woke up at mid-day, we headed back to NY NY for some bacon and eggs... mmm. Then jumped on the double duece (double decker bus), to Wynn for a bit of sightseeing and a drink. From here the girls hit the shops, while Juzzy and I found a few sports bars and casinos to keep us amused.
We ate dinner in the Venetian, on the canals, a great casino. Followed by a few more drinks at Treasure Island (where the pirate show was cancelled), Bellagio, Paris and of course Hooters.
Sunday
After getting in at about 4.40am we slept to mid-day. Breakfast at Excalibur then checked out the Luxor Casino (a giant pyramid), and Mandalay Bay.
A beer by the pool and it was time for Juzzy and Kristy to fly back to Seattle. Definately the Highlight of the weekend was catching up with the Swiderski's
After a Swim we ate at T&T (tequila and tacos) @ Luxor. We then saw the pirate show that we missed the previous night, which was good in a corny kinda way! After moving on to the Bellagio and the fountain show we finished with Margaritas at Ballys and Flamingo.

A great way to finish an awesome weekend in Las Vegas!

Christines Observations

• Wow look at that, newspapers in a box! (refering to the newspapers for sale on the side of the road)
• That school bus looks like the one from the simpsons!

Vegas Bus Trip

Friday - Today we make our way to Las Vegas by bus.
Its a 6hr trip from L.A. we should arrive around 4pm. Guessing the trip could have a few interesting people on it.
Really looking forward to Seeing Juzzy and Kristy when we get there, should be a good weekend to catch up and party in Vegas.

Santa Monica - LA

We have spent the past 2 days exploring LA and recovering as much as possible from the jetlag.

Wednesday morning the hostel organised a guided tour (on public buses), to Malibu. This was guided by a German guy who has been living in LA for a number of years. Interesting guy, interesting lifestyle.

Didn't get to see any of the stars that live in the area, but we did see some of the locals fishing on Malibu Pier catch a shark that as about a meter long. All us tourists wouldn't get any closer than a few meters too it, then this little kid (about 5) waltzed over and sat about 20cm in front of it!

Had lunch on the beach and say dolphins surfing in the waves and jumping out of the water, had a look around the shops and coffee in the Malibu Starbucks. Its, like, where all the cool people hang out!

Malibu and Santa Monica are the beaches where Baywatch was filmed, unfortunately C.J. wasn't on patrol.

We also checked out the 3rd street prominade and Santa Monica Pier on our own. Spent a few hours lying on the beach in the afternoon.

Thursday we jumped back on the public buses and did a few of the touristy sites. Checked out the Beverley Hills Shopping Strip, and all the things that we cant afford. T-Shirts for $400 USD, Jewellery worth more than our round the world airfares and Artworks for 40-50k (must be expensive crayon's).

After lunch at the farmers market and a look around The Grove (another mall), we headed on down to Hollywood. Saw the stars in the concrete, including the simpsons and bugs bunny, Kodak Theatre and views of the Hollywood Sign. Christine got accosted by Elvis and Marilyn, ha ha ha... ahh good times.

USA Arrival

Hi Everyone,

We have arrived in one piece! hooray!
Departing at 10am Tue, after 14 hours in the plane, we arrived at LA airport at 7am tuesday (the same day, weird huh).

Very tiring as expected, especially for Christine who watched 4 movies on the plane, rather than sleep. It was all good tho. No hassles through customs. After arriving we caught a cross city bus from the airport to Santa Monica where we were staying in the hostel.

Had a few hours sleep in the afternoon and then a good night sleep to get us through to Wednesday.