We have just checked into the Hilton hotel, which is next door to the airport in LA where we are flying to Hawaii from in the morning. Here is a quick run down of our last few days in Joshua Tree.

We had two full days in Joshua Tree and both were spent walking in the National Park. The Park is huge and lies between the Colorado and Mojave deserts.

The first day we did a hike in the western side of the park – “Hi-View” Trail, which takes you past lots of the famous Joshua Trees and various other plant forms, before hiking up a steep ridge with panoramic views. As you can see the Joshua Tree is very different to the Saguaro in Tucson!

Next we moved east and did two further hikes – “Barker Dam” and “Wall Street Mill”.

Barker dam is a route which contains rock formations, boulders, Joshua Trees and takes you past the dam itself – which of course did not contain any water in at this time of year.

Wall Street Mill takes you through desert washes and follows the historic road that gold miners once travelled. There are various mill remnants remaining on the trail to see. As well as some random stones which marks the location of a shoot out in 1943 which saw one man killed.

That evening we went to a saloon type bar, which was within walking distance from our Airbnb. It was rammed because of the Super Bowl. There were a few groups of Eagles fans in there who were, understandably, going crazy by the end so it was very loud. For anyone who isn’t aware the Philadelphia Eagles smashed the Kansas City Chiefs 40 – 22. We ended up going there again the following day too because we noticed it was happy hour 3 – 6pm where they served $3 pints and $4 tacos so you really couldn’t go wrong. Here are a few pictures from the beer garden.

On day two we hiked through desert landscapes and boulders, the latter of which provided excellent terrain for scrambling. There were a few notable rocks to look out for along the route too, “Face Rock” which is a rock which resembles a side profile of a face, “Skull Rock” that looks like a skull, and “Split Rock” which is a rock with a giant split down the middle. You should be able to tell from the photos below which ones are which.

Next on our radar, and in a different area of the park was “Heart Rock”, which obviously is a rock that resembles a heart. Again there was a lot of opportunity to go off route and clamber up, down and inside the boulders which was fun.

A few random pictures on our walk home from the bar on day 2…

We need to get an early night tonight as our flight is at 9am in the morning. The first island we are going to is Oahu and we are super excited to start the Hawaii portion of our trip.

More from us then!

Lucy