death valley

entering death valley

the jeep

sea level at badwater basin

salt flats at badwater basin

badwater basin

wow 98 degrees F

devils golf course

artists drive

pup fish at salt creek

salt creek

salt creek

sidewinder at salt creek

sand dunes in the base of the valley

Monday 18th April 2011

Hi to all you followers out there. Today sees us head from LA to Death Valley taking a route towards Las Vegas so we can enter the valley from the southern end and drive right through the national park coming out the other side. We had a couple of hours drive until we got to the entrance of the park and boy did the temperature start to rise. By the time we got to the stopping point at Badwater Basin it was almost 40 degrees Celsius. Badwater basin as you can see from the picture above is situated 85.5 metres below sea level. You can see the 'sea level' sign on the mountain with Bronte and Cassidy pointing towards it. Essentially the bottom of the valley is a big salt pan cooking in the sun! The next stop was the devils golf course where the salt has come from the ground and pushed upwards causing the salt to appear like a golf course with small round holes in it. You may have to squint when looking at the photo to see this!

From there we did the artists drive which goes 14kms around a loop track looking at the mountains that have all the colours of the rainbow in them hence the name. We did a quick stop in at the visitor centre for an ice cream and then we headed for Salt Creek. Salt Creek is one of only a few places in the world where pup fish can be found. These tiny fish live in this very salty water in the middle of the desert. We did a loop track walk which goes around the salt water pools to see the fish, and yes there was a lot of fish to see. Along the walk we could see marks in the sand that appeared to be from a snake. Yes low and behold we found a snake just on the side of the board walk sunning himself. As far as we can tell he was a sidewinder snake and was best left untouched! We also saw a heap of lizards that were sunning them self as well.

From there it was a steep drive up and out of the valley as we headed to Lone Pine where we had booked our next night. This was a very long day and we only arrived at the motel at 9.30pm each of us exhausted.

Tomorrow we head towards Yosemite National Park.