Yosemite

I loved Yosemite, it was everything I had hoped for and more. I took the Amtrak from San Francisco, which involves a bus across the big grey bridges to the Oakland side of the city, the train to Merced and another bus up to Midpines where the Yosemite Bug hostel awaited.
This was the only part of the trip I had booked accommodation for before I left NZ, I must have booked it in March as I was not going to miss out on this place. It was the main reason for visiting this part of America.
It took 5 hours to travel there from SF and on the way I met 3 people from Carolina also destined for Yosemite to walk the John Muir trail, a 215 mile hike, one of the premiere hiking trails in the US. I was fun sharing the journey with them and especially seeing the degrees to which 'packing light' can be taken, including drying out tooth paste into dots and putting into a tiny container to save weight. They even bought me some cookies while we waited for the connecting bus in Merced.

I arrived at the bug and found it was more like a resort than a hostel, there's a spa, a cafe serving breakfast and dinner and you can also get a packed lunch, it even has it's own hiking trail that loops around it. The dorms and buildings are scattered about a wooded hillside area about 25 miles out from Yosemite park itself. I had booked 6 nights at the Bug.
The next day I hiked up to Nevada falls which is on route to half dome, to do half dome you now need a permit which I would have to apply for over the internet and go into a lottery system and hope for the best.
I had reached the top of Nevada falls and was returning back when I bumped into my friends from the bus again, I had assumed they would have been long gone by now as they were planning to get up early, but it would appear they had been delayed getting their back country permits. I was given a trail name of 'Cookie' as I had just eaten some cookies. They had a long walk ahead of them of a number of weeks of hiking, I hope the toothpaste pellets last. Good out there guys.
That evening I made some new friends at dinner, Erico and Marion, we had an enjoyable evening in the spa and restaurant, they were both leaving the next day.
I had a rest day where I did not too much, I hadn't really stopped, so I just needed to relax for a day.
I applied for half dome permit twice, but both times failed the lottery, you have to apply 2 days prior to when you want to hike, which meant I couldn't apply any more times as I wouldn't be there. I decided instead to hike up to Glacier Point as a fall back plan, I was reading my book on the eve of my last day in Yosemite when some late arrivals from Sacramento came into my room, they were part of a 11 person group all with permits to hike half dome the next day, I wished them luck and told them of my unsuccessful lottery attempts. They asked what I was doing the next day - it turned out they had a spare spot, as they had 12 permits and would I like to join them to hike half dome. I hugged them! Yes, thank you!

Wow! What luck and what a great end to my time in Yosemite to hike the famous half dome. We had to get up at 4.30 am in order to drive to the park and be on the trail to allow enough time (12 hours) to do the hike. We were on the trail by 7.30am, at the top by 1.30pm and 12 long hours after starting, back down by 7.30pm. Plenty of pictures were taken and we spent a few hours at the top so not the whole time was hiking, at the top was also a Marmot who liked being photographed, the cable part was interesting. We were too late to get dinner at the bug restaurant so we had pizzas instead in the park.
It's not a hike I want to do again in a hurry but it's a must do for anyone who likes to walk.