On Saturday 10th August, we drove up to the Sequoia National Forrest - about 3hrs from Ridgecrest, and in the mountains.

The Sequoia Pines are just huge - much bigger at the base than the tall Tasmanian eucalypts, but possibly not as tall.

Sadly half of the photos didn't come out - something went haywire with one of the memory cards in Jo's camera. I'm sure we'll go back there with visitors.

We returned to China Lake via the Sherman Past which was 9200ft at the top - Mount Kosciusko is 7310ft tall, and the view was amazing.

When driving back into the desert, the view was even more amazing - going from dense pine forrest to desert, was really great.

On Sunday we returned via an old mining town - it looked just like a western movie, and Rob got to look around at the views as Jo did her first freeway driving (3hrs of it!!).

We stayed with the Coombs (the senior Aussie in the team) family on Fri/Sat night and they were wonderful hosts.