4 Tuesday
Because we had decided on two nights at Visalia, the motel people required us to change rooms, so after we had attended to that we set out, first into town to get $200 from the ATM, find the Information Center and get a map of the town. We then continued east on the same highway we had entered town on and in the direction of the Serria Navada foothills which led towards the national parks. After a while highway 198 basically petered out and became the road into the park. Very gradually, the terrain changed from the completely flat orchard and agricultural landscape.  Through the haze we were able to gradually make out the foothills of the Serria Nevada mountains and then we started to wind our way up into the hills.   Close to the valley floor and away from agricultural areas the grass was completely brown with few trees growing, but when we had climbed to around 2-3 thousand feet the tree density started increasing such that grass no longer dominated. Saw a number of cactus type plants that had flowed with very long central stalks covered in creamy colored flowers which reminded us of a cactus we had growing at Royal Rd . There was a $10 charge for entering the park and the pass for both Sequoia and Kings was good for 7 days. From just inside the park we got good views of some of the higher peaks on the Serria Nevadas covered in snow. At a speed limit of 25 mph we slowly climbed up through Three Rivers following the Kaweah River and passing Hospital Rock before looping (still on highway 180) to around 5500-6000 feet before we came to large Sequoia trees growing close to the road. A bit further on was the Giant Forest Museum with car parks, rest rooms etc. There were few people about and the car park afforded a good place to have a NZ style picnic close to the old large trees.

Looking upwards into the park toward Hospital Rock which dominated the landscape from many vantage points

Relatively young Sequoia trees beside the road

Just beyond the Giant Forest Museum we took a short walk of about 3/4 mile into the forest along a nature trail. There were many more of the huge Sequoia trees along the trail, but did not see any wild life apart from a deer and the squirrels which was a bit disappointing as I had been wanting to see some bears in the wild. A lot of the trees showed large areas of burning on the bark which we found out is not unusual.

Further on we came to the General Sherman tree, claimed to be the oldest living thing on earth (2300-2700 years old) and it still looks in great shape. At about this time the road started to descend and a few miles further on we came to the Indian Wuksachi village where we turned off the main route to look inside the conference center and small souvenir store. We didn't stay long there and we continued on the highway 180 which carried us out of the Sequoia park. At about this time we had to decide whether we would continue on to see the Kings canyon National Park or, as the time was now about 4 pm, whether we should start heading back to Visalia. Comparing on the map what we had seen, which had taken about 6 hrs, with what Kings offered we realised that it was not practical to attempt Kings Canyon so late in the day so reluctantly we had to cut Kings from our list. We did though, as if it were a tantalising consolation prize, get a good glimpse of part of Kings Canyon National Park from a lookout point from the road. So after photographs were taken we headed out and started a rapid descent down the hill to the valley floor. The plan was to pick up highway 63, which we did initially, but then we took a wrong turn and found ourselves driving on back country roads in an area called Sandy Creek. The road had deteriorated, there were many rocky hills all around which neither of us had remembered and we both had a feeling that we weren't traveling in the right direction. We were debating whether to turn around when we came to a ranch style house where a woman was hosing off the driveway (lots of water here) and asked her for directions. So as we suspected we had to double back and correct the wrong turning we originally made and eventually we made it back into Visalia on highway 63. Getting lost on back country roads in the foothills of a major mountain range didn't add to our general level of relaxation.  We both slept well that night.