Upon leaving our camp at Kennedys Meadow Camp we climbed to 9200 ft through a pile of twisties fit for a motard race, Ellen and I smoothly and quietly carved up the road with virtually no one else to contend with while taking in the views supplied by mum nature.



We stopped at Springvale to get some food and fuel, a cyclist pulled up and we got to chatting , turns out he too had been to Wanaka which made it very easy for us to explain where we live.

Leaving Springvale we carried on up the hill, I missed my turn as Ellen had turned the sound off on my GPS, we took an excursion which took us up a steep zig zag only to have to come back....nice views tho

On returning we picked up the correct road and continued on our merry way stopping only at a local dairy to get a coldy before hitting Sequoia National Park.

We arrived at the park booth to be very nicely greeted by the Yogi Bear, a quick chat and park map we were on our way to the BIG trees, part way up we had a 15 minute stop for road works.

We arrived at camp slightly late after taking the wrong turn earlier, no stress plenty of light and great facilities so all was in order, we even had a wardrobe :evil



The following morning we set of to see Sherman and the BIG trees, now I am no gardener and I don't have green fingers but wow :eek1, pretty cool, a little hard to photograph with our gear but we had fun doing it.



The Sherman was certainly big and pretty glam, some of the large trees stand incredibly high.







One that had fallen was the edge of the carpark support, the root system was massive!!





Some have huge voids in them from forest fires



That evening we took a stroll to the head of the valley, stunning place and beautiful weather, life is good.





We met some people up there who wanted to go to New Zealand so we went back to their camp later and sat around the camp fire, drunk wine and chatted about travel etc.

While in the park we went up Moro rock ...so cool!





:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1



Nice pic of Ellen :clap



Things got a bit rough later that afternoon when we went to the lodge, I got too close to a bear and was attacked ... very lucky to be alive.



The trees were so big it made the DR look small





Next morning we set of toward Fresno via Buck rock fire lookout, on leaving the forest we carried on to Fresno to meet up with our mates Shann and Tonya, we organised to be there for my birthday which Pierre pointed out and yes I am 20 with 26 years experience.

We were treated to a black bear in a tree ... about 50 -60 ft high in the tree :eek1



Spot him up in the tree!!!



Lastly before exiting we went up to the Buck Rock lookout



Steep stairs up





Pretty good view too



Ellen on the way out.



We were lucky enough to have tires and various bits and pieces sent to Shann and Tonyas home which made life very easy for us so we took the advantage to get everything done and dusted while having access to work space, tools, swimming pool etc.

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Cheers Andi & Ellen .... https://twomotokiwis.blogspot.com/ Two Moto Kiwis Alaska - Argentina - April 2012 -> Somewhere