Our plan for today was to explore Yosemite. We decided to start at the visitor centre at Yosemite valley, which meant driving the CA41 – possibly my new favourite road, in 30 miles there is only one straight and that is through a tunnel! When we got to the visitor centre we discovered that they were celebrating 125 years since the park opened, complete with overhung star spangled banner and “America is great” speeches – so we left to hike up to another waterfall.

The hike to Vernal falls was classed as strenuous, so we wimped out and stopped at the viewing platform lower down the valley, which proved to be a good move. After seeing Vernal falls we walked to Mirror Lake (which isn’t actually a lake nor did it give any reflections) about halfway to the “lake” the heavens opened – we were soaked through. We finished the hike and went straight to the cafe for emergency hot chocolate and cookies. By the time we had finished those the rain had stopped, and although we were still damp, we were not keen to get any wetter so we decided to resume sightseeing from the car.

We retraced our route down CA41 as far as the Glacier Point turn off, which is a 17 mile road, again with lots of corners and gradient changes, ending at Glacier Point (no glacier to be seen). Glacier Point overlooks the whole Yosemite valley, so we were able to see Vernal falls and Mirror Lake, where we had been previously, as well as a great view of Half Dome mountain, one of the most famous peaks in the park. As a bonus, standing on windy cliff top managed to dry out our clothes from the rain earlier.