We were woken at 2am after Julian had an accident. Thankfully we all got back to sleep and woke
at 6:45am rested. As we now had to do
another load of washing, we couldn’t get away as early as we would have liked.
We drove out just after 9am, heading back into Grand Canyon
National Park. We planned to leave the
RV at the Visitors centre carpark and take shuttle buses to the various viewpoints
that interested us. Even before 9:30am,
the carpark was already filling fast.
Julian was mad keen to get going (!!), so we walked to the visitors
centre for a little look. This place was
surprisingly small with the only really interesting thing being a replica of
one of the boats Powell took up the river on the canyons first exploration.
We had decided to take one of the shuttle buses out to
Yavapai Point as our first stop. We
walked out of the visitors centre, straight onto a bus which made it all seem
very easy! This lookout was absolutely
awesome as the sky was cloudless and it was relatively warm too. Rohan was happy in the backpack and Julian
still had enthusiasm. There was a also small
museum there which had some marine exhibits and fossils.
We left there and walked around the rim (about 1 km) to the
next viewpoint, Mather’s point, which is at the rear of the visitors centre and
carpark. The drop off from this one is
crazy but thankfully there were guardrails here.
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| Photo by Julian |
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| Photo by Julian |
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| Can you spot the people? |
It was now 11:30am, so we headed back to the RV for some
sandwiches. We were planning on giving
Rohan a sleep in the camper but changed our minds and thought that hopefully
being carried all day he could cope ok without a sleep…
We headed back to the shuttle buses and this time caught one
that went to Yaki point. This was the
east most look out but there wasn’t much to do other than take photos (there
wasn’t a rim trail). We waited for the
next bus and took it back to the visitors centre.
We then took a shuttle through the Grand Canyon Village to
Hermits Rest. Hermits Rest was another
good lookout and also the starting point for the other shuttle bus that went
westward. These 2 shuttle buses were
late, slow moving and packed solid with people – not a happy combination. Thankfully we got around to Hopi point
without too much drama other the amount of time all these bus trips were
taking. Hopi point had 180degree views
and we saw the Colorado river for the first time today.
We walked the rim trial around to Powell point which was
like a peninsula jutting out into the canyon.
Julian was getting more confident with the drop off and I was getting
more nervous! It was now around 3pm and
Rohan wanted to be held, rather than in the backpack, so it was time to head
back to the RV. Thankfully we got seats on the shaded side of the buses and
they weren’t as crowded. On these bus
journeys were saw many Elk and a couple of deer but didn’t manage to snap any
photos of them L
We stopped at the visitor centre store and bought Rohan a
soft toy bird, a Canyon Wren, which sings when squeezed. This will happily join our collection of
similar toy New Zealand birds. Rohan had
no intention of falling asleep on the trip home as he was happily playing with
the bird – flying it around his head J
When we returned to the camp, Julian and I went to the
General Store for some souvenir-ing. We
bought a soft toy Elk and a Grand Canyon t-shirt – we were both happy. Tonight it was a simple Spaghetti Bolognese
for dinner which was happily received.
After dinner, I read the last of The Witches whist Steve did the dishes and
then the boys had showers before bed.
Both were asleep before 7pm.
We were so happy with how today turned out. The weather and the views were magnificent
and both boys were really good too. The
scale of the canyon is mind blowing and I can see why it is/was one of the 7
wonders of the natural world. My
highlight was how much Julian got out of the experience – he was in awe of it
all day.
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