It was a 40 minute ride to the gates of the park from our 'budget' accommodation - another 30$ 'saved' on entrance fees with our magic card - and then almost an hour up a steep and winding road - 10mph hairpins - to get to the Sequoia groves. Whilst on the road there were plenty of areas of fire damage to be seen. However, many of the charred trees seemed still to be alive as they were sprouting green leaves. But before we arrived at the Park it was fields and fields of orange trees.
The Sequoia, certainly those here in the National Park, are giant trees. Apparently the Giant Redwoods further north on the coast are taller we will see whether we can see. And there are wider and older ones too. Some of the trees in Sequoia are famous and have names. We went to see 'General Sherman' who is supposed to be the most voluminous tree going. They reckon that particular tree was around at the time of Cleopatra. The stunning thing about these massive trees is their colour and the way the trunk stays massive for most of their height. The tree is just shy of 85m tall and about 2,500 yrs old.
We left Sequoia on Bastille Day and stayed at the other side of the Park to where we had been staying. Not all our accommodation works out well. When it doesn't, we tell ourselves that we will laugh it off in a few days time. This meant that we woke up, on Paul's birthday, in a shed with a bed. We haven't started laughing about it yet.
