Adrian's Photoblog

Time to get this global warming sorted says Adrian....find out more from this 'summit' by clicking on the photo.

....the final installment of our trip..!!!

After a snowy departure from Yosemite we drove the 5 hours to Santa Cruz, about 2 hours down the coast from San Francisco. Dee and the girls were not particularly taken with the town, though I rather liked it's more relaxed style...and there was a great second hand CD shop there -Starlight Records.

The next morning we watched the Santa Cruz surfers - a headland provides a great viewpoint - hence I was able to get so close with just my 4x zoom. Then we followed the beautiful Highway 1 up the coast to San Francisco - and of course had a few photo stops on the way..!!

Finally a swansong in San Francisco and a final lunch at Greens veggie restaurant ended an incredibly satisfying and memorable week. If anyone says it's not worth going for a week, don't let them put you off, time goes slowly when you're seeing new things all the time...and I reckon a second week in another place would have sort of pushed the first week out of our minds to make space...if you know what I mean. Also a great time of year to visit the area, nowhere was too busy.

I took 400 photos on this trip, and it's hard to edit them to the 80+ I've put on Flickr, but I hope it provides a strong flavour of the sights we saw and the experiences we had.

The latest batch start at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/432165156/

The full holiday set are at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/sets/72157594579964175/

I enjoyed the 4 hour drive to Yosemite from San Francisco, along the freeway initially, then across the Sacramento valley, finally a big climb up highway 120 - Big Oak Flat - into Yosemite.

The village itself is purposeful rather than in any way charming...this is where people stay to go and see the sights. Everything is brown to blend in and the trees have been left as far a possible so you see as little as possible walking up out of the valley.

We had a short walk to Mirror Lake where we had a wonderful evening light shining up the valley. The next morning it was snowing and we had a tricky drive out down highway 140 to Merced and on to Santa Cruz

This really is a wonderful city...we had such a relaxing time travelling round and seeing the sights....the only problem was where to park your car.

Union Square was about 5 mins walk from our hotel so we were well placed to stroll around the city centre at any time we liked. The shops were so uncrowded and full of lovely stuff that even I felt inticed to buy..!

For the photos, go to the San Francisco set at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/sets/72157594579964175/

We got a spectacular view of the Golden Gate bridge and San Francisco as we flew in after I persuaded the pilot to give the plane a good tilt at that point... The iconic bridge is a big magnet when you're in the city and as you're travelling around it just keeps appearing - and is always a stunning site.

This shot was taken from the city side of the bridge, on our second day in the city. we hired bikes (very nice ones too) and did an 8 mile cycle along the waterfront of the city, over the bridge (quite hard work clmbing to it and understandably noisy and breezy during the crossing), and then on to the beautiful town of Sausalito. Note that Izzy is wearing a T shirt and it's February - you can't get kids to dress properly these days...!!

More bridge pics ( rather a lot in fact..) at the link below

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/sets/72157594579964175/

Did you know..? The Golden Gate is the strait connecting San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean. Since 1937 it has been spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge.

If you'd asked me 20 years ago which was my favourite lakeland valley, I would have said 'Wasdale' without hesitation. But 20 years ago I'd been there only a couple of years earlier and it's glories would still have been fresh in my mind. Since then the impact has slowly faded from memory and going again has reminded me that it is the grandest and wildest 'lake valley' in the Lake District.

It's stunningly unchanged as well, paths up Scafell Pikes and Gable are clearly well used, but the paths on Scafell and up Yewbarrow was surprisingly small, and the hills west of Yewbarrow must be very quiet. Of course there is no Ambleside or Keswick, and no boats on the lake (but quite a few groups of divers inticed by it's great depths).

As usual the trip was brilliant, not just because of the scenery and walking, but the excitement of getting a group together who rarely see each other in between. It takes about 5 minutes to get back into the swing of things, with intellectual discussions dominating as usual, with topics this year ranging from gerbil habitats to relationships, and flesh weight to piano wire...

Click on the photo or use the link below to see the whole set

http://flickr.com/photos/adeeh2/sets/72157594571772226/