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185
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45
 
...two travellers in search of the world's wildlife

15 May 2016

Grey fox graduation day

Squirrel stare

Squirrel stare

20 April 2016

I do love to hate National Park Rangers. Although I need to be clear: I mean the cheerful and useless tourist-handlers at the information desks, not the dedicated conservation officers out in the field. Whether it’s Yellowstone, Yosemite, Banff or Flinders the conversation is always roughly the same…

Me: “We’d like to know if there are any good day hikes, maybe 5-6 hours long. Also, we enjoy looking for wildlife, do you know any good spots or any recent sightings?”

Ranger: “Hi. Thanks for asking whatever you asked, I ignored all that. Here, let me instead regurgitate to you the standard schpiel we give to all tourists. I think you may have used the word “hike” – there’s a lovely half-hour long hike about a mile down the road from here, you’ll surely love it. Meanwhile, here’s a map and brochure.”

Me: “Uh… thanks.”

We asked the lovely friendly ranger today if there was anywhere particular we should look out for bears. She suggested trying the orchard at Curry Village. “They like apples.” It’s April. Good grief.

Yosemite Falls

Yosemite Falls

Rangers aside, we’ve already had some lovely short hikes in Yosemite and seen a couple of coyotes and squirrels. Our accommodation is a wooden cabin that needs the heater on almost constantly – April is only just in season for most sensible visits to Yosemite, and certainly the Tioga Pass road and a couple of the longer hikes are still closed. Because this is a National Park the food is dramatically overpriced and overwhelmingly underwhelming. Just enjoyed some lovely cardboard pizza. You know, one of those ones where you double-check just to make sure you haven’t accidentally started eating the box.

We spotted the grey fox on a night drive around some of the valley roads. Not much else, it still being full moon. In fact there’s a lot of excitement around Yosemite: the full moon when the waterfalls are in full flood in April will often cause a moonbow over the falls – like a rainbow, but at night.

Coyote on the rocks

Coyote on the rocks

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