16th June 2018

So today we had a day to look round the local area and play with some toys.....

In the morning I had a try at Jeff's tractor, and he put me to work extending the trench he was digging for the sprinkler system.

After at a bit of practice, and trial and error, I got the hang of it and managed to dig about 12 feet of 2 feet deep trench.

After packing the RV with what we needed for our travels the next day, we boarded the Polaris General ATV, and went for a drive....up the side of a mountain!

First we stopped off at Sylvia and Jeff's near neighbours, Harrold and Sonja, to drop off some plants. They had all their Grand children staying and were off to swim at the hot springs, which is where we were headed too.

Chico springs (a hot springs resort, with a swimming pool fiiled with geo-thermal waters) is a popular spot. We weren't going for a swim, but just for some lunch.

As we were eating, in came Harrold, Sonja and the kids, with more floats than you could shake a stick at. We watched them in the water for a while and then continued on our journey.

Just out back of the Chico springs car park, we headed up a small track following the Emigrant creek. It got smaller and rockier and steeper as we travelled up.

The creek got wilder (and with falls) as the General powered up the slope.

We came to a fork and took the left, which allowed a little further travel until we hit the end of the trail for vehicles...it was on foot from here.

So we parked up and carried on. After a way, the path became very steep and rocky. Jeff and I carried on up a little further round the bend, but it soon got too difficult, so we came back down.

We retuned to the General ATV, and carried on back to the fork, and took the right leg this time.

This went on and up, getting narrower and steeper. The General is an amazing vehicle and took all the slopes and bumps in its stride, and Jeff drove superbly.

We eventually got to a ford across the creek, where we stopped to look it over.

Jeff and I wanted to carry on through the water, but the ladies were not keen, so we headed down the mountain.

After that, we drove on to an area called Tom Miner, a park area that is good for spotting Grizzly Bears.

A short drive later, we parked up in the campgrounds and went for a look around.

We scouted about for a bit, but we didn't see any Grizzlies* or any wildlife at all, so we headed home.

Tomorrow, we are off on our travels with the RV.......

* which was just as well, as we didn't have our bear defence pepper spray with us, so it might have got tricky...