Yosemite

Leaving Lone Pine (after an amazing sunset the night before) we had a long trip to get to and then ride right through Yosemite National Park.

We wanted to see some of the park so Alan and Mike worked out a route which gave us the best sights. It was  a beautiful morning as we left the hotel which it turned out in daylight was next to Lone Pine Airport..

On Rob's list 'to see' were the Giant Sequoia trees at Mariposa Grove - Confusingly this was 40+ miles from the town of Mariposa where the next hotel was but the new route took care of this.

We met some interesting folk on our way through Yosemite.... there was the couple from Workington who recognised 'northern accents'. She wanted a picture with us bikers so we sat her on Alans Bike - which she liked. ( Her husband said it was Ok if she went off with us because he had her purse ;-)

And then there were two brothers who were very english indeed but now resident in Vancouver.
Amazingly they had driven down from Canada in a van but brought with them an ancient 400 Honda Motorcycle which they were using to tour round Yosemite...

Yosemite was fantastic - we didn't see any bears but found out some fascinating stuff about them...... Apparently they can move about very quickly but this is bad for them so the wardens put up signs to warn them ( We didn't even know they could read ? )

Anyway there was supposed to be a shuttle bus to take us to see the Sequoia trees but we got talking to the driver 'Jim' who said we could just ride up there on our bikes - so off we went..