Ballarat to Panamint City - Ghost Town - Ooooohhh

This is us setting off for our first 'real' hike. According to the ranger it is a 'toughie' but a 'beauty'! We're off to the ghost town of Panamint City, called the "toughest, rawest, most hard-boiled little hellhole that ever passed for civilised...."!! Yipee, can't wait!! Please note - real backpacking here, provisions and sleeping required for two days. On the menu was banana's, apples, nuts, seeds and raisins, melon and...... homemade chilli con carne!!

Well after four and a half gruelling hours uphill we've arrived and are settling into our cabin for an overnight stay. The cabin is open to all, there's no 'check in' here and the whole place is deserted! So what's the first thing we do, yes get the fire going. The socks are wet from sweat (urghh) after the 7.5 mile trawl up to the city and need drying off so what to use as shoes? As Keith is so resourceful he devised a new form of footwear - it's called the 'paper plate' shoe and is made from, yes, you've guessed it.... a paper plate and of course ya ever useful duck tape!!

Our little overnight refuge. Of course the stove is on full tilt, notice all the smoke coming out the chimney, the fire monster Keith is in his element!

Panamint City boomed in 1874 with a population of 2000 people. They all thought they would make their fortunes mining silver. Not so as the presence of silver was no where near what they had thought and only present in small deposits. In 1876, a flash flood destroyed much of the town, leaving little more than the chimney from the mine's smelter. This place is fascinating, desolate with crumbling stone shacks and some decaying new build from when again people attempted to mine again in the 1980's.

The walk is mainly through a place called Surprise Canyon which was quite a surprise as it's so pretty with quite a lot of greenery, flowers and surprisingly lots of streams.

Crazy Horses - Wahhh Wahhh. Well not quite a horse, what ever it is it looks parched and ready for a cup of tea. So what is the four legged friends real name? This was with three other 'friends' (one young one) and was making THE most strangest sound as we approached - something like a cross between a steam engine and a car horn!! Anyway... we got the message and kept well away.

This pic is for Craig Best - One of the lovely cactus plants on the trail.

Another lovely view!
Notice the smiling face, this is because we're on the way DOWN the day after.

This is the jail house in a little place called Ballarat, another gold mining ghost town at the start of Surprise Canyon. Supposedly the doors were never locked cos the only people that were ever put in there were drunkards and they didn't want to leave until the next morning when they'd sobered up!


Well done B-I-L (young Bob) it was wilde Coyote and the Outsourcer's 6Million LED's was close enough for us!!

Death Valley (Not the home of Mr Reaper!)

After a little drive out from Red Rock Canyon, here we are on the surface of planet Mars, or that's how it seemed. What an interesting place this turned out to be!



The rather unfortunate name was given by prospectors who turned up here looking for gold and the such like. When they were met with high mountains and desert conditions they split up and one of them perished in the valley. The other prospectors referred to it as 'that death valley' and the name stuck.




In summer this place is too hot, in fact this place holds the record for the hottest temperature reached in the USA (134 F, 56C) . A lot of the places are named with this in mind, like 'the Devils golf course' and this picture here from 'Dantes View' 5,475ft above sea level. That's the salt lake below known as 'badwater' (good name, eh) which is the lowest point in the USA at 282 feet BELOW sea level - more of that later though.

5am in the morning waiting for the sun to rise. This is Zabriskie Point, an area where the wind has sculptured the rock and eroded it to different levels and exposed different colours. It's gowgeousss!!

Very early on a morning (again), we caught this little chap out foraging for food. He's probably looking for a skip rat or kangaroo rat. Put your kettle on and warm the pot, then tell us the name of this creature.

This is Badwater Basin, the lowest elevation in the USA at 282 feet below sea level. There's still water in this lake but not much, it's below lots of salt that has been left by the powerful sun constantly evaporating the water away.

This is the lowest point, Elvis is standing on the salt bed of the lake. It's about five miles wide at this point.
Does anybody need any sea salt bringing home?

There's the reason why there's no water here anymore! Can you feel the heat from that sun?

This is looking up the valley, the size of this place is amazing.

Here's a close up of a lump of that there salt. By the way (Rusty) no more of your 'fly' sunglasses jokes, check out the new shades man! Notice also the layers! It may be the hottest place in the USA, but not in May! Death Valley is really a winter park and May is just about the end of the season. Being a desert, it's cold on a night and early morning.

