This morning was the start of our trip, though technically
it was day two of the tour! We started by meeting in the lobby at 08:00 where
we all met our tour guide Damian and he explained bits and bats about the trip.
He then got us all to do a brief introduction about ourselves, as many of the
tours do, and let us sign the waiver forms before letting us dump our things
into the trailer and then letting us board the brand spanking new van.
The eight of us, including Damian then set off on the way to
Yosemite National Park. It took a while to get out of the city due to the fact
that today was the day of the annual Bay to Breakers race where all manner of
people race about 7.5 miles across the city wearing whatever they like… which
can be nothing at all, or just very little…
After diving over the Bay Bridge on the lower level Damian
turned off onto Treasure Island where he pulled over at a view point so we
could all hop out to get one of the best views of the cityscape.
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| Top row L to R: Danny, Stefano, Gill, Andrea and Corrie Bottom row L to R: Tayseer and Victoria |
We had about 180 miles to drive until we’d get to the
Hodgdon Meadows camp though this was broken up with a couple of stops. The
first of which was a cultural experience in itself as we were about to go
shopping in Wal-Mart. Danny had been paired with Andrea (from Switzerland) and
the two of them were to decide what would be for tea the day after tomorrow.
They had to make a list of the ingredients they needed and then had to locate
them in the shop. The rest of the group had to gather other supplies for us all
to eat over the trip. We had all opted to contribute to a food kitty to make
things simpler… and probably cheaper too. After the food shopping we all had a
little time to go and get things we may need on the trip: water bottles,
pillows etc.
Stop two was at Sequoia Grove where we had a warm up for
things to come as we had a walk to do. This was only an “American hike” though
and was just a couple of miles round trip down to check out some of the sequoia
trees. Unfortunately this was the start of a blister on the back of Corrie’s
ankle as the walking shoes hadn’t been needed since the Tongariro Crossing.
We arrived at the camp in the woods and this is when we all
began to learn the ways of the tour. We were all put into pairs and we had
Tayseer on his lonesome who was to be the designated van loader/ un-loader. The
pairs would be on a rota that would alternate between cooking, washing up and
van cleaning. We also learned what boxes etc contained what, how to set up the
cooking stuff, and how to put up the tents.
As this was the first day Damian took charge of the cooking
and made us all a good spag bol for tea. Afterwards we were then all taught how
to wash up!
We chatted and had a camp fire going until bed but before
that we all had to remove any food or fragrant things from our tents and stash
them inside our campsites bear proof container! There’s the threat of a $5000
fine for those caught not doing this - ouch!
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