Sunsets over the beaches (and some pretty big trees)

"So you're here to see some big trees?" Asked the ranger at the Redwood National Park information centre.. I guess we were and some big trees we did see!!

We ended up spending 3 beautiful days up in the redwood national park in then north of California, exploring the groves and visiting some of the world largest and oldest redwood trees.

After the helpful ranger had showed us around the park map and gave us all the hot tips I made friends with a lady from Virginia in the information centre who told us about this drive through the trees and excitedly showed me photos of their corolla "4wd'ing" through some 'massive' bodies of water . Lets just say when we visited, jimmy cruised through the little puddles! Rhys had fun in 4wd though I think!!

Our three days were filled with long hikes to various locations, such as tide pools on low tide where we saw lots of star fish, crabs, squishies and sea weed (my favourite), of course the big trees, some falls and our favourites; sunsets over the beaches. I think we could definitely get used to watching the sunset over the water, especially when we can sit atop a mountain, whale watching (i swear I saw one) and cooking dinner!!

The more we walked the more we started to tease ourselves with the thought of an overnight trek into the wilderness. It will definitely be on the cards for some time during our trip but we might have to pick up a few more essentials and learn a little more about the locals before we head out!! I think I'll also have to overcome a fear of bears too...

The camera has been getting a good workout and its hard to tell now whose taken which photo!! I can no longer claim all the good ones!! We've been doing a lot more experimenting with it; Taking some photos at night, with the falling water and of course, utilising the tripod!! The go pro is also getting a good workout but I'm yet to know what we will do with the hours of video footage we've collected!!

We cooked our first meal on the fire too and surprisingly it was a success, thanks to Rhys's fire making skills and my impatience ;)

The morning we left our beautiful (and expensive!!! $35 for a site in the redwood NP, definitely the most we had paid for accommodation to date!!) site we were farwelled by a ..herd?.. (Adzy I request the correct plural here?!) of elk!! It was definitely a nice surprise and a good start to a long and eventful day of driving down to San Francisco!