Here's a nice contrast for you. That's Telescopic Peak in the back ground, with ice on the peaks and that's bad water lake in the foreground, dried up to a salt bed!!

No desert is worth its salt (pardon the pun) unless it has sand of course! These are the sand dunes at 'Mesquite Flat Dunes'. Very beautiful at sunrise or sunset.

For another cup of tea - how many madgets can you fit into a three man tent?

Red Rock Canyon - National Conservation Area

Straight out of Vegas - up to the airport to pick up the car, 'b' line for Walmart (your friendly camping support network) to get kitted out with the camping gear and we're good to go!


And here we are! First day camping in Red Rock Canyon, just a few miles outside of Las Vegas. Notice the tent, aka the Hilton, that's because the last tent was a 2.5 man tent, this little beauty is a 4 man tent, which means there's enough room for the big nest and the en-suite. There was one slight problem with this campsite though, lovely as it was has anyone noticed a certain lack of shade?

A little celebration at the end of a little hike into the red canyon. No - this is not one of my 'long-arm' shots!

This was a beautiful little spot overlooking the canyon floor, the second picture is the red rock of 'Red Rock' Canyon fame!!

Another beautiful view back into the canyon.

I've decided to call this picture 'Grass', the inspiration just came to me one night.

5:30am and the rising sun shows off the different layers in the rock formation, sandstone and limestone our book reckons!

From the last blog, Spock was actually saying: "Jim, leave Uhuru alone and get over here, I need help with the nudges"

Las Vegas - Revisited!

Todays date is Thursday May 13th and we are about 20 miles from Sequoia National Park. So this blog is ancient history really!!



This is Las Vegas - the view from our hotel balcony, the Imperial Palace. We had a lovely room and were able to get well rested from the long flight (and the pre-flight nerves!). We had a good look about, booked ourselves in for a show (The Jersey Boys) and 'fattened' ourselves up for the forthcoming weeks when access to 'full on' kite busting food won't be so easy.

Here's a typical view from 'the strip' as we 'Veganites' like to call it. That's the Eiffel Tower doing an impersonation of the leaning tower of Pisa.






From a very exclusive bar on top of the 'Mandalay Bay' you get a beautiful view of the strip, you also get your pants taken right down for a drink! Three years ago we would have asked for tap water - but we're on holiday this time so we sipped on a glass of champagne!




It was only a matter of time before the 'gluttony' picture appeared!! This is an ice cream boutique named 'Ghiradelli' (not to be mistaken for Giraldi, the minging ice cream van from ford estate). Chocolate fudge sundae and peanut butter sundae, cos you're wondering aren't you? What a breakfast eh? This was later followed by happy hour pizza and peach bellinis at the hotel, 'Luv-it' frozen custard and a stack of chicken wings! Not quite the 5 a day quota there!

After two days in the Imperial Palace, we moved into downtown Las Vegas, the old town known as Freemantle and checked into the Golden Nugget - absolutely beautiful old hotel with gorgeous rooms. This is the view of the strip from the North end of the city. The big building is the Hotel Stratosphere, where my brother-in-law (young Bob) and I did a 'daredevil' ride that 'dangled' us over the edge. Elvis wasn't up for any such boisterous stupidity (thank God)!

What do you mean who's that, it's a Star Trek machine - look at the eye brow man, it's the best Spock impression you'll ever see!!

For a free cup of tea, you have to reply in no more than 372 words, what did Spock (me) turn around to say to Jim Kirk (keep it clean, remember the aunties).

This is Freemont Street, notice the roof is made of tiny little lights which does a light show five times a night. People just stop in the street staring up at the roof.

If you want to impress us, you could guess how many LED's they're are, to the nearest half a million will do!!

Ok - we're off. Look out for more blogs soon ! By the way, the Grand Canyon in our book is 1 mile deep, but I guess the 'outsourcer' will have it to the foot!!

Las Vegas

Monday morning and we're about to leave for the airport. This is a picture from the last time we visited Las Vegas. This time though, it's the starting point of an adventure through Death Valley, Kings Canyon, The Grand Canyon, Durango, Messe Verde and anywhere else that takes the fancy. Assuming of course Elvis doesn't jam her finger in the car door on day one!!

Anyone know how deep the Grand Canyon is?

Khao Sok National Park - Heading North

Hello again - still on holiday only just though - as the song goes 'One night in Bangkok and the world's your oxster'. We fly out tonight so Elvis is shopping while I'm cooling off in the super-slick shopping mall internet cafe.



After weeks of beach life we headed for some adventure and took off to Khao Sok National park - this was our first sight of it from the car window.


You know what I'm going to ask don't you - so go on then - can name that critter. Well can ya punk?













Me Tarzan she Jane - the keys to our new abode, right in the middle of a 150 million year old rainforest (that's older than the amazon I'll have you know).







Ok - it's not something Tarzan would knock up with his missus Jane and the labourer Cheetah, but we're westerners and we expect certain standards you know!! Actually, it was quite basic, what you actually pay for is the location. The noise of Gibbons, birds, insects and the occasional pack of dogs is amazing. The shower was pretty good too - it's a full scale waterfall in your bathroom man!








Having been trained well by Sister Ginny and brother-in-law Bob, we were out doing the hikes before long. This was a killer!! The map had it at 7Km each way, but we later found that the park map was wrong and it was actually an 18km round trip. This was one of many stops for a cool swim.

Elvis getting a 'cool down' and a back massage at the same time.

I won't ask you to name this 'Charlie Drake' because I don't know myself. Elvis was froze stiff while it came towards her and I gallantly asked her to keep still while I got a picture!

Along the way a couple of monkeys came right the way down from the tree tops to check out the action.

A short ride from the park gets you to a lake made by a dam. It's a beautiful area. We decided to join a group for two days and one night in a floating bamboo hut on the lake. We met some great people again, and it was a great way to end the trip. This is the lake with the tops of the karsts sticking out of the water.

When the dam was built and the lake formed, an entire forest was covered. Some of the big trees (which have long since died) still stick out of the water in some of the shallow spots. Imagine a whole dead forest under the water.

This is the bamboo hut and that's Elvis on the veranda - another step forward and she's in the drink! Notice no en suite or even a 'Gordon the Bucket' what's the English to do without their chamber pot? I'll let you imagine - you don't want all the gory details do you?

This was an expedition to a 'bat cave' - it was actually very tricky! The cave has a river running through it and is totally black dark, the water is so deep in some spots that you have to swim and the headroom isn't that great so it can feel quite hairy at times. Elvis is amazing me with how she's getting stuck in with just about anything - she said to me at the end of this "a few years ago I wouldn't have even attempted that but actually, I quite enjoyed it" Don't worry Ma & Pa Elvis, we're not going to become 'pot holers'.

Some 'cave dwellers'. Fruit bats, so unlike every other winged creature in the forest, these ones aren't after your blood!

Elvis and I at the end of the cave. Photo a la 'long arm' technique.

Another sunset, this time in the forest. We were on the lake waiting for the Great Hornbills to return to their nests -quite a rare bird and an amazing site. The guides know exactly where to take you to spot them.

Returning to our floating bamboo houses.

Action girl Elvis taking the canoe - I was waiting to be picked up 'Taxi for Hodgie please' - we went down one of the rivers and watched a Kingfisher doing its stuff.

My taxi approaches!

The last day we headed up one of the karsts to a look out point over the lakes - one of the toughest climbs we've done.

A tough climb but look at the next two pictures - what a view.

This is me getting a bit stick of Mick the Italian - far left and Peter the Dutchman. We went for a swim and as we didn't have our swim suits, the lads went in with only their thrappers on - mine, according to these two - were a little tight! Luckily Elvis was able not to catch that on the picture

Cups of tea - Will you Sandersfields cut it out? Poor Sophie must be having a right life (Ha)! Anyway, you were both wrong so put your tea bags away and get the custard Nana's back in the tin - the Outsourcer pooped on your parade weighing in with the correct answer - it is of course the Durian fruit, which has the unpleasant reputation of smelling like rotting flesh!! So Mr & Mrs Sandersfield, what's Latin for 'shit - we got that one wrong didn't we'.

Ok folks we have literally only a few hours left and we're heading for Bangkok airport, then to Abu Dhabi (did I ever mention how they like the Flintstones in Abu Dhabi?) and then to Newcastle, getting in sometime around midday on Friday. See some of you soon, the rest of you later. This is blogger control, over and out. Love and kisses to you all and we wish you enough.

Hodgie and Elvis xxx