[First two photos are from the viewpoint at Glacier Point, the next is from Tunnel View down in the valley and the last is in the Mariposa Grove.]

Yesterday my friend Caroline’s husband, Dan, took me for Yosemite National Park for the day.  We hit the highlights and it was a bit of a whistlestop tour but it is an amazing place of which I could only scratch the surface.

The first stop was the Mariposa Grove of redwoods.  Saying they are big trees doesn’t even start to describe it.  They are massive. I was luckly to see them as next week the grove closes for two years for restoration.  Then we went to Glacier Point, which is where the amazing views of Half Dome above were taken.  The view is just stupendous!  Lastly we went to the Yosmite Valley floor, where the views down the valley are amazing.

The park is nothing like a NZ or Australian national park in that you can drive extensively in the park, there are hotels (a bit like the Chateau in NZ in that they were built in a grander time), and the accessibilty versus conservation balance is probaby weighted more to accessibiliy than in NZ or Australia.  Yosemite is extremely well visited so even on a week day early in the season like  yesterday when we arrived the Mariposa Grove mid morning the carpark was full – but there are frequent shuttles to points of interest in the park so that’s what we took.  You really need more time  than I have to explore the park and it is possible to stay in a house or something more salubrious than a tent inside the park itself, unlike most Australian or NZ parks.

So, all in all a magic day with good